{"id":840,"date":"2024-04-12T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-12T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/live-metropolitan-abundance-project.pantheonsite.io\/?post_type=podcast&#038;p=840"},"modified":"2024-10-17T03:37:28","modified_gmt":"2024-10-17T10:37:28","slug":"episode-17","status":"publish","type":"podcast","link":"https:\/\/www.metroabundance.org\/podcasts\/episode-17\/","title":{"rendered":"Stan Oklobdzija on YIMBY Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-spotify wp-block-embed-spotify wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Spotify Embed: #17 - Stan Oklobdzija on YIMBY Politics\" style=\"border-radius: 12px\" width=\"624\" height=\"351\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/episode\/15cXuYfJDUZ1vhehHDIa6g\/video?si=ce5ad54dded54253&#038;utm_source=oembed\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Welcome back to the Abundance Podcast. In this episode, we chat with Stan Oklobdzija. He\u2019s an assistant professor of political science at Tulane University and the director of the Center for Public Policy Research at the Murphy Institute. His research focuses on housing policies, specifically how voters conceive of housing markets, and how these perceptions influence the policies that local governments pursue. He previously served as research director at California YIMBY, a pro-housing advocacy group that pushes reform at the state level. Have you heard of those guys? Oklobdzija holds a PhD in political science from the University of California, San Diego, and a master\u2019s degree in public policy from the University of Southern California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this episode, we dive into the politics of YIMBY, why so many people don\u2019t believe in supply and demand with housing, New Orleans, and some of the work that\u2019s coming up next. As always, if you haven\u2019t already, please subscribe, hit the like button, leave us a review, let us know who you want to hear from. We\u2019re eager to continue to serving you excellent material. With that, on with the show.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"transcript\">\n\t<div class=\"title\">Episode Transcript<\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"rows\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Oh, no, I was agreeing with you that we would\u2019ve been absolutely way more responsible if it hadn\u2019t been for the time change.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>The jet lag that rustles your moral fibers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Right. No, I mean I think YIMBYtown was great this year. There were a few pieces about this, opining on this. It had a really strong bipartisan feeling this year, which I think it inherently kind of has to, right. It\u2019s Texas. You\u2019re not going to pass anything unless you get some Republicans on board. But I was impressed by the extent to which that wasn\u2019t really an issue for any of the participants.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah. There was Twitter discourse, right, a week ago. I mean, there\u2019s always Twitter discourse about something, but the whole bipartisanship of Yimbyism generated some discourse. It\u2019s interesting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, this is something I wanted to pick your brain on because you\u2019re a political scientist, is it is interesting to me. I look out at the policy landscape and I try my best to only think about zoning because that really is the only issue that matters, but sometimes I think about other minor issues like abortion or Israel Palestine or blah, what have you, minor issues, and they\u2019re so intensely partisan. And I wonder, why has Yimby not followed that track? What do you think is going on there?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, so housing is interesting because, in the grand scheme of issues, it really only starts becoming a thing that most Americans are thinking about in the last maybe two decades maximum or so. I\u2019m kind of old, I just turned 41 a couple weeks ago, and I remember the days of, a person working at a coffee shop or a bartender could afford a studio in San Francisco with no problem. So this crunch of housing scarcity, driving up prices in places that previously didn\u2019t have high housing prices, is a relatively recent phenomenon. So it really hasn\u2019t imprinted itself into the national political psyche as much as an issue like abortion, which has been hard fought since the 1960s, maybe even \u201950s. Well, even before that. But it really became a national issue that acquired this partisan valence, or gun control or something like that &#8211;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>So your theory here is that if issues are just around for a long time, they get polarized?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Well, not necessarily. So issues beget interest groups, and interest groups map themselves onto a party sort of dynamic, a party \u201cplatform,\u201d in big quotes. There\u2019s this big theory in political science of parties are just actually just networks of interest groups. So interest groups come together where they\u2019re sort of similar bedfellows, and the parties are where these interest groups hash things out and figure out, \u201cOkay, I\u2019m going to give you a six-week ban on abortion if you give me the right to buy an AR-15 same day,\u201d or something like that, so-<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Natural pairings of issues, right?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, you\u2019re right. You know what I mean? They kind of go together, I guess. Weird. So yeah, housing, it\u2019s just recently a thing, right? Groups like California YIMBY have been around for what, I don\u2019t know, what, five years, six years now or something like that? SF BARF, the first big YIMBY group, just, I don\u2019t know, came around maybe less or about 10 years ago, about. So this is just recently acquiring groups backing it. So it hasn\u2019t really mapped itself onto either party\u2019s dynamic as much as other issues have.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>And I should note for the record that this is an officially bipartisan podcast, because Nolan obviously is a big Ayn Rand devotee, and then I\u2019m a filthy red, so even at the granular podcast level, the ideological lines are blurred.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>That\u2019s good, coming together.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>I gave a talk in Pittsburgh last week, which was good, and as with every YIMBY gathering, it\u2019s like 95% progressive Democrats, and somebody on the subreddit was like, \u201cAh, another Trump-supporting California YIMBY coming to make money off of Pittsburgh.\u201d And I was like, every aspect of that sentence is fascinating to me. Trump-supporting, I don\u2019t know who\u2026 Are there other California YIMBY people coming? Making money\u2026 It\u2019s just fascinating. But what\u2019s interesting to me about the movement is the extent to which you don\u2019t really get discourse like that within the movement. I think Conor Dougherty mentioned this in his piece, or he mentioned it on Twitter where he was like, \u201cI couldn\u2019t really find anyone at YIMBYtown, even progressive Dems, to whine about the presence of conservatives or more market-oriented people being present.\u201d And I\u2019m like, you just don\u2019t get that level of discipline in other groups.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, it\u2019s striking the extent to which even interest groups that are more contained within a particular party or a particular ideological wing can fall apart over the most petty minor issues. Think about all the infighting and\u2026 I don\u2019t want to name particular groups, but you can see it on both the right and the left, that there\u2019s all this out-in-the-open infighting, oftentimes, in various other movements. And yeah, it doesn\u2019t seem to be, despite the broader than usual ideological diversity within YIMBYs, that doesn\u2019t really seem to be much of a thing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, I think part of it is that we\u2019re just a new movement. The pro-housing movement is just a new thing, but also we have this advantage of being just centered on a really, really particular issue. I mean, there\u2019s not a Republican way of doing parking minimums and a Democratic way of doing setback rules or something like that. So it forces us, sometimes to our detriment, that we think everything\u2019s a housing issue, but it really focuses to keep our eyes on the ball, which I think is good for the movement so far.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>I think that\u2019s it, because I was thinking about this. I don\u2019t want to be beating up on\u2026 So a lot of YIMBYs, I think, are also in transit groups, but I\u2019ve noticed that transit groups do seem to have a much bigger problem with this, and I suspect it\u2019s partly because there\u2019s a lot of very different reasons why you might support transit, or why you might be in a transit group that lead you in very, very, very different policy directions, in a way that I don\u2019t think is true of YIMBY advocacy. So everybody at a YIMBY meeting agrees we want to increase the overall supply of housing, and there\u2019s going to be maybe some disagreement on the details of how much public subsidy, how much social housing, how much are you allowing sprawl, horizontal development, but there\u2019s no disagreement on that very core thing of, we want as much new housing being built as possible.<\/p>\n<p>And I wonder if it\u2019s just having that core shared, this is the specific thing we want to do\u2026 So if I\u2019m a conservative in one of these meetings and somebody\u2019s talking about social housing, sure, if it gets more units built, that\u2019s fine. Whereas if a more progressive in those meetings is more market-oriented\u2026 Where there\u2019s this common agreement to where it\u2019s like, we\u2019re not going to pick fights with one another, that I think you just don\u2019t see in other groups.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah. I\u2019d like to test out a theory on the resident political scientist here, which is that this also has to do with the structural formation of YIMBY groups, and how it differs from a lot of other organizations or political formations that are called movements but aren\u2019t necessarily movements in the traditional sense, where you don\u2019t actually have these sort of clubs at the local level where people are coming together and bonding over this shared issue. A lot of it is much more distributed, online, non-profit led.<\/p>\n<p>And obviously there are a lot of YIMBYs that are inveterate posters, and there\u2019s a large and growing non-profit ecosystem in YIMBY world of which we are a part, but at the base level, you\u2019re talking about almost like these social clubs, like people showing up into person to things, people showing up to community meetings. And I think it makes it harder to have those types of really vehement violent disagreements, because you actually\u2026 Like if you\u2019re more on the DSA side of things and you\u2019re in your local YIMBY chapter with a couple guys who are more libertarian, you actually know each other. You\u2019re not just threatening to kill each other on Twitter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>I think the \u2013<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, right. Yeah. That\u2019s what makes Twitter fun, right. I think the IRL aspect of the movement is a real big boon. I mean, Nolan and I talk about this a lot, back when I used to live in Los Angeles, that one of the important things for this movement, and that\u2019s just bringing pro-housing people together around a table over some beers, maybe not necessarily to talk about the minutiae of zoning, but just to get people connected and build the social capital that a political movement needs. So yeah, there is a lot of networking done in virtual spaces in the YIMBY movement, but I think a lot of that is paired with a lot of in-person activism.<\/p>\n<p>Could we be doing better? Could we be meeting IRL more and spending less time in Slack channels and on Twitter? Yes, absolutely. Everyone in the world needs to touch a little bit more grass, but I think as a pretty young movement, it\u2019s doing well so far, especially in the real epicenters of the movement, places like the San Francisco Bay Area or New York City, Open New York with that revolving happy hour that they do. Or the folks in Denver, I mean, really came from nowhere very recently, and knocked just some really big wins in Colorado over the last couple of years. So props to them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, there\u2019s something very refreshingly old school about it. It puts me in mind of the Theda Skocpol book, Diminished Democracy, where she\u2019s talking about the sort of political function that the local Elks club used to play, or the Freemasons or something. And yeah, I feel like there\u2019s a little bit of that function here, where it\u2019s like we\u2019re both creating a social circle\u2026 Or we\u2019re not creating a social circle, these social circles are emerging organically and they\u2019re building social capital, but they\u2019re also aggregating people\u2019s political concerns and figuring out how to channel them in a way that\u2019s productive.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Absolutely. That sort of pluralism is really needed for a movement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Ned, I think you were the one telling me this story, but the origins of unions, it begins with working class bars where people who all work at the same place just go have drinks in the evening. And then they\u2019re like, then they start commiserating and inspiring and one particular charismatic member of that group is like, \u201cI think we can negotiate.\u201d But because they actually had a strong interpersonal bond, then the activism work becomes much more serious. Like I always say this, by the time Open New York had incorporated as a group, we were all friends. We had all been hanging out doing walking tours or riding bikes, or getting drinks, or going to public hearings for a year.<\/p>\n<p>And so from that core\u2026 And then you form a core group that is motivating. I want to help my friends, I don\u2019t want to respond to the 12th text message from Nancy Pelosi asking for another 25 bucks, but oh, my buddy Stan messaged me and asked me if I can come to this public hearing. My response to that is very different, and then it becomes a thing that\u2019s a community. It\u2019s attractive to outsiders. They want to be a part of something like that. They want to contribute. I mean, to me it\u2019s fulfilling. The two needs that I think a lot of folks have is I want a community, I want friends, I want peers to hang out with, and I want to be doing something that I think enriches my community. And that\u2019s that pairing that I think becomes really, really attractive for people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah. It\u2019s not quite the origin of unions, but I think the conversation that we were having that you might be thinking of is, I was talking about this concept of the Red Saloon, which was this feature of 19th century Chicago, and that labor movement where you had these bars where it was basically the members of the Chicago industrial proletariat would hang out at these bars, and they would be there because their co-workers were there, their buddies were there. They weren\u2019t there specifically to necessarily to organize for any particular cause, but it was known, oh, this is the longshore workers or the iron workers\u2019 bar.<\/p>\n<p>And as you spend more and more time there, you get acculturated to this idea of, oh yeah, we can band together and demand better working conditions from the bosses at the meat packing plants, which I think is actually more period and location appropriate than longshore workers, meatpacking. But I do think that that\u2019s what I meant when I say there\u2019s something a little bit old-school or a little bit of a throwback about YIMBY and the YIMBY happy hours and everything. The idea that, oh, yeah, this stuff is also supposed to be fun, and that you need to build deep, thick connections to a social community, which is not something you can do on Reddit or Twitter or Threads, for all the advantages that being on those platforms might afford you.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah. Stan, I want to ask you a question here. So we\u2019re doing pretty good on this right now, but yeah, how do you keep YIMBY this kind of big tent, or are there lessons of other long-term movements that have avoided becoming so heavily partisan-polarized? Are there lessons there that you think YIMBY advocates could learn?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Well, I think YIMBY\u2019s track record so far has been pretty good in maintaining this bipartisan appeal. It\u2019s just a sad fact of divided government in America right now that you\u2019re going to need some people to cross the isle and band together on these cross-party coalitions in order to get anything passed. And I mean, at the federal level, government is so polarized and so divided that everything is thought up as a zero-sum. So a win for the Democrats is a loss for the Republicans, if you\u2019re a Republican, you should never do anything that\u2019s going to benefit that party. And I think at the state level, just given what state legislatures look like in a lot of places, like being less professionalized, people that are sort of more new to politics, that really isn\u2019t as thick as it is in Washington DC or in places with more professionalized legislatures like California or New York or something like that.