We got so good at stopping projects that we forgot how to build things in America.”

But it’s not just California. Democrats today are as searing in their criticisms of public sclerosis as any Republican. John Podesta, the graybeard who oversaw the rollout of the Inflation Reduction Act for Joe Biden, bemoaned that “delays are pervasive at every level of government—federal, state, and local.

So much clean energy is possible, and available, if we can muster the ingenuity and the will to harness it.

In the time California has spent failing to complete its 500-mile high-speed rail system, China has built more than 23,000 miles of high-speed rail.48

But only 2 or 3 percent of habitable land is taken up by cities.

How do we ensure that housing is both appreciating in value for homeowners but cheap enough for all would-be homeowners to buy in? We can’t.”

“At the core of American housing policy is a secret hiding in plain sight,” she writes. “Homeownership works for some because it cannot work for all. If we want to make housing affordable for everyone, then it needs to be cheap and widely available. And if we want that housing to act as a wealth-building vehicle, home values have to increase signif

how many years an average wage earner would presumably need to save to buy a home. In 1950, it’s 2.3 years. In 1960, it’s 2.6 years. In 1970, it’s 2.4 years. But then something happens. By 1980, it’s 3.8 years. By 1990, it’s 5.4 years. By 2000, it’s 7 years.53 And this forward march is hiding the regional differences: that home you could buy with 2

Hawaii, which has among the lowest rates of serious mental illness, has among the highest rates of homelessness.