Opinion | Two Theories of What I’m Getting Wrong

When Dayen turns directly to topics like housing, his arguments go awry. He argues, for instance, that part of the housing crisis is insufficient construction in the aftermath of the Great Recession. True enough. But that doesn’t explain why it’s functionally impossible to build a six-story apartment building in the most undersupplied neighborhoods of San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Yes, housing manufacturers misjudged demand 10 years ago. But that is not why they cannot more rapidly increase supply now. Apartment buildings are not technically hard to build. They are politically hard to build.

Dayen’s core argument is that what we build reflects who has power — and how it’s built changes who has power. What we need, he says, is “the government actively supporting the very groups that have been left out of past economic transitions, building the necessary coalition for long-term transformation.” But who, exactly, is in that coalition? What happens when their interests conflict?

Organized labor is a natural constituency for a liberalism that builds, and its leaders tell me the same in conversations I’ve had with them. More building really does mean more jobs. In practice, though, the term “organized labor” belies the reality of fractured, disorganized labor organizations at the state and local levels. Housing and environmental bills in California, for instance, often see some unions in opposition and some in support. I’ve talked in previous columns about the cost and speed gains to be made by using modular housing produced in off-site factories that use union labor. A policy that moved toward that production process is good for the manufacturing unions that staff those factories and tougher for the construction unions that would otherwise have done the on-site building. Who wins that fight?

That said, I think labor is a more natural ally in this project than some other liberal interest groups. You can see that in Pennsylvania, where a section of I-95 collapsed and was rebuilt in a matter of weeks, not months or years, with union labor. So how did it get done?

Gov. Josh Shapiro invoked emergency powers to do away with the normal processes that slow other jobs. The declaration he signed reads, “I hereby suspend the provisions of any other regulatory statue prescribing the procedures for conduct of Commonwealth business, or the orders, rules or regulations of any Commonwealth agency, if strict compliance with the provisions of any statute, order, rules or regulation would in any way prevent, hinder, or delay necessary action in coping with this emergency event.”