<\/p>\n<p>So you have a little bit more opportunity for something like Montana to take place. So like, I am a registered Democrat. I don\u2019t really care for Greg Gianforte that much, his other policies, but you just got to hand it to him, that was a very, very important piece of legislation that he helped shepherd across, along with a lot of other folks in the Montana Republican Party. And so it\u2019s a net win for the people of Montana. And a really great example of what these sort of coalitions can look like going forward.<\/p>\n<p>So, especially in a lot of states where you see one party seeding into\u2026 Their numbers not giving them the ability to pass legislation that they might want to. Housing especially could be one of those issues, where a minority party legislature could band together with the majority party in order to do something and be able to claim some efficacy and some credit to their constituents. If you look at a state like Colorado, for example, Democrats sort of run Colorado. Colorado is no longer a purple state anymore. It\u2019s a solidly blue state, but there\u2019s this huge contingent of Republicans in Colorado that represent mostly rural interests, the sort of people that don\u2019t want that rural land being taken up by sprawl just to accommodate intransigent blue cities, that don\u2019t want to build any housing within their borders. So I think there\u2019s a real natural alliance that could be made.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, that\u2019s a great point, and I think it puts me in mind of something I think it was maybe John Sides said, the political scientist, about bipartisanship and the somewhat unstable equilibrium we now find ourselves in at the national level. Where, when every presidential election is relatively close to a coin toss and control of Congress is constantly trading back and forth, there\u2019s actually very little incentive for bipartisanship, because if you undermine the majority party and undermine their agenda, that increases the already pretty substantial odds that you could be committee chair next year. But in a state like, increasingly Colorado or New York or Montana, where the governor\u2019s seat and the legislature are generally going to be controlled by one party, there\u2019s actually greater incentive for the minority party to engage in bipartisanship, because that\u2019s the only way they can actually deliver tangible benefits to their constituencies. And I think you saw a little bit more of that during periods where at the national level one party was dominating national politics for substantial periods of time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>No, I do have to say that dynamics in a state legislature are often different than they are in Congress. I mean, Congress is designed specifically to make it really easy to block legislation. You all had Francis Fukuyama on the podcast, so if you\u2019ve not heard of vetocracy, just refer back to that podcast for a better description than me just trying to do it off the top of my head. But it\u2019s a lot easier in Congress if you\u2019re the minority party, just to gulp up the works of Congress, I mean, how many bills have been passed to this Congress, 26 or 27? It\u2019s the least productive Congress in, I don\u2019t know, a while. In a state legislature, often because you have this shorter legislative period, you\u2019re part-time or something like that, the incentives are a lot different, so yeah.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>So of course most of our work at California YIMBY is focused on California. That might surprise you all. But helping out with folks in states like Arizona, or recently Pennsylvania, I have come to appreciate, man, divided government is really, really, really bad for policymaking. I mean, we\u2019re having this conversation literally the day that Governor Katie Hobbs, democratic governor, vetoed what was originally a Republican-led, but has since become a very much bipartisan YIMBY zoning reform package, and just vetoing it. I think partly because an excessive deference to the League of Cities, which refused to negotiate on that bill, but partly on like, \u201cWell, okay, it\u2019s okay if there\u2019s just a lot of chaos between now and November, because I think I\u2019m going to be able to get the legislature back to my side,\u201d and it just makes serious policymaking just so much more difficult.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>No, definitely. Especially with housing, where deficits in housing just compound year after year after year. I remember, before I really even understood the YIMBY movement as a thing or what it entailed, I was just a grad student in San Diego listening to the hearing for SB 827 back in 2018, and, \u201cIt\u2019s not the perfect bill. We got to move back. We got to do this,\u201d and now it\u2019s six years later, and think about what could have been achieved in California, what the landscape would\u2019ve looked like in California in terms of displacement, in terms of homelessness, in terms of sprawl, in terms of carbon emissions if we had just gone ahead and passed that bill six years ago. I mean, like-<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Ned and I probably don\u2019t have jobs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah-<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Maybe we do. I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>We\u2019d all be talking about something else. There\u2019s a trillion other problems we need to solve as a society. Why are we stuck on housing? I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah. I do think we\u2019re making incredible progress. I always say this issue to me\u2026 The first policy issue that I got really motivated on as an activist was marijuana. And I think I partly started to lose interest in marijuana just because it was like, oh, this is so happening. It doesn\u2019t really need a big push and focus. And that was also an issue that by that point, it sort of had some bipartisan consensus, things were moving with it. But YIMBY, to me, had that attraction of, it\u2019s pulling from a broad section of people and it\u2019s happening. The Arizona bill is disappointing, but that\u2019s, I think, an unusual exception to otherwise a track record of these things are happening really, really fast.<\/p>\n<p>I was joking the other day, I had to turn off my Google AdWord for, I think, \u201cminimum loss sizes\u201d or something because I so constantly am getting hits on it, that so many places are having this conversation that it\u2019s almost not even unique. You don\u2019t have to seek out the place that\u2019s performing on some of these rules, which is cool, I guess. You were the former research director for California YIMBY.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>I was.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>I heard they fired you to hire me. Totally ridiculous, but I\u2019m happy it happened, right.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>It\u2019s okay. We drew straws and I came up short, so I had to go back to academia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, in all seriousness though, we\u2019ve never had this conversation, but I\u2019m curious to hear your experience. What was that like? Did you change your mind on anything during that period, having been in a position where it\u2019s like, you\u2019re a researcher deeply engaged in the actual policymaking process. By that point, you had had a lot of training in political science, but I\u2019m wondering, yeah, what did you learn? What did you change your mind on?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Oh, yeah, it was really interesting. So I started as the research director at California YIMBY back in 2020. So I was the first research director when they decided they needed someone to parse through academic literature and apply quant social science techniques to this movement, to the advocacy that California YIMBY was doing. So it was really interesting. Yeah, I\u2019d had my fill of academia at that point, a little bit. I was kind of sick of it, and it was the pandemics so we were all stuck inside, so I decided to try to turn my hobby into profession. So yeah, no, it was really, really interesting, because there\u2019s a real big disconnect, especially with social scientists, and especially with political scientists that study policy processes, and the legislative process, and interest groups, and that sort of thing. It\u2019s really easy to create these gigantic abstractions of how these things work in your head, and that\u2019s sort of the currency we traded in, in academia, of one theory to rule them all, even if we\u2019re reducing human behavior to just these impossibly simplistic assumptions.<\/p>\n<p>And it was really interesting to just take that into the actual world of like, well, the League of Cities is against us, or, well, the building trades control this veto point, so what do we do about that? It was really, really cool, and it\u2019s really interesting to see also, I think, especially as an academic, it\u2019s kind of like a black pill, as an academic, to see the actual currency of research in a lawmaking body. I mean, you can get something in the American Economics Journal, people spend years and years and years just going through the review process of that. And when something comes out, that\u2019s one study. But meanwhile, some non-profit makes a pie chart. Well, that\u2019s another study, so you got one-to-one. So no one really knows who\u2019s right.<\/p>\n<p>And that was really interesting, humbling, as an academic, to see exactly how seriously our research is taken outside of our stupid little profession. But yeah, no, it was really, really, really cool. I really, really enjoyed my time at California YIMBY. I was really sad to leave. But well, one, they definitely did a little upgrade with the research director in hiring Nolan. But two, I think it really has grounded the research I do now, and the actualities, the actual needs of the housing movement and things that will help really advance policy, rather than just sort of expand the realm of human knowledge or whatever weirdo thing we talk about in academia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>No, I mean, Stan to a point you were making, this has been a surprise for me as well, is the quality of the research that goes into a lot of policymaking. Totally shocking. And California is probably on the far upper end of this issue, which is, on the one hand, it\u2019s kind of distressing. On the other hand, it\u2019s cool. Because I always tell YIMBYs, I\u2019m like, \u201cOkay, you\u2019re a GIS tech, or you\u2019re vaguely quantitatively-minded, or you can just crack open a zoning code and make sense of it. You can be the researcher for your major American city. There might not be other people doing this work, or you can be the one person seriously doing this work in your legislature.\u201d So, shocking and distressing, but also an amazing opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, that\u2019s really one of the big advantages of the movement. Just given how convoluted and how really unsexy the issue of just zoning and urban planning is, it attracts a very certain type of person, a very sort of dedicated maladjusted sort of nerd. And it turns out that that person is just really, really good at scraping a bunch of data or just mapping various historic districts across the city or something like that. So it\u2019s a real high human capital movement. Very fortunate for us.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>I do want to thank all the maladjusted nerds, tuning in. We know that you are our listener base, and Stan says that with great affection, as a maladjusted nerd, I think.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Yeah, exactly right. He who is without sin, et cetera, et cetera.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> I want to ask you. I want to spend a little bit of time talking about an amazing paper that you put together with some co-authors on sort of the weird folk economics of housing, and there are a lot of amazing insights in there. But just to kick off the conversation, it was fascinating to me that people don\u2019t apply kind of basic Econ 101 concepts that they apply to every other aspect of the market that they interact with. Like cars, appliances, clothing\u2026 Everyone has this kind of clear understanding of basic supply and demand, but, then, housing comes in, and it\u2019s like everything changes. Why? Why is that?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Well, the short answer is we don\u2019t know, but we\u2019ve definitely found that there really just is this sort of mental block that people have, when it comes to housing. Supply and Demand Econ 101 models are really sort of a useful abstraction in thinking how markets work. And there\u2019s dozens of assumptions that need to hold, in order for this Econ 101 Supply and Demand model to actually work and blah, blah, blah. All models are sort of abstracting away one aspect of reality, but it\u2019s a very useful tool for understanding how scarcity drives prices, and how high prices incentivize producers to come into a market, and produce more things. And if you\u2019re going to guess what the price of something in the future is, knowing how scarce that product is today, is a pretty good starting point for that.<\/p>\n<p>So, in our paper, we find people can make these\u2026 They can abstract through these sort of more esoteric goods that they don\u2019t, necessarily, come into contact with. So we asked a question about a new fertilizer that increases grain production, drastically, in the near term. And I doubt that any of the 4,000, or many of the 4,000 people we\u2019d surveyed across each of the three surveys does a lot of work in grain trading. I don\u2019t know. Maybe, we just got real lucky, and got a bunch of corn brokers, or something like that, but I doubt it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Emailed the survey out to Iowa, or something? I hope not.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, right? Maybe. But, just when it comes to stuff like grain, they can get it. When it comes to stuff like a program to train high school kids to be plumbers, they get the effect that has on wages. But, when you get to housing, there\u2019s just this mental block. There\u2019s just this\u2026 Something goes off the rails, and, suddenly, homes are not a commodity like other things. I can, personally, speculate as to why this is going on. I think we have a lot fewer interactions with the housing market than we do with other markets. Generally, one rents a home, and stays there for a year, or two, or something like that. Or if you buy a home, you stay in there for longer. Maybe, people don\u2019t really have accurate ideas about housing markets in their area. That\u2019s something I\u2019m working on a survey with a researcher, now, at Colorado State, but going off to Ohio State, Dominic Stutsula.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re going to be surveying people about their beliefs about housing markets, and what they think the median home price in their area is, and such. So I think just people don\u2019t have a lot of experience interacting with this market. There\u2019s a lot of sort of biases that enter their thinking. A lot of people will see housing prices going up. They\u2019ll see a new apartment building going up in a part of town where prices are going up, and sort of don\u2019t really get the temporal association. They think the apartment building causes the prices to go up, so it\u2019s like the umbrellas going up cause the rain to come down or something like that.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s kind of funny for us, because we\u2019re steeped in housing markets, and housing economics, and stuff, but you think about the average person, right? They have so many trillions of demands on their time, and their attention. Are they going to sit through an Evan Mast paper, or are they going to read Kate Pennington on fires in San Francisco? Probably, not. They got better things to do with their lives. So, you can sort of excuse people for this, but I think the bigger point of this is that people have these sort of erroneous beliefs about what causes housing prices to go up, and that could have the potential issue of causing them to advocate for policies that are counter to their interest of wanting housing prices to go down.<\/p>\n<p>Across the board, in our surveys, we found people just overwhelmingly, especially, renters, want housing prices to drop in their communities, and homeowners say so, too. You could think, maybe, they\u2019re just trying to sound cool, like social desirability bias. But I think, to a certain extent, a lot of homeowners would like to see housing prices drop in their communities. Housing affordability is something they-<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Can we talk a little bit more about that?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, sure.