How Blue Cities Became So Outrageously Affordable
About this episode
Klein interviews Jerusalem Demsas, a Vox policy reporter covering housing, homelessness and infrastructure, about why America struggles to build. They examine why US transit and infrastructure projects cost far more than in peer countries: fragmented agencies, thin public-sector capacity, and delays from permitting, litigation and empowered local opposition. Demsas traces how liberal procedural safeguards — born of backlash against destructive top-down projects — now let concentrated neighborhood interests veto housing and transit. They discuss zoning and supply restrictions, how new housing filters through markets, gentrification versus displacement, and the link between housing scarcity and homelessness. The conversation argues that progress requires shifting power from local veto points to state and federal levels, and confronts a deeper tension in liberal governance between ambitions to build and procedures that block building.