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Because I think a theory that motivates a lot of YIMBY interpretation of what\u2019s going on is homeowners are\u2026 This is kind of the classic homeowner hypothesis, simplified. Homeowners are, principally, motivated by maintaining home values. They want home values as high as possible. They\u2019re extremely risk averse. But that was a finding, and that\u2019s pretty consistent, too, right? Even homeowners are like, \u201cYeah, I broadly want housing to be affordable.\u201d What do you think\u2019s going on there? Is that economic homevoter literature just getting something wrong, or what do you think?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> No, I mean, so Bill Fischel\u2019s Homevoter Hypothesis is sort of a theoretical model about how to think about homeowners, how that motivates their politics. And there\u2019s a lot of empirical research that\u2019s been done about how homeownership motivates more political participation. So Jesse Yoder has a really good paper on that from a couple of years ago. The trio of folks from Boston University have a really great book on that, and a continuing research.<\/p>\n<p>So I think there\u2019s something to that, but I don\u2019t think that people are really as precise\u2026 Or homeowners aren\u2019t really as precise with their thinking about housing markets as perhaps the Home Voter Hypothesis theorizes them to be. Right? So, you can easily think of a person in a metro area, somewhere like Los Angeles, or something like that, that owns a home on the west side, right? Has a single family home, and thinks that apartments are going to ruin it. They\u2019re going to turn it into\u2026 I forget whatever all the NIMBYs used to say, like Abu Dhabi, or Manhattan, or whatever. Insert city here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>The unpopular city of the week, right? Yeah.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah. Right. So they can think maybe that it\u2019s inappropriate, here, \u201cBut I would like prices in the LA Metro to go down so my kids can live closer, and I can see my grandkids more.\u201d, and stuff like that. So they\u2019re not really thinking, too precisely, about how these positions may be in conflict. And, then, of course, there\u2019s also just social desirability bias. It\u2019s really hard to get people to admit to\u2026 I don\u2019t know, questionable beliefs in a survey, right? We\u2019re humans, we like to be liked, you know? So I think there\u2019s a bit of both of that going on.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Reading your paper, it\u2019s a little bit disorienting in some ways, too. It\u2019s great work, but, on the one hand, you have this challenge where, for whatever reason, the YIMBY argument about housing supply, and housing prices does not seem to be especially intuitive for the median American voter. But, on the other hand, Arizona, and Governor Katie Hobbs aside, YIMBYs are winning a lot of political victories, and YIMBYism is genuinely popular. So I\u2019m trying to disentangle why is YIMBYism popular, and growing in popularity with a base of voters that, for the most part, seem to intuitively disagree with the central argument of YIMBY policy?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yes. I think it really goes to show that a lot of politics isn\u2019t really a sort of mass movement. Politics is done by a certain sort of privileged society that has, 1. The human and social capital to engage in politics. It has the resources, and the free time to do it. Right? And it\u2019s not, necessarily, a bad thing. It\u2019s how you would expect politics to be done in a democracy. But I don\u2019t think there\u2019s really an incongruity in seeing a lot of elites in media, in academia, and just sort of politically active people getting into this idea? Sort of seeing how land use restrictions result in higher housing prices for people? Whereas a mass public doesn\u2019t really have very sharp ideas about how housing markets work, just because the issue just isn\u2019t very salient to them.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s one thing to be concerned, and one of the things we find in surveys, and some follow-up surveys that we\u2019re doing to this is that housing, and homelessness are top of mind issues for people. But how do you connect that to single family zoning? How do you connect that to height restrictions, or setback rules, or whatever, massing rules or anything like that? There\u2019s a lot of intermediary steps. If you think about the Underpants Gnome metaphor, there\u2019s a really big question mark in the middle that you have to fill out before you get from steps one to three.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, the point about it not being especially salient, I think, is an important one because this is something I sometimes run into, especially, where\u2026 I lived in New York for a number of years, and you talk to people in New York, and the New York media market defines a lot of the national conversation around this stuff. New York City is a real outlier among cities in having a really, really large proportion of renters in its overall population, but most people don\u2019t rent. Most people are homeowners. It\u2019s kind of weird, the cognitive dissonance around that. And, I say that, I\u2019m a renter, and part of the reason why I\u2019m in this is selfishly, like, \u201cI want my rent to go down.\u201d, but it\u2019s-<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>I want my townhouse, man. Everyone\u2019s like \u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah. Totally.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah. Everyone\u2019s always accusing YIMBYs of self-interest, that \u201cYeah. I want a townhouse in LA.\u201d It\u2019s not that complicated.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>I, too, would like one. Yeah. Would be nice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>I\u2019m curious. Given your thoughts on this, I think this has been, probably, the path for a lot of YIMBY\u2026 To the question that Ned was asking, does seem to me that YIMBYs sort made a lot of hay out of elite persuasion. Everyone\u2019s, always, making fun of YIMBYs for spending all day on Twitter, but I think there\u2019s something, probably, pretty good about owning the sandbox where all the journalists, and politicos, and staffers hang out all day, and that\u2019s, clearly, mattered a lot. But I do think your work reveals something interesting about messaging this issue to normal people, dare I say, right? I\u2019m curious, since the paper\u2019s come out, if you\u2019ve thought about that more, or if you would have suggestions for YIMBYs based on how we know normal people think about housing markets?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, one of the things we\u2019re, actually, working on, right now, we have a survey in the field, is just actually testing out information messages on people, and seeing what that does to how they update their beliefs about housing. So we have a bunch of various information treatments. We talk about housing compared to cars. We show them a video from SiteLine, for example, and we just want to know, if we walk people through, and hold their hand a little bit about how a housing market works, does that cause them to update their beliefs? Because one of the things we found is that people don\u2019t really have these strongly held beliefs about housing. A lot of these beliefs are sort of mutable. There\u2019s a lot more variation we found in people\u2019s responses to questions about housing to, for example, questions about their partisanship, or other sort of more sincerely, and closely held beliefs.<\/p>\n<p>Housing isn\u2019t really one of these core identity issues, yet, that really drive people\u2019s politics in the way that like LGBTQ rights are, or the way abortion is, or gun control, or immigration or just down the list, right? And as politics in America does get more identity based, a lot of those sort of issues are just kind of triggers, and turn people off in one direction, or the other. I think housing still is one of those things that that\u2019s more of a less salient issue, and as such, there\u2019s a lot more room to speak to people, and have their minds open about it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah. Still an opportunity to, maybe, be the first person who\u2019s seriously talked to them about the issue?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Mm-hm.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Right.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Is the lack of federal action, and the just complete lack of productivity of this Congress, maybe, part of that? I\u2019m trying to imagine. The YIMBY Act, which is a bill in the US Senate that\u2019s co-sponsored by Democrats and Republicans\u2026 I think, it\u2019s Todd Young from Indiana, and Brian Schatz from Hawaii. That\u2019s a bipartisan bill, but I do wonder if there was a really, truly big federal push in Congress to do something\u2026 At the end of the day, the president who\u2019s going to sign it, or push for it, or oppose it, is going to be either a Democrat, or a Republican, and you can kind of imagine this getting polarized, very quickly. I wonder how much of the fact that all of the action is happening at the local and state level is really kind of insulating us from that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah. It\u2019s interesting, because most of the action on land use regulation in the United States is local. They\u2019re sort of just how we set up the big \u201cpolice powers of government\u201d, right? Whether that is a good idea\u2026 Spoiler, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a very good idea, but whether that\u2019s a good idea, or not, is immaterial. That\u2019s just sort of the way it is. So there\u2019s not really that many levers that the federal government can pull on housing, which is why I think there\u2019s a lot less motion there. Like in the Congress than there are in some of these state legislatures. Also, partly because housing activists realize that\u2026 What\u2019s the thing that all the YIMBYs on Twitter say? \u201cState politics gets the good.\u201d, or \u201c\u2026 gets the goods.\u201d, or something like that, right?<\/p>\n<p>So there\u2019s just, naturally, more movement in state houses, across the country. But it was really interesting to see, Joe Biden did mention housing, a little bit, in his State of the Union, a couple weeks ago, or a week ago, or whenever it was. And it\u2019s interesting, right? So all the majority of the policies he proposed were just demand subsidies, which it\u2019s kind of wild. If you think about going somewhere with a famine, and handing out food stamps, or something, right? It\u2019s really not the issue that\u2019s causing housing prices to go up. It\u2019s not that people don\u2019t have enough money. It\u2019s that a lot of people are bidding up a very scarce commodity. We all lived through the pandemic, remember what toilet paper cost a couple years ago<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> To Ned\u2019s question, yeah, I do wonder about this. Would it be potentially harmful if a high profile, federal Democrat or Republican were to come out, hardcore, on this issue? Would it risk polarizing the issue if Biden, in the State of the Union address, just like, \u201cBy the way, you need to get rid of minimal parking requirements.\u201d?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s really interesting because seeing a lot of strange bedfellows, too, with, for example, Greg Abbott. Greg Abbott, the arch-conservative Republican Governor of Texas has, recently, come out against institutional investors buying up all\u2026 \u201cAll of Texas\u2019s properties.\u201d This is a trope that Marxists, in California, have been banging on for the last couple of years. So it\u2019s a really, really weird sort of little party that they put together on this issue, and I think it really just kind of goes to show the sort of cross-cutting nature of these things. Yeah, I wonder, because I don\u2019t really think that there\u2019s going to be a big pivot amongst leftists in blue states against their sort of crusade against institutional investors, just because Greg Abbott has jumped onto the issue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, I think that\u2019s right. Yeah. I want to dive into the Stan Oklobjia extended universe, your top cited paper, Diagnosing Gender Bias in Image Recognition Systems. I assume there\u2019s only one Stan Oklobjia, right?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>That\u2019s me, yeah. That was-<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> That\u2019s you?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah. Yeah, that was me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> What\u2019s the housing connection? Could you explain the housing connection with that particular paper?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>I wrote that paper, largely, in a house that I used to rent. A townhouse that I used to rent, actually. No, there\u2019s no housing connection. It\u2019s just a paper that I did with some folks from a Computational Social Science Conference. It was a lot of fun to write.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Well, okay. That\u2019s frustrating. Let\u2019s try this again. You\u2019ve done a lot of work, actually, on dark money political donors, and actually, I was kind of joking on the first question, but I do wonder how that might inform some of your views on housing. I joked about this earlier, but the assumption is always that, \u201cOh, YIMBY\u2019s this dark money thing.\u201d, right? Getting all these money from developers, and it\u2019s like developers, actually, in most cities, don\u2019t seem to, actually, care or realize that there\u2019s a\u2026 And, certainly, landlords are actively opposed to kind of what YIMBY\u2019s are doing, but yeah, what\u2019s the dark money to housing connection?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, so when I got into grad school a while ago, I was really interested in the idea of campaign finance. It was really interesting to me, having worked a little bit in politics, myself, to sort of see how one can turn gigantic wealth disparities into policy outcomes that, perhaps, maybe a majority of voters wouldn\u2019t choose if given the option. So how does money subvert, and corrupt the political process? And it got me into dark money. I started grad school right after the Citizens United decision, so this was right after the 2012 election when political nonprofits spent hundreds of millions of dollars, in that election, and just that number has been growing exponentially, ever since then.<\/p>\n<p>So it\u2019s a really, really interesting aspect of our politics that a lot of the money that goes into it is just completely untraceable. We just have no idea where that money\u2019s come from. No one\u2019s paying any reputational cost for it. You can\u2019t sort of link any quid to any quo anymore with this. And I don\u2019t really see any likelihood of reform given the current Supreme Court, and, also, given the fact that Democrats, since 2018, have become the big player in dark money, rather than Republicans. They sort of beat them at their own game. So why regulate it, now?<\/p>\n<p>So I\u2019ve, always, been really, really interested in interest groups and how interest groups are, at once, a really sort of pivotal part of a democracy. One person\u2019s nefarious dark money developer, shill is another person\u2019s good government advocate, champion of the people, et cetera. Right?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>We\u2019re definitely the latter, to be clear.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Yeah, right, right. Exactly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Of course. Just to be clear.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> It\u2019s an objective statement, there. Right. Yeah. So I was interested in the congressional level, at the federal level, but just through my experience living in California, doing my doctorate at UC San Diego. Dealing with that atrocious housing market, and being a lifelong Californian, the idea of where interest groups, actually, affect people\u2019s lives the most started sort of coming to my attention. A really good book just came out, last year, by a political scientist from Berkeley named Sarah Anzia about interest groups-<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Whoa, whoa. Sorry, fellow academic advisory committee member for the Metropolitan Abundance Project. Also, a previous guest on the podcast, and my former professor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Oh, shoot. Yeah, so absolutely. Yeah, a lot of connections, here. So her book is just really about these myriad interest groups that are affecting local government, and skewing outcomes in local government. And if we think about it, everyone pays attention to presidential politics. Everyone turns out for presidential election. Everyone knows the various players of the US Senate, and stuff. But if you think about it, how often does the average American interact with the federal government? You pay your taxes on April 15th. Maybe, you go to a federal park once a year on vacation? But all of your real interactions with government, the way that government really affects your life is at the local level. The cop that pulls you over? That\u2019s a function of local government, like your housing prices. That\u2019s the function of local government. The schools your kids go to, that\u2019s another function of local government. So if we\u2019re really going to study how interest groups affect the material outcomes of Americans, I think you have to look at the local level, and I think what better place than housing?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah. This comes to something that I\u2019ve been thinking about a fair amount, recently, which is there\u2019s sometimes a tendency when we talk about American politics, to talk about it as if billionaires are the protagonists of history, and I\u2019m pretty disturbed by wealth, and equality in the United States. It\u2019s something that, in my previous career, I spent quite a bit of time reporting on, and I do think that sort of outsized, political power of the billionaire class in the United States is a real problem. But political influence operates at different tiers so that it\u2019s not so cleanly bifurcated. So you see this a little bit in the way, sometimes, people, going back to the folk economics, will talk about investors in property. Right?<\/p>\n<p>Like when you think of someone who is an investor in property who\u2019s really invested in inflating property values, or inflating rents, people think like Gray Star, Black Stone. But someone who owns a nice house in an exclusionary neighborhood who isn\u2019t a billionaire, but has, maybe, a million, and a million and a half dollars of wealth invested in that house, they have, to some extent, the same network of interest, there. It\u2019s not one-to-one, but there is some overlap, there. And I think on the local level, that\u2019s sort of influence is way more salient, because the Koch brothers are meddling in the local politics of some places. They did that in Phoenix with public transit funding, but they\u2019re not doing it in\u2026 I don\u2019t know. Long Island, necessarily. It\u2019s Long Island NIMBYs who are doing that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> That\u2019s exactly right. I think there\u2019s a big focus on the top 1%, when we talk about inequality in the United States. And yeah, there is this outsized influence that the top 1% has, but we really get down to it, why do we not have the developed rail systems that European countries have? Why do we have this persistent school segregation, 70 years after Brown v board? Why do we still have these yawning racial wealth gaps? And it points more to the influence of a top 10%, which is a lot more uncomfortable for a lot of people. Especially, a lot of people that are active in the discourse, because they grew up in houses that were the top 10%. I was a member of the top 15%, when I lived in Los Angeles. If you looked at my income and my partner\u2019s income, and we lived in a crappy one bedroom apartment\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Well, it wasn\u2019t that crappy. It was okay. It was a pretty nice one bedroom apartment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Hey, man, you had a pool.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>I had a pool.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>I have a dream of having a pool, this time of year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> It was a pretty nice pool. It was a pretty nice pool. The apartment, itself, was kind of crappy, but the amenities of the building kind of made up for it. But we were in the top 15%, right? So a lot of that activism, a lot of that politicking that creates these roadblocks\u2026 This guy at Brookings, Richard Reeves, has a book Dream Hoarders, which is sort of about that very phenomenon. It\u2019s said people that you wouldn\u2019t consider \u201crich-rich\u201d, you know what I mean? It\u2019s people with, I don\u2019t know, two sort of moderate incomes in a household.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> It\u2019s lawyers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah. Right?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah. It\u2019s retired lawyers, retired architects. People who have some institutional knowledge, and a lot of free time, I think, actually, end up doing a lot of damage. The flip side is, when they get activated as YIMBYs, they\u2019re like some of our best allies, right?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Mm-hm. Yeah, it\u2019s kind of interesting. There\u2019s this huge wealth dynamic in politics that creates a lot of inequality, but there\u2019s also a time dynamic. Right? So, you could have an investment banker in New York, or something like that that\u2019s pulling 400K a year, but that person lives at their desk, you know what I mean? That person hasn\u2019t had a meal not hunched over their keyboard in five years. So even though they have a lot of money, that person who has a lot of time to show up to all these meetings, to write letters, to politick, to knock on doors, that translates into a lot more influence than just money.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>So you were in Los Angeles, let\u2019s talk about Los Angeles for a little bit. I know you\u2019ve thought about the city a lot. I live here. Ned lives in the home of our colonial overlords. Our imperial overlords up, in the Bay Area, but that\u2019s okay, we\u2019re doing good. How do you feel about LA, right now? I\u2019m feeling kind of white-pilled after the HLA decision. We\u2019re hitting permitting highs for permitting. LA just seemed so incredibly dysfunctional on a lot of margins, when I moved here, almost four years ago, now. But how are you feeling about LA, from afar?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah-<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> What\u2019s the recent decision?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Sorry, great question. This was a ballot initiative. HLA, a ballot initiative requiring the city to, actually, build out the protected bus, and bike lanes that had been adopted in its mobility plan. Essentially, the city had adopted this amazing plan to build a lot of bus, and bike lanes, but the city was not, actually, building these.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>\u2026 amazing plan to build a lot of bus and bike lanes, but the city was not actually building these when they would repave streets. The ballot referendum, which passed overwhelmingly a couple of weeks ago, said there\u2019s a legal requirement to actually do this now. Now, LA will have to build something like 300 miles of bus lanes and 200 miles of bike lanes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Yeah. I mean, that\u2019s a really big thing. HLA was, I think, one of the most important things to happen in California in the March 5th primaries. It was just really an incredibly consequential thing, but, I mean, it really speaks to a lot of the dysfunction of Los Angeles. I mean, I was in Los Angeles in 2016 when we all voted for a special sales tax to create money to build homeless-supportive housing, and we raised something like a billion plus dollars as a city to do that, to build tens of thousands of supportive housing units. And then, I don\u2019t know, six years later, we built just a tiny fraction of them.<\/p>\n<p>I mean, Los Angeles voters will turn out for these incredibly important causes, but unfortunately, we just have this derelict political class\u2026 Not we anymore, I don\u2019t live in Los Angeles, but you all that live in Los Angeles, like Nolan, really just have this derelict political class that just can\u2019t do anything about implementation. Just will cave to the loudest local interest groups, will drag their feet, just have to be brought kicking and screaming into doing just the basics.<\/p>\n<p>I mean, measure HLA is a fantastic measure, and just really shout out to Streets for All and all the other groups that were promoting that. But God, why did they even have to? You know what I mean? Why did they have to waste all their energy and money and time on that in a city that has a council of 14 outward Democrats and one non-partisan, who\u2019s probably a Republican, but will not come out and say that? Why do we need all that effort just to do something as simple as building bus and bike lanes? I thought we\u2019re against climate change as a Democratic party.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah. I mean, we talked about this element here of excessive influence of certain groups, and I think it\u2019s exactly that is. I mean, we\u2019ve talked about this in the Neighborhood Defenders, the work by Einstein and Co on who shows up at these hearings and what are their attitudes and how do they diverge from the broader community. Of course, you might go out and do this general plan update where it\u2019s like, yeah, actually everybody\u2019s really down with bus and bike lanes, but then, oh, we actually propose to do it, and three crazy people showed up at the meeting and had a meltdown.<\/p>\n<p>Until a couple of years ago, I would\u2019ve said, and maybe this is still true, LA\u2019s political culture does seem uniquely dysfunctional. Maybe this is just proximity bias. I\u2019m here and I\u2019m watching it and I\u2019m seeing it. But it just seemed like\u2026 It does seem uniquely tough, and we\u2019ve had issues with corruption scandals related to discretionary zoning. But yeah, I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve thought about this a lot, but what are the political institutional changes that need to happen in a place like Los Angeles to deal with that underlying issue?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Oh, man. Where do we even start with the political institutional changes? I mean, but this is just to say-<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Urban governance broadly. Sorry, I just want to frame it. Yeah, yeah.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> No, totally, totally. But I mean, this is just to say I was a resident in Los Angeles for nine years. All of my friends are still in LA. I still sort of think of LA as home. I think among American cities, Los Angeles is the city that we, as a country, most need to get right, because just given the layout of Los Angeles, given the urban form of Los Angeles, if we can convert the City of Los Angeles to be less automobile reliant, to be a place of housing abundance that people can start coming to again, that it can be like a sanctuary for people trying to flee oppression either within this country or from a abroad. If we can do that with that City of Los Angeles, it becomes a beacon to other cities of the world, and especially given the trials and what we\u2019re going to need to do to combat climate change or to mitigate climate change in the coming decades.<\/p>\n<p>I mean, getting Los Angeles right gives a great example for cities, like Lagos and for Bangkok and Sao Paulo and such. I think Los Angeles is just really a city that we, as a nation, should be paying a lot more attention to. Again, also recency and availability bias. I\u2019m sure people in Phoenix or San Diego would say, or Houston, would say the same thing about their cities. I just went to Houston for the first time, very cool place, terrific barbecue. Shout out to Houston.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> I think you realize this when you drive from New Orleans to Houston, they\u2019re very clearly in the same cultural region. You might think you realize this looking at a map, but they really are clearly companion cities. I don\u2019t know what your feeling was.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah. I mean, Houston is kind of a bizarro New Orleans, where they have a government that gives a shit. Whereas in New Orleans, all bets are off. If you have electricity, it\u2019s a good day in New Orleans. But yeah, the cultures of the city, actually the layout of the city is very, very similar. It\u2019s kind of a Gulf south city. But yeah. Sorry, go on.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Well, I was just going to say, I mean, let\u2019s talk a little bit about New Orleans because that\u2019s where you reside now. I mean, it has a very different history from, I think, a lot of the other places that we tend to talk about on this podcast. I mean, the sort of history of segregationist, populist kind of governance throughout its history, but also kind of, in some ways, one of the original melting pots of the United States. And then, there\u2019s the things that have been in the headlines more recently, within the past 20 years or so, like Katrina. I was wondering if you could just talk a little bit about what you\u2019ve noticed there in terms of the way land use and land use patterns show up differently, and what are the housing challenges in New Orleans that are different from a place, like California or New York?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>That\u2019s a really good question, man. That\u2019s a really super good question. Yeah, I mean, I\u2019ve been in New Orleans since August of last year. It\u2019s a great city. Terrific. If you\u2019ve never visited New Orleans, do yourself a favor. Get a plane, come to the city. If you don\u2019t have fun here, it\u2019s entirely your fault because it\u2019s just impossible to not have a good time in New Orleans. I\u2019ve been having too good of a time. I should probably go to Provo, Utah for a little bit and just chill out and get right with God or something. But no, New Orleans is a really interesting city, has housing challenges just the same as most other American cities. A lot of that was due not to an influx of people or a growth in population as it was in a lot of places, but to a destruction of a lot of the city\u2019s housing stock after Katrina in 2005. I think something like 800,000 units across the New Orleans metro were destroyed by Katrina.<\/p>\n<p>Following Katrina, there was a destruction of a lot of the city\u2019s public housing, like the Iberville Projects, Lafitte Projects, the St. Thomas Projects, the Magnolia Projects. If you\u2019re a juvenile fan, you know the Magnolia clap. Those were all taken down, and a lot of those residents were forced into places with low cost housing in the regions, primarily in the eastern part of the city, New Orleans East. Just given how American cities usually go, the parts of the city that are primarily Black in New Orleans are the worst parts of the city topographically. It\u2019s the lowlands of the city that are extremely flood prone, and a lot of those parts of the city were made even worse by drainage projects and pumping projects from the 1960s to create more sprawl land or more land, that first for all development.<\/p>\n<p>It caused a big bowl effect in the middle of the city, which is\u2026 A lot of the destruction from Katrina came in that bowl. I mean, people think that the flooding in New Orleans came from a hurricane dumping water on the city, but actually the flooding came because the hurricane missed the city, dumped in Lake Pontchartrain and caused the levees, the inadequate levees to fail and fill that part of the city. New Orleans right now is a city that\u2019s losing a lot of population, and it\u2019s like a bifurcated loss of population. There\u2019s a lot of people whose home were destroyed in Katrina that weren\u2019t given any money for recovery, because a lot of that money was tied to the previous value of your home and just given typical segregationist zoning practices. Black people especially were given a lot less money because they had, quote, unquote, less valuable homes. Those people are gone or not part of the city anymore and are not residents of the city anymore.<\/p>\n<p>But a lot of sort of higher SES folks have been leaving the city as well, because there\u2019s really just anemic job growth here, and there\u2019s really not much bringing people to the city. That\u2019s causing a spike in housing prices in a lot of these sort of\u2026 How do I put it? Sort of adjacent areas to the traditionally wealthier parts of the city. But New Orleans did segregation a lot differently than California cities did, just being a southern city. I\u2019m from Berkeley, California originally. My hometown invented the infamous kludge of single family zoning to keep Black and Asian people out of the Claremont neighborhood. I mean, New Orleans could just do segregation the old-fashioned way. New Orleans had segregationist zoning until Buchanan v. Warley. But being the south, it enforced it\u2026 Sorry.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Do you want to unpack that a little bit? I think a lot of people don\u2019t know the history of Buchanan v. Warley.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Shoot. Yeah, totally. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, my bad. I mean, if we think about the origins of zoning in the United States, there\u2019s this history and the story of people not wanting to put homes near factories or factories near homes. But there\u2019s also this other sort of parallel track of zoning history in the United States where zoning was specifically to declare what group of people could live where. Some of the earliest zoning rules in America were in cities like San Francisco that were Chinese exclusion zones, or cities like Modesto or Stockton that had similar rules. Los Angeles had one of these first zoning code to-<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>I think I was reading about this. I think it was Modesto that actually had the first thing that is generally considered early point. I had to do a little bit more research on it, but it was some 1880 or 1890 where they were doing exactly this of to deal with Chinese residents to try to exclude them, but yeah.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Right, yeah. San Francisco had something similar in the 1880s. I\u2019m not sure who inched each other out first for America\u2019s first segregation zoning.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Who was more racist.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, right. Who wrote the racism down first. A lot of cities picked up on that and zoned by race. This culminated in a 1917 decision by the Supreme Court, in the case of Buchanan v. Warley, which was about the racially exclusionist zoning to the City of Louisville, Kentucky, I believe it was.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> I\u2019m from Lexington, so you can beat up on Louisville all day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, it was a Kentucky city. I wasn\u2019t sure whether it was Lexington or Louisville. I\u2019m pretty sure it\u2019s Louisville.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Lexington would never do anything that, but never mind that we probably did do everything that bad. But yeah, go ahead.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Sure. Yeah. There was a case, actually, an NAACP lawyer, Charles Warley, I think his name was, brought this\u2026 Actually, bought a house in the white part of town and then didn\u2019t pay the owner because he couldn\u2019t legally take possession of the deed because of this restriction. That predictably caused the owner to sue him and that case on its way up to the Supreme Court who invalidated racially exclusionary zoning in 1917. Now, did that stop racially exclusionary zoning in the United States? Absolutely not. It switched to mostly being enforced through covenants until a later Supreme Court case in 1948, in and Shelley v. Kraemer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Buchanan is kind of a hilarious case too because it was decided on the basis that this was an abridgment of the rights of white homeowners. It\u2019s like the correct outcome of, guys, you can\u2019t actually do racial zoning, this is messed up, but decided in the most kind of ridiculous way. It\u2019s like, \u201cOkay. Means and ends, right? Okay. Sure. If you want to appeal to white\u2019s property rights to sell to Black families, I guess that\u2019s fine.\u201d But this is the funny topsy-turvy way of getting there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> It\u2019s absolutely weird. I mean, because in Shelley v. Kraemer, which overturned state enforcement of racially restricted covenants, I think three or four of the Supreme Court justices had to recuse themselves because their homes had racially restricted covenants on them. It was a weird 5-0 or 4-0 decision of the Supreme Court, which is a great institution, United States Supreme Court.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Yeah. Now, we\u2019ve innovated where they\u2019ve realized that they just don\u2019t need to ever exclude themselves, recuse themselves.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Don\u2019t worry about it, man. It\u2019s cool.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Yeah, yeah.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> That\u2019s how a government should-<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> And that\u2019s your second favorite government institution after the Senate, right, Stan? You\u2019re a big Senate guy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> I am. Yeah.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Sorry, let\u2019s get back to the New Orleans thing. There\u2019s so many little elements where I want to poke you, but Buchanan v. Warley in New Orleans. New Orleans has explicitly racial zoning, but that gets tossed out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Right, yeah. Later, it\u2019s enforced through racially restrictive covenants and also just, I mean, it\u2019s the south in the 1900s. I mean, things were enforced through unofficial non-state violence. I mean-<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, terrorism. Yeah.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> \u2026 paramilitary groups, terrorism groups, like the Klan groups of the White Citizens League, et cetera. I mean, New Orleans in 1874 tries to launch a coup against the federal government and fails, but there is a monument built to the former confederates of that coup that was just taken down in 2017. Ancient history, but yeah. New Orleans, it\u2019s interesting, doesn\u2019t have the sort of segregationism by zoning that you would see in a California city. New Orleans didn\u2019t immediately go and down zone itself to be all single family. I live in the uptown neighborhood of New Orleans. It\u2019s one of the wider parts of the city, and this part of the city has a lot of what we call missing middle construction.<\/p>\n<p>I live in a fiveplex right now. There is a lot of smaller plex-style apartments with no parking in this neighborhood, because you didn\u2019t really have to zone for segregation in this city, or the whites in the city didn\u2019t have to zone for segregation. Now, following the passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968, when all the legal remedies for explicit segregation were taken away, one of the things that happened to uptown, where I live right now, and a lot of the places near the Mississippi River, which are mostly white, they became historic preservation districts. I live in a gigantic historic preservation district, which is really cool in the summer here because you have these really crappy wood leaky windows, and it\u2019s impossible to not swelter in these places. It would be nice to have vinyl windows and keep that cool in. But hey, historic charms, right?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Is there something\u2026 Because the architecture of New Orleans is pretty unique. I mean, it\u2019s a stunningly beautiful city, but it\u2019s also, in that regard, it\u2019s also a little bit different from\u2026 It\u2019s not the typical built environment that you would see in other major cities that were formerly part of the Jim Crow South. I\u2019m curious if there are other factors at play here that have preserved that architecture as opposed to a less walkable, more car-oriented central area of a southern city.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah. I mean, one of the big thing\u2026 Well, I mean, the first big thing about New Orleans is New Orleans surrendered really quickly in the Civil War. New Orleans did not put up much of a fight. New Orleans didn\u2019t get the torch, like cities like Columbia, South Carolina, or Atlanta, or various other places in Sherman\u2019s path. As a result, a lot of the old architecture here, a lot of the old Spanish style was preserved. But another interesting thing about New Orleans and why it really didn\u2019t get the bulldozer a lot of other cities is that it wasn\u2019t really possible to sprawl out of the city until relatively late. The drainage technology didn\u2019t really exist to start building the exurb white flight communities of the city where they currently exist today until about the mid to late 1960s, I believe. As a result, you didn\u2019t have the highway administration just jamming freeways through the city, like you did in places like Cincinnati or something like that.<\/p>\n<p>I mean, not to say that there isn\u2019t, like Louis Armstrong\u2019s old neighborhood of Storyville, the sort of former red light district here in New Orleans where jazz was created is now a stupid freeway interchange. They built an elevated highway through this primarily. It\u2019s actually like a middle to upper middle class Black neighborhood in the 1950s. That was just completely demolished. Now, you have this really stupid freeway that\u2019s really loud and awful, bisecting Trem\u00e9 from Mid-City. Yeah, that\u2019s, I think, the big reason here. It\u2019s also interesting because a lot of the affordability challenges of New Orleans have to do with those now exurb city or suburbs and exurban parts of the metro area, enforcing these extremely, extremely strict multifamily housing bans. St. Bernard Parish around here made it illegal to rent to anyone who\u2019s not a blood relative. Jefferson Parish had a ban on multifamily housing, which is the next parish over. Steve Scalise represents that part of the state. Yeah, there\u2019s a lot of those implements going on in the newer parts of the metro.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Well, I feel like New Orleans is also in this difficult situation that so many American cities are in, where there are part of this broader state that resents the existence of their cities. They have this antagonistic relationship with the state that wants them to fail. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s true of New Orleans, but I just see that in so many contexts of a state that\u2019s almost held hostage by\u2026 Or a city that\u2019s held hostage by a state that resents their existence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Yeah, that\u2019s exactly true of New Orleans. Especially now, given the new governorship, Republican Jeff Landry just took over from a Democrat, one of the last Democrats in the Southern United States.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, important distinction there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Yeah, right. Yeah. One of the last Democrats in the United States Governor. That\u2019s a weird sentence, but anyways, people get it. Yeah, that\u2019s been an issue recently. Despite the fact that Orleans Parish and this metro is responsible for most of Louisiana\u2019s GDP, there\u2019s a lot of attempts from Baton Rouge to stick state influence here. There\u2019s going to be Louisiana State Patrolmen taking over some police duties in the city, and those cases being adjudicated by the State Attorney General, who\u2019s a Republican, and not by our local district attorney, who\u2019s a Democrat.<\/p>\n<p>Yeah, there\u2019s quite a bit. There\u2019s quite a bit. Obviously, climate change is a major, major concern for not just New Orleans but all of southern Louisiana. We have a governor now who is skeptical. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s strong enough of a term about climate change. That state efforts to halt coastal erosion are kind of on hold for right now. A lot of challenges for New Orleans, which is a shame, because like I said, this is a fantastic city full of really, really awesome people who made this really great couple months for me so far.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Well, I think an advantage that New Orleans has certainly over some California cities is it still has that alternative that we made illegal. It still has this missing middle housing typology. It still has these mixed use neighborhoods. I would hope that it\u2019s at least a little bit easier to point to something that actually exists and say, \u201cHey, guys, we have this thing that has been made illegal, and we actually really love it. To the extent we still have it, we desperately try to preserve it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah. I mean, the preservation aspect isn\u2019t really a challenge here. But the problem, and the big, big challenge for New Orleans, I think, is that just as this city or as climate change ramps up, and as the extreme weather events that we see in this city become more and more severe, we\u2019re going to need to move the population centers of this city away from where they are now and closer to the Mississippi River, which is the high ground of the city, and it\u2019s the part of the city protected by a river levee. I mean, it\u2019s the least flood-prone area of the city. As it stands right now, it\u2019s illegal to, I mean, build almost anything here. I mean, if it\u2019s not illegal, it\u2019s extremely cost prohibited because of the historic preservation zone.<\/p>\n<p>A lot of the housing challenges of New Orleans could be ameliorated if we concentrated new growth in the part of the city that\u2019s best equipped to handle it. The part of the city that\u2019s highest resourced, the part of the city that fares the best against hurricanes and future flooding, and frankly, the part of the city where an influx of new wealthy residents isn\u2019t going to be as disruptive as one of the poor, less white parts of the city. A lot of the new construction is being pushed into majority Black, low-income of New Orleans. Frankly, where you really shouldn\u2019t be putting a lot of new people, just given the flood challenges of there. It\u2019s going to take a lot of attitude adjusting like it does everywhere, if the city is going to start building to meet demand and to try to tackle displacement higher housing prices.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> What are the local elected officials like in New Orleans? Do they get it or do they not?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>I mean, it\u2019s a panoply of people. You know what I mean? New Orleans, obviously, majority overwhelmingly Democrat city, and there\u2019s sort of a schism in the Democratic Party right now, both at the state level and here in Orleans Parish. There\u2019s an old guard of Democrat that sort of made their careers by playing nice with the Republicans that run the State of Louisiana. There\u2019s been a lot of backlash against a newer, more progressive, sort of upstart branch of the Democratic Party, led by, for example, my state representative, Mandie Landry, who is doing incredible things to jumpstart that part of Louisiana Democratic Party and make the Louisiana Democratic Party sort of more of a viable presence in state politics. But I mean-<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Is everyone in politics named Landry?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> It\u2019s a pretty common Cajun name, apparently. A lot of Landrys, a lot of Thibodeauxs. It\u2019s a thing I\u2019m learning in my time in Louisiana. They\u2019re not all related, the Boudreauxs and Thibodeauxs. But as far as housing goes, I mean, the big, big housing issues that have been dominant New Orleans politics is one homelessness. Homelessness has been ticking up recently as housing prices increase. New Orleans has that double whammy of being an extremely low income on average city, where average wages here are extremely low combined with really higher than average housing prices.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Kind of the same situation as Miami, right?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, exactly right. Miami\u2019s a really good example of that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>It\u2019s like this good second home place, which is challenge when you\u2019re trying to deal with housing affordability issues,<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>No, 100%. Yeah. I mean, that sort of leads into the second big housing issue here in New Orleans, which has been short-term rentals. The whole Airbnb issue in a lot of places is like a boogeyman that a lot of left NIMBYs bring up for not wanting to permit new housing. I think here in New Orleans, it might be one of the few places where a surplus of short-term rentals is actually pulling housing off the market in an appreciable manner. I mean, if you look at that inside Airbnb mapper, there\u2019s quite a sizable chunk of the city\u2019s housing inventory. If that short-term rental mapper, that data is credible, is being taken up by short-term housing. I mean, New Orleans is a city of 350,000 people or something like that that gets 1.4 million visitors a year. There\u2019s a huge influx of people coming in obviously. It rules. Come to New Orleans, have a good time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> I would assume there\u2019s a tension there too. I would imagine a huge chunk of the economy is dependent on tourism. You want facilities for tourists, but on the other hand, absolutely, I mean, just the scale of Airbnbs or short-term rentals broadly in the city is pretty unusual, pretty extreme. Yeah.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> No, totally. Totally. I mean, there\u2019s this obvious issues that you don\u2019t want a bachelor party showing up on your block once a week on Wednesday when you got to go to work in the morning. That\u2019s obvious, right? But there is also this sort of idea that a lot of these Airbnbs aren\u2019t in the highest resource parts of the city. A lot-<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Airbnbs aren\u2019t in the highest resource parts of the city. A lot of these are in lower income Black neighborhoods that abut popular tourist parts of the city, like Treme for example, which abuts the French Quarter. It\u2019s a real easy walk from Treme into the Quarter, so a lot of Treme has been turned into, or a lot of those formerly low-income units have been turned into short-term rentals. There\u2019s a recent court decision actually that upheld a ban on short-term rentals in the city. But, like in Los Angeles with a lot of things, it\u2019s now up to the city to actually enforce that law. And so the other half of governance capacity is not just passing policy, but actually implementing that policy. And that\u2019s really where the rubber meets the road and it remains to be seen if anything can be done about it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Our New Orleans listeners are probably listening with bated breath right now. What is the zoning reform program for a city like New Orleans, that you would suggest?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> I mean, it\u2019s pretty easy. You should upzone areas like Uptown, right? I mean, if you look at a city like New Orleans that I think is like 55 or 60% Black, you have these parts of the city that are like 70% white and it\u2019s insane. I mean, if you\u2019re just drawing numbers out of an urn, what is the probability you\u2019re going to get something like that? These are the best parts of the city, like I said. They are the best situated to withstand extreme weather events and it\u2019s absolutely insane that we\u2019re not trying to add more density to this part of the city. So, I mean like, upzone my neighborhood, please upzone my neighborhood. There are a lot of really, really underutilized lots that could be turned into like 8 plexes, into 10 plexes. Even buildings that are a bit higher, right?<br \/>\nNew Orleans has a really, really great urban layout. I mean, the city is easily navigable. It\u2019s all flat, so it\u2019s easily navigable by a bike, especially by an e-bike. And there\u2019s a lot of potential to run more frequent mass transit if you can get some more density in here. The city is famously served by streetcars, right? The Streetcar Named Desire. We still have a streetcar on St. Charles Avenue. It\u2019s like an old sort of museum piece, which is really nice in the four months of the year that the weather is nice, but is complete garbage in the summer. As you can imagine, somewhere with no air conditioner. But a lot of that could maybe be supplemented by Bus Rapid Transit or something like that, pick up the slack.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Mm-hmm. Why don\u2019t we jump into lightning round? These never end up being lightning rounds, but we\u2019re going to hit you with some questions here. Most underrated American City?<\/p>\n<p>Nolan Gray: Yeah, I\u2019m totally with. I had an amazing time in Kansas City. It\u2019s got a lot of good urban fabric, great architecture, the streetcar is pretty useful, barbecue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Oh, man. My partner, she\u2019s from Kansas City and I just went and I\u2019m surprised at how much I love Kansas City every time. The food\u2019s good, it\u2019s a pretty cool place, people are real nice. So yeah, Kansas City.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, I\u2019m totally with. I had an amazing time in Kansas City. It\u2019s got a lot of good urban fabric, great architecture, the streetcar is pretty useful, barbecue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Yeah.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>But I had not thought about Kansas City part of going. And yeah, the new airport, it\u2019s amazing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Oh yeah, super nice. Yeah, shout out to Kansas City. Great place. Go Chiefs, I guess.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Well, the fix was in, so yeah, the Chiefs won. Don\u2019t worry. Ned, what do you got?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> All right. So, since living in New Orleans, you\u2019ve had plenty of time to take in some local jazz. Give us a recommendation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> You lived in downtown LA for a while. What\u2019s the best place to get a drink in downtown LA?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Oh, man. That\u2019s a real good question and I guess it depends on the drink you\u2019d like. If you\u2019re going to get cocktails, The Wolves over on Spring Street and maybe like, I think, 6th Street and Spring. Great cocktails. Get there early, it gets really crowded. More into the why is, there\u2019s a cool little balcony on the second floor that not a lot of people know about. So, if you see a little windy staircase, get your drink, go up there, walk outside, really cool. So, that\u2019s for cocktails.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re into beer, it\u2019s not technically downtown, it\u2019s kind of Arts District, but Boomtown Brewery is fantastic. Native Son also on Grand and 9th has a bunch of really good stuff. It\u2019s a brewery out of Anaheim, but they also carry a bunch of stuff, including this great brewery in San Diego, Pure Project, one of my favorites.<\/p>\n<p>For wine, Propaganda in the Arts District. Also, some of the best pizza in the city. Yeah, those are my three. Oh, shoot, no. Cafe Triste in Chinatown also. Great natural wine bar, excellent spot.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Nice. Yeah, I was hoping you would say The Mermaid, man.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Oh, The Mermaid is really good.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Good little cocktail Tiki kind of vibe, but all good recommendations. Sorry, yes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Not trying to blow up The Mermaid. It\u2019s a real small place. I used to live across the street from it. But Mermaid is good. Actually, yeah, no, go to The Mermaid. They need the business, go to The Mermaid.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Our dozens of listeners will. You\u2019ve ruined it now, Stan, you\u2019ve done it. It\u2019s no longer going to be\u2026 Dozens of YIMBYs tuning in are going to flood it on Friday, so.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, that\u2019s true. I don\u2019t live there anymore. So yeah, someone go be the new Stan and spend all your money at The Mermaid.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>I am extremely partial to Rio de Janeiro. I spent about six months there. Really, really like Rio de Janeiro. I think, in a lot of ways, the Zona Sul of Rio could be a vision of what the coast of Los Angeles could look like. Rio\u2019s another city where it\u2019s impossible to not have a good time in. If you don\u2019t have fun in Rio, it\u2019s also your fault. Yeah.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>What\u2019s the coast look like? Why is it a model for LA?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Oh man. So, the coast number one is extremely transit accessible, right? So there\u2019s several metro stops right along Copacabana and Ipanema Beach and Leblon as well. They extended the subway since I\u2019ve lived there. So, the beach is a real melting pot of the city. Because it\u2019s a city park, so people from all over the city are there. Various little lifeguard posts have different sort of vibes that people go for, so that\u2019s kind of cool as well. But also, I mean the beach in Rio is just surrounded by high-rise buildings, so there\u2019s a lot of life and things to do as you\u2019re getting closer to the beach or as you\u2019re leaving the beach. Whereas in LA, there\u2019s a gigantic freeway and a surface parking lot, which is kind of a bummer. So yeah, no, super cool spot.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Stan, are you suggesting that beach access is not maximized by having lots of parking next to the beach?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> I think a guy standing up at public meeting meme, you should have a train or bus to the beach is better.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Very good. Yeah. Okay. Hot take, controversial take. People might be tuning off after you\u2019ve said that. What TV show should YIMBYs watch to understand cities, housing, urban politics, anything?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Oh, that\u2019s a really good one. It\u2019s kind of an obvious answer, but it\u2019s really good, so I\u2019m going to say it anyways. David Simon, about 10 years ago, made a miniseries called Show Me a Hero, about the fight to put public housing in Yonkers. I think it\u2019s one of the best things on housing ever made. It\u2019s fantastic. Yeah, so, Show Me a Hero.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Sorry, I kind of knew the answer to that, but Show Me a Hero is so good that I need every opportunity to beat YIMBYs over the head with it. I think you were the one who told me to watch it, actually.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Oh, really? Oh, man.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> I think so. And thanks. Oh my gosh, yeah, amazing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> It\u2019s a funny show because, even though it\u2019s the norm in a lot of places, you don\u2019t see very many shows depicting an actual weak mayor system. If I remember the show correctly, there\u2019s all this back and forth about whether or not they\u2019re going to build this affordable housing and the mayor is trying to slow down the progress of it and then the city manager just does it. The mayor\u2019s late to a meeting and the city manager just does it. And yeah, that\u2019s how it would\u2026 I mean, obviously that\u2019s how it worked in the story that Show Me a Hero was adapted from, but it\u2019s how it would work in a lot of other cities too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>That\u2019s the truth.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>You travel a lot, Stan. This is very much not a lightning round question, this is just me picking your brain. When you travel, how do you approach learning a new city? Do you have things that you try to do in different cities, different specific things where you\u2019re like, okay, I\u2019m going to do these few things to try to learn an aspect about the city?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>So, it\u2019s really easy to get online or ask people and figure out five or so, can\u2019t miss things, when you go to the city. If you go to Kansas City, you got to go to Oklahoma Joe\u2019s and get the Z-Man brisket sandwich, which is great, you got to go. But I feel like, you lay that out and then when you get to these places, just talk to people. Everyone is really stoked usually that someone is visiting their city and wants to tell you all about their city. So, be cool, sit at a bar somewhere, talk to the people sitting next to you and you\u2019re going to hear a lot about different things that you should check out next.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Take your headphones off maybe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah. Interact with your fellow human being, it is fun sometimes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Unless you\u2019re listening to this podcast, then keep your headphones on.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> It\u2019s true, that\u2019s true.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> No, that\u2019s fantastic. Favorite fictional city?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Man, that\u2019s a really good one. Oh, you know what it would be? It would be Los Angeles in Her, in the movie Her.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Oh man, gosh, you understand our listener. They\u2019re going to love this. Yeah, of course. I was just thinking about that movie this morning.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>I know what side my bread is buttered on.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Do you want to share your Twitter handle, by the way, while we\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> He\u2019s right you know. Brought to you by Carl\u2019s Jr. No, joke.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>That\u2019s such a beautiful movie. It is just so nice too, to see a depiction of the future that\u2019s showing, here\u2019s a social challenge and we\u2019re very non-judgmental about it. It\u2019s complicated.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> It\u2019s also funny that the LA of the future is the Shanghai of today.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Yeah. I want to step back a little bit and another aspect of some of the work you\u2019ve done that I think probably a lot of folks don\u2019t know about is, you are a crime reporter, right? In Sacramento for a little while. Do you want to talk about that?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Yeah, that was my, well, not my first, first job out of college, but the job I sort of landed at for the longest after for undergrad. So, I got out of college and I wanted to go be a newspaper reporter, because as an academic, now I really know the growth industries and where the money is at, obviously.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>You\u2019re just in it for the money, right? Absolutely.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> I\u2019m thinking about typewriter repair next maybe or something like that. Yeah, so I bopped around newspapers around California, but ended up at the Sacramento Bee and then ended up about a year after I got there, on the night cops\u2019 desk. So, the way the Bee worked back then, we had two crime reporters. One was daytime, so a 10:00 AM to six P.M. shift or something like that. And there was a person at night that came in to pick up ongoing stories from the day, but also things that had happened right before the paper was about to go to press. So, my shift was, it was four to midnight or something like that.<\/p>\n<p>And yeah, it was a lot of just driving around Sacramento with a police scanner, with a Thomas Guide, because this was the days before Google Maps. So, flashlight in your mouth trying to find grid A2, to figure out where to make a turn. And it was really interesting, because it\u2019s a really sort of unsupervised reporting environment. So, I\u2019d cover the capital and you\u2019re dealing with someone\u2019s spokesperson, not deliberately trained with reporters and that sort of thing. But, when you\u2019re doing night cops, I mean you\u2019re talking to the sergeant that shows up to a crime scene or you\u2019re banging on the doors and talking to the neighbors and stuff, and you really get to understand and know a city. I mean, kind of unfortunately, by seeing it at its worst.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> This is just a pitch to the listeners to this podcast, where if you aren\u2019t already, please become a subscriber to your local newspaper. I mean, if you\u2019re listening to this podcast, also odds are that you care about local politics and local land use in your city. And so, what better way to follow it than to subscribe to the local paper? Sac Bee is still doing great work. I think they\u2019re really doing an incredible job. San Francisco Chronicle also seems to actually be doing quite well these days. LA Times, little bit of a tougher thing, because their owner just sucks. But yeah, wherever you are, I really think that the local news environment is really incredibly important to the work we do and it\u2019s just worth supporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> It\u2019s like two beers a month, like 15 bucks, just do it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Just cancel your Netflix subscription. Netflix is just increasingly useless, so just cancel your Netflix subscription and sign up for the Times, the Picayune or whatever your local paper is.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Great, Ned. Anyone else you want to beat up on while we have you rolling?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Well, I mean, I don\u2019t think we have the time for all of my grievances, but.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> He\u2019s cooking. Okay. Yeah, subscribe to your local paper. I mean, this is very much absolutely tied up with what we do, which regularly shocks me is, there\u2019s so few people paying attention to the stuff we do. That to me is a big part of my theory of why YIMBYs have been effective is, it\u2019s kind of just a lot of normal people paying attention to some of these fights for the first time ever. And they might\u2019ve been fights that 40, 50 years ago would\u2019ve been intensively covered by some local journalists, who would eventually write an amazing book. And nowadays, it\u2019s like nobody is covering this stuff, nobody\u2026 You have these YIMBYs that become very influential, because it\u2019s like, I\u2019m the one who goes to my planning hearing and tweets about it, and that was historically a function fulfilled by a journalist, but they\u2019ve since been laid off and I\u2019m the only one doing it. That\u2019s hugely influential just in terms of sharing what\u2019s going on and then shaping the narrative.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>I mean, totally, man. My first newspaper jobs, that\u2019s what I was doing. I was sitting in city councils of cities that were like 8,000 people, like 4,000 people in one case, and just covering the minutiae of city government. That used to be a paying job. Not a very well-paying job, but it was a job that one could do and not anymore. So, a lot of YIMBY\u2019s are picking up that slack, and would be good if it was paying a job still, but\u2026 This is why you should subscribe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>I mean, this is pretty untethered from, I think, our core interests. But I\u2019m curious, what would it even look like to revive local media? What\u2019s the path there?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>This is a kind of out there idea, but I really think that the post office should create a newswire. So, employ people to do local reporting, just straight down the line local reporting and run an AP style newswire. Make it creative commons or something like that, so everyone could pick it up. It\u2019d be a great thing for American democracy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>We\u2019re really turning the post office into the everything app. There\u2019s postal banking, there\u2019s post offices newswire, there\u2019s Nolan\u2019s idea about, let the post office build housing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> In keeping with my far right, I\u2019m the far right Trump Republican of California YIMBY. I support turning the post office into a massive homebuilder. It\u2019s a classic conservative issue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>It\u2019s going to be a public sector version of Mitsubishi in South Korea, where it\u2019s just in every industry.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>The American zaibatsu is the post office.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Yeah.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>I mean, Ned, I want to hear your thoughts on this, right? Because it does seem like, just so much attention gets absorbed on national issues, where it\u2019s like, Stan, to a point you were making earlier, the average reader can just do nothing. It\u2019s almost like, you might as well be reading about a political sci-fi novel. You can\u2019t really do anything about national politics, it\u2019s pure fun consumption. Whereas if you get more people reading about their local politics, they can read, understand a situation, and then act on it and meaningfully shift what happens. And so, I don\u2019t know, Ned, what do we do? How do we revive local media?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>I mean, I think some of it is going to have to come down to trust busting. The fact that, so much of how people access news is mediated by massive platforms, with sort of opaque systems for actually delineating what news gets shown to people. And then the fact that there\u2019s also an oligopoly in digital advertising. I think you need to attack both those things. Because, right now there was actually some good writing about this from Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo recently. Their advertising revenue has cratered over the past decade or so, and in part it\u2019s because of just the cartelization of that industry.<\/p>\n<p>I think the other thing is that, there\u2019s actually a lot of good nonprofit journalism happening at the state and local level. And so, shout out to here in California, CalMatters, which is a nonprofit organization that reports on things at the state level. Berkeley side and Oakland side and the Bay Area have been doing great work. I think we\u2019re seeing some of these smaller, more flexible, oftentimes alternative business model approaches to journalism at the local level. So, I definitely think those things should be supported. For any listeners in New York, I would say, subscribe to THE CITY, subscribe to Hell Gate. But at the end of the day, I think it\u2019s also just sort of the really dysfunctional distribution model that has emerged in part, because the United States for a long time just gave up on antitrust enforcement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Got to shout out The Lens here in New Orleans, give them a subscription too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>So, Stan, what are you working on next? It seems like you\u2019re doing a lot more work on this. You\u2019ve just gone out to Tulane. You\u2019re an assistant professor, so you have to be cranking out like one paper a month, right? What are you working on? What\u2019s next on the housing? You\u2019ve said you\u2019ve done a little bit of survey work, but I\u2019m curious to hear what you\u2019re thinking about now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>So, with Chris Elmendorf and Clayton Nall, I\u2019m working on another survey. Like I\u2019d mentioned about, informational treatments that can, their effectiveness in shifting people\u2019s perceptions about housing markets. So, can you cure supply skepticism by teaching people a little bit more about housing markets? We\u2019re also looking at the sort of policies that people think would be most effective in ameliorating the housing crisis. So, are people right now more in favor when they have an opinion about housing of things like rent control or for a liberalizing zoning? What else?<\/p>\n<p>What I\u2019d mentioned before with Dominik Stecula, where we\u2019re looking at how people\u2019s perceptions about their current housing markets and the places that they live, and also their willingness to, let\u2019s see, to liberalize zoning to allow more housing, based on different perceptions of who might live there. Whether it\u2019s going to be people of their same race or a different race, people of their same political affiliation or a different political affiliation.<\/p>\n<p>So, that\u2019s something we\u2019re putting together right now. Those are the housing related things. I also have another thing that I\u2019m working on with a guy named Chris Witko at Penn State. It\u2019s not a lot about housing, but I think it\u2019s something also really important about American politics and it\u2019s about parts of the country that are mostly male right now, because the women have gone on to better opportunities either to college or to move to more productive metro areas. So, what happens with the political beliefs of people who stay behind in these areas? Something interesting to me, and I think that\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>What parts of the country are male dominated? I don\u2019t know anything about this.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>So, there\u2019s a lot of parts of the former Rust Belt, parts of the Midwest and the Deep South are, especially when you look at prime marriage age, are overwhelmingly male. So, given a lot of really well needed and positive advancements in equality between the genders, women have become a majority of college graduates and even professional school graduates, right now. Before, women pay the childbearing penalty, women earn more generally than men. And women are doing this in places like New York City or San Francisco or Los Angeles, these high productivity metro centers. But they\u2019re coming from places around the country and leaving them behind. So, a woman in a previous generation would\u2019ve stayed in a place and just kind of married the guy from high school. She\u2019s gone, and that dude from high school is by himself. And so, what has that done to people\u2019s perceptions about immigrants, for example, or people\u2019s perceptions about politics and what they want to see out of elected officials? That\u2019s something we\u2019re working on right now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>That\u2019s super fascinating to me. I\u2019m just popping off, I\u2019m a low info observer on this space. It seems to me that this is related to this whole thing of the loneliness or the rise of loneliness. You have a lot of singles, you have a lot of people that don\u2019t have any friends. Of course, that\u2019s not true of anyone on this call, but they are out there. I mean, what\u2019s your sort of punch going into this of, I would assume, yeah, do these folks become more resentful? More radical in a certain sense on their views of like, throwing out the social order? We know that young single men are this potent source of radical energy, right?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah. So, there\u2019s a lot of work right now about boys and young men sort of falling behind recently in socioeconomic status and even things like life expectancy. So, a lot of the new knowledge economy is leaving this group behind. And that has consequences to it, right? There is a huge amount of political instability that\u2019s created when someone previously with a high position in society has to go down a rung or two. It creates a lot of resentment and a lot of potential for political violence. And I think that\u2019s an important thing to acknowledge to understand better. As we see angrier, nastier turn in our politics and an uptick in instances of stochastic terrorism by people like this, I think it\u2019s important to see the motivator and the drivers of this phenomenon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, I mean, this is something I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about, and I feel like we could do another two hours on it, even though it\u2019s somewhat outside the scope of what the Metropolitan Abundance Project focuses on. But I mean, for thousands of years basically, having an excess supply of young men without any ability to absorb them into the social mainstream or into labor capacity or anything like that, that\u2019s been a massive problem. And I think you can start to see the\u2026 You can really see the consequences of that now in the United States. I mean, especially with the breakdown of any sort of\u2026 I mean, it goes back to the Theda Skocpol argument that we were talking about earlier, or Bowling Alone, and just the absence of even those sort of platonic social institutions that give people\u2019s life a social thickness and have some sort of socializing function, in the sense of, preventing people from spinning out into political function, in the sense of preventing people from spinning out into political radicalism?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> That\u2019s totally correct. Yeah.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah. One of the things I wonder though is, what do you even do about that? I think this is actually somewhat more connected to our work than we\u2019re maybe at first considering. I think everyone on this call would say it\u2019s good, we need to let cities be big, massive engines of opportunity, let everybody who wants to move to a city, move to a city. And that might partly solve the problem. There might be a lot of people who are stuck in these declining opportunity places, places with a severe gender imbalance where it\u2019s like, if you could just move more guys to DC which has a gender imbalance and more women than men, you make some progress on the issue.<\/p>\n<p>But there\u2019re always going to be these places that get left behind. I think that\u2019s the common argument against letting cities rip. It\u2019s like, but then aren\u2019t you just going to absorb all of a certain type of person out of these lower opportunity areas, and they\u2019re just going to get worse and they\u2019re going to get more radical? And then because we have a system in the US where it\u2019s land votes, we get more dysfunctional national politics. What would you say to somebody who made that argument, Stan?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>This is a problem that a complex society needs to adjudicate. It\u2019s one of the problems of having land vote. If you have a US Senate where 70% of the population gets 30% of Senate votes, you\u2019re really straining the definitions or straining the boundaries of what can legitimately be called a democracy. But to the bigger problem, a dynamic economy is going to have shifting winners and losers.<\/p>\n<p>The first industrialization of the United States is the Connecticut River Valley, when all of that industry moved into Ohio and to Illinois and Pennsylvania and stuff, just because it was more efficient to do it there and to transport it. The Erie Canal and Chicago ate New Orleans\u2019s lunch as a shipping center. But places adapt, places search for new comparative advantages. And I think the state is wise and also morally has a duty to intervene, to aid in this transition.<\/p>\n<p>One of the things that\u2019s really difficult though, it\u2019s easier to abstract it out as an economic issue, and I think that\u2019s where most policy should go, but sense of place is really important for human beings. A sense of a home and a sense of a geographic location as having a lot to do with a person\u2019s identity is important. And people don\u2019t abandon it as easily or as quickly as our economic models might have them. They cling to places. There\u2019s value in that. It\u2019s a complex issue, for a state to balance and for a state to deal with, and I don\u2019t really have an easy answer for it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>It\u2019s partly self-resolving. This is the story of the US until quite recently, that there were mass migrations of people out of low opportunity areas to higher opportunity areas, and as a result of that, you get higher wages in the sending areas, \u2019cause you just have more labor scarcity. That was why wages went up in the south over so much of the 20th century is that poor people, both white and black, were just leaving the region en masse. To the extent that we\u2019ve stopped that up, I think that might potentially be a major factor in why we\u2019re seeing declining reductions in regional inequality, for example.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Yeah. Just the gains for being in a high productivity area now are just so much more than they used to be. I forget, there\u2019s a statistic about the average wealth difference between St. Louis and New York City from 1960 versus today, and it\u2019s just orders of magnitude greater. There\u2019s a lot more returns to being in one of these high productivity areas now, just given the nature of the new economy.<\/p>\n<p>And I\u2019m not sure what the answer is. How does one fix that? How does one make a place like Appalachia viable?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Isn\u2019t this the theory of the Inflation Reduction Act though, at least in part, that you\u2019re going to cite the major manufacturing centers of the new green economy in some of these areas, and that\u2019s how you integrate them into the high productivity, high modernist world of sophisticated green tech and just the tech world in general?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, sure, to a certain extent. But it\u2019s really difficult to figure out exactly where these things would go for the most bang for your buck. It\u2019s a difficult problem. That\u2019s why we should have government with a capacity, to solve these difficult problems.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>You mentioned the issue of democracy. I think this is an interesting issue that I\u2019d be curious to hear from you as a political scientist on is, I look at urban governance in the US and there are a number of weird features of it. I was just in Pittsburgh giving a talk last week when we recorded this. They\u2019re closed primaries, they\u2019re odd year, and then also, Pittsburgh proper is a little bit of a rump state, it covers maybe a quarter to a third of the metropolitan region.<\/p>\n<p>On so many margins, you just have Democratic weirdness. The metro area of Pittsburgh is completely fragmented among, I think in the case of Pittsburgh, literally hundreds of jurisdictions. The odd year thing reduces participation. The closed primary and what is effectively a single party city closes participation.<\/p>\n<p>New York is another extreme example of this. Almost nobody participates in the meaningful election, which is the Democratic primary. I\u2019m wondering, besides this maybe being a little bit of a concern for us, if we want to believe we live in a democratic society, is this a problem for housing policy? Is this a problem for metropolitan abundance, that people don\u2019t participate? How do urban politics change if cities incorporated maybe their far-flung suburbs and normal people actually came out to vote for elections?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>I think the big issue is less participation and more the fact that parties in government aren\u2019t really able to exercise this power of governance and voters aren\u2019t really able to recognize who is in power, such that when elections come, they can vote them out or give them another term. So, this is really, really different from, for example, a parliamentary system where you know the coalition that\u2019s in power, and so you see how are things going. And if things are going bad, you know exactly who to blame. And the other parties are coming out saying, hey, it is these people\u2019s faults, vote for us.<\/p>\n<p>You don\u2019t really have that in American urban governance. Number one, there\u2019s just so many different layers of government in our federal system that it\u2019s almost impossible to figure out who is to blame for something. Who\u2019s to blame for housing scarcity in Los Angeles? Is it the government of Los Angeles? Is it the LA Board of Supervisors? Is it the California Assembly, or what about HCD? There\u2019s these so many trillions of layers, that people just throw up their hands and say, all government is bad. It just creates this cynicism about governance, so people just don\u2019t participate, they don\u2019t care. It\u2019s just something inevitable that\u2019s going to be wrong with the world.<\/p>\n<p>That more heightened transparency and, I think, a move to a more party-based system of urban governance rather than a centered system of urban governance, and more flattened governing structures so that there is one body or one person that people can vote up or down on, would be a lot better for these issues that we\u2019re concerned with.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>I want to pick on one issue that you raised there. I think one of the classic progressive reforms was, let\u2019s make local elections nonpartisan. I don\u2019t necessarily know exactly why that happened, but it happened. You go in and vote in many US cities and it\u2019s not even clear who\u2019s in which party. You\u2019ve argued actually the opposite, which is that we need more parties in cities, we need multi-party democracy in cities. What\u2019s the case for that? You have a great post on Slow Boring, which is Matt Yglesias\u2019 blog, but I want to give you a moment to unpack that a little bit for folks who haven\u2019t read it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>In the city of Los Angeles, everyone is ostensibly a Democrat. Even if you are a Republican, you go to extreme, extreme lengths to hide the fact that you\u2019re Republican. Rick Caruso was a lifelong Republican. He famously deregistered before he went up against Karen Bass two years ago. Elections become candidate-centric, but it\u2019s really difficult to find information about candidates. What\u2019s the difference between a Democrat like Aaron Peskin in San Francisco or Dean Preston in San Francisco versus another San Francisco Democrat like Matt Haney? You really need to do a lot of research and you need to send a lot of energy to understand which positions these candidates have and how they map on to your own positions. And it\u2019s a lot of work, I mean, just multiply that through the entire list of candidates that the typical person has to go through.<\/p>\n<p>Parties are a really, really good shortcut for this, because by knowing a candidate\u2019s party you know their position on a variety of issues. The way politics is right now, these policy positions can map pretty neatly onto various political subfactions. A group that\u2019s done this extremely well in urban politics have been leftists and progressives. Leftists and progressives are doing extremely well in Los Angeles elections because they throw these progressive labels onto their candidates. You know if Ground Game endorses a candidate, what this candidate is for on a lot of things. So, it makes things really easy. It\u2019s a great shortcut.<\/p>\n<p>I think changing the structure elections to make them more party centric, and there\u2019s a lot of ways you can do this, I can get into it if you want to, would do a lot to reduce the information burden on voters, so that you can see that right now the city of Los Angeles is being governed by, I don\u2019t know, let\u2019s say, homeowner Democrats. And I don\u2019t like this, so I\u2019m going to throw in a vote for the Socialists, or I\u2019m going to throw in a vote for the pro-housing candidate, or I\u2019m going to throw in a vote for a Republican. I don\u2019t know. That\u2019s a lot easier to do than go figure out, Joe Blow is trying to come down from the state Senate, what kind of votes did Joe Blow make there? It\u2019s a whole big thing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>The natural next question then of course is, how do you build that multiparty system at a local level?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>One of the big things you can do is something that progressive reformers tried doing about 100 years ago, and that\u2019s multi-member districts. One of the things that happens when you have a single-member district\u2026 And just to clarify these terms a bit, a single-member district is what most American cities have right now, so you have a geographic chunk of area and one person represents that chunk. I used to live in Los Angeles Council District 14. It\u2019s a big chunk of Downtown LA and Boyle Heights and El Sereno. It\u2019s governed by one dude, Kevin de Le\u00f3n, now maybe someone different, come November. I live in New Orleans Council District B right now, so it\u2019s this big chunk of area. One person represents it.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s not necessarily the way governance is structured across the entire world. In a lot of countries, more than one person will represent a single geographic area. You can have two people, three people, five people, seven people all representing one area. It helps a lot, one, because it allows for more niche candidates. If you have one candidate per area, the incentive for the parties is to become the biggest tent possible. You want to swallow up all these little niche positions, create a giant tent, so you\u2019re winning that plurality of the vote. If you don\u2019t have to be the first place winner, you can go for a more niche slice of the vote. And especially in an American city, that makes a lot of sense when you have a lot of ethnic diversity.<\/p>\n<p>I used to live in Koreatown in Los Angeles. Koreatown is an incredibly diverse place. You have a huge Armenian population, Korean population, naturally, given the name, but also Bengali population. You have a bunch of immigrants from Mexico. But also, besides just Mexico, a bunch of immigrants from Oaxaca who speak a different language, several languages in fact. You have immigrants from Central America. Just a whole panoply of people that lack representation when there\u2019s only one person that\u2019s representing the district. That also translates to ideological differences. You can have a pro-renter party, for example, representing renters who may not be the plurality of the district, but represent a large chunk.<\/p>\n<p>When you have that many candidates, and these candidates are running more niche positions, the incentive to run on slates to reduce its information burden is increased, and so you have more slate voting, more party list voting, et cetera. Depending on the way you structure this election, you can incentivize that more or less.<\/p>\n<p>Nolan Gray: You envision these being slates? Because I think status quo. I\u2019m a Democrat. Good, status quo works for me. My party completely runs cities. It might not be the Democrats that I like, but I would be concerned of if there\u2019s actual genuine multi-party competition, it might dilute the extent to which people identify with my party, which might make them do weird things when they\u2019re voting in state or federal elections. Right?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah. I feel like the average voter at the municipal level really doesn\u2019t gain much utility just by being represented by all Democrats, like I certainly\u2026 My life was not made demonstrably better by living in a city that is run entirely by Democrats-<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Right.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>\u2026 especially given the extreme heterogeneity between a party. I think, just given recent trends in politics, people are looking for these more niche types of candidates within their preferred party and just having that slate endorsement. Depending on how you want to do it, you could have a fusion ballot where someone can be a YIMBY, comma, Democrat or something like that, or Democratic Socialist, or I don\u2019t know, Libertarian Republican or something to that effect. I feel the ideological orientation is more what matters than the party label.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah. I would assume that this would only increase participation. I would assume that a lot of people just sit out local elections \u2019cause they\u2019re like, look, what does it really matter?<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m curious. I wonder to what extent does ranked-choice vote help you to get at some of this? Something I really enjoy\u2026 I lived in New York for a while, and New York is very much barely a democracy. It\u2019s really hard to vote, it\u2019s closed primaries, odd year, long lines at the voting booth. I just didn\u2019t vote, unless I thought it was actually an election where\u2026 The plus side of this is that the vote polls are actually so small that you actually\u2026 And the universe of your individual vote might matter. But the downside is, the vast majority of people don\u2019t participate.<\/p>\n<p>Moving out to California, now we\u2019re living in a context where it\u2019s like, great, cool. I\u2019m voting in a jungle primary. The two top winners are going to go forward. These are a relatively small turnout, but my vote actually does matter, even if I\u2019m not registered for the right party or I forget to show up for the right election. Even if I forget to show up for the primary, there\u2019s still going to be a meaningful election in the general. I wonder to what extent do you see that as a slight improvement, or no?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>This all goes to say we should make it as easy and as painless and as costless to vote as possible. I think one of the big deficiencies of our constitution is that there\u2019s no affirmative right to vote in the constitution. I live in Louisiana right now. I voted for governor in, I think, late September of last year. The turnout was something abysmal, like 30% of people. Most of us didn\u2019t even know there was an election. You have to register ahead of time. You have to present a state ID to vote. It\u2019s just a gigantic\u2026 It\u2019s like a nightmare. So, turnout in this state is abysmal. Someone can win the governorship with, I think, 18% of votes cast. It\u2019s something appalling like that.<\/p>\n<p>We know in the United States how to make voting easy, and that\u2019s through Vote-by-Mail. There\u2019s eight states, I think, that do it, California being the latest addition to it. It\u2019s the cheapest way of conducting an election. It gives people the opportunity to vote at their leisure. There\u2019s literally no argument against it, except if you believe in fairy tales of voter fraud, which is just absurd. It\u2019s just completely absurd on its face. There\u2019s been 12 instances of voter fraud over a 12-year period over billions of vote cast. You might as well be worried about alien invasions or something like that if you\u2019re going to be caring about voter fraud. It\u2019s a very low-cost fix to make voting easier and to boost turnout.<\/p>\n<p>But I think beyond that, we really should be thinking more in the housing movement and then in the abundance movement generally about our political institutions in the United States. We have extremely peculiar political institutions compared to the rest of the developed world. And I think it\u2019s no secret why our outcomes are so divergent, especially given the fact that we\u2019re such a wealthy, wealthy country. Missouri has the same GDP as Denmark, I think, which is crazy if you have ever been to either.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, I am totally in agreement with you that we need to think about governing institutions, and urban governance in particular, very carefully. I would even go a little bit further than you on the question of having a right to vote. I believe Australia has a compulsory voting model. You actually receive a small fine if you don\u2019t vote. And I mean, why not? I think that\u2019s a good idea, personally, as long as it\u2019s also at the same time made very easy and convenient to vote.<\/p>\n<p>I also think though, in some places, there\u2019s also this question of just the clarity of what you\u2019re voting for. This is where the weak mayor, strong mayor distinction that I alluded to earlier comes in. Not to dwell too much on California, but I think also here, but in other places as well, you have these sprawling ballots, where it\u2019s like you\u2019re voting for the executive on the mosquito abatement district or whatever, and you\u2019re voting on a ballot measure to make some extremely esoteric change to the state constitution.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> You could do dialysis.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yes, yes. The dialysis one is the one that was on my mind as a California resident.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>I\u2019m proud to be voting for the YIMBY mosquito abatement officer, as opposed to the NIMBY.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>I\u2019m actually pretty NIMBY on mosquitoes myself, but you do you, Nolan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Fair, fair.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>I think that\u2019s the other element of\u2026 There should be a relatively small number of officials that you are actually required to know their positions on in order to make informed decisions. And then also, those officials need to be imbued with the authority to actually do things so that you can then judge their performance and decide whether to keep them in next term or vote them out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>I think that\u2019s absolutely correct, and I think party-based elections can help solve a lot of that information asymmetry.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Interesting. We\u2019re going to be thinking a lot more about metropolitan governance. A whole issue that we didn\u2019t even scratch the surface of is just metropolitan fragmentation. Metropolises are basically unified labor housing markets. They\u2019re clearly distinct cultural regions. You get out into the outer suburbs of New Orleans and people are still rooting for the Saints. And yet, these regions are covered by 100s of different governing entities, which I think also makes it confusing for people. It\u2019s not really entirely clear what they\u2019re voting on or who runs their city, which is a very strange thing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, it\u2019s one of the other faults of American federalism. Everyone gets to create their own endogenous government. If we think about when the explosion of new cities was, especially in California\u2026 Not to bring it back to California, but California is most of this country, or the plurality of this country\u2026 that explosion of new cities came during the era of white flight. One of the things you want to do when you create your own city is wall off other people. It creates these really, really terrible incentives for municipal government that you don\u2019t have in more unitary systems.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s the added benefit of incorporating a new city in France, for example, that has a national zoning code, or Japan? It\u2019s outside of my wheelhouse, but I think this problem gets even more pernicious when we talk about law enforcement, because we have so many overlapping law enforcement jurisdictions in this country with extremely, extremely heterogeneous standards for training and for officer accountability. And it creates a horrendous system that you also, again, don\u2019t have in the more unitary states.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, I think this affects a whole host of different issues. That could be another three-hour long conversation.<br \/>\nStan, thanks for coming on. I\u2019m excited to see what work you\u2019re doing going forward. New Orleans is lucky to have you. We miss you here in California, but the moment you left, things started getting a lot better in LA, so I appreciate you splitting and clearing a path for us<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> I had a curse on the city for so long, I figured it was about time for me to bring that curse somewhere else, so looking forward to outcomes getting worse in new Orleans. No, no. Jokes.<\/p>\n<p>Yeah, great talking to you guys. It was a lot of fun. Thanks for having me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff: <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, and please-<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Thanks for joining Abundance.yeah.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Ned Resnikoff:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Please lift the curse on Berkley soon, please. I don\u2019t know what we need to do, but\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Yeah, I don\u2019t know. We\u2019ll try, man. We\u2019ll try. You guys are building your own bus benches though. I see Darrell\u2019s doing that on Twitter, so shout out to those people. Doing the Lord\u2019s work.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Tactical urbanism. Remember that?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p> Yeah, we\u2019re doing it. All right. Stan Oklobdzija, thanks for joining Abundance, and we\u2019ll talk to you soon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Stan Oklobdzija:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>All right. Thanks you all.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"row\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"name\">Nolan Gray:<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"answer\"><p>Okay. Good to see you.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In this episode, we chat with Stan Oklobdzija. He\u2019s an assistant professor of political science at Tulane University and the director of the Center for Public Policy Research at the Murphy Institute.","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","filter_tag":[13],"filter_status":[],"filter_theme":[],"filter_state":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<title>Stan Oklobdzija on YIMBY Politics - Metropolitan Abundance Project<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.metroabundance.org\/podcasts\/episode-17\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Stan Oklobdzija on YIMBY Politics - Metropolitan Abundance Project\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In this episode, we chat with Stan Oklobdzija. 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