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Paul E Williams

Instructive clip for people who are skeptical of the Abundance thesis—this is a perfect encapsulation of the pervasiveness of the anti-housing mindset among local and state Ds. The belief is indeed so pervasive that this councilmember seems to sincerely believe she was helping.

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Joe Cohen

@CohenSite

Aug 27

Replying to @CohenSite

I still can't believe Councilmember Padilla used *forcing a developer to reduce the size of an affordable housing project* as an example of how she is making housing more affordable for the people in her district!

1:00

6:38 PM · Aug 27, 2025

647.8K

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David Watson 🥑

Paul E Williams

The idea that it is acceptable for a Democrat to brag about cutting an affordable housing project in half...how did we get here, and why do some cower at the prospect of confronting it?

@JerusalemDemsas

but I was told everyone agreed we should build more housing?

Paul E Williams

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Paul E Williams

@PEWilliams_

Aug 27

Replying to @PEWilliams_

The idea that it is acceptable for a Democrat to brag about cutting an affordable housing project in half...how did we get here, and why do some cower at the prospect of confronting it?

Basel Musharbash

How much of a problem is this beyond California and, maybe, New York? Also, how much of a uniquely "D" problem is this? I mean, for the last fifty years, it has been *conservatives* who imposed development controls and opposed efforts to liberalize zoning.

Paul E Williams

MA, IL, PA, MD, DC, OR, WA, CO, MN—just to name a few blue states where there is an identical dynamic with Ds in blue cities.

The district was opposed, did not want any housing in that location. She engineered a compromise. You see that, right? She got the housing you claim to want actually built.

Paul E Williams

"The District" was not opposed—a small number of people in the district were opposed. The councilmember could have just as easily voted for the project to proceed as-is. Some of those people would have voted against her in the next election. Then life goes on.

Even when progressives want to liberalize zoning, they reduce construction with laws that make being a landlord less profitable and much more emotionally difficult.

The War on Landlords

From city-journal.org

Paul E Williams

Do you think it's the government's job to make sure that various jobs are emotionally easy?

I thought it was an even better clip for how people are successful on the ground on actual projects Weiner stays calm, respectful and on point. Never contradicts, joins where he can … except on the most critical points where he points out the differences If he hadn’t been

A classic example of this is Aisha Wahab push to bundle parking and her complaint about how there is no parking for those who live in affordable housing .

just a suggestion, I think that associating YIMBYism with "the Abundance thesis" was a mistake for you and I still don't understand why you did it (I mean, I have a theory...)

She comes off as sincere? She sounded very evasive to me.

@PhilosophyDad1

She managed to keep a dense development from being killed entirely by organized current homeowners. For CA, that is actually a huge win. Historically, the city would have caved and just kept it single family homes.

The sincerity is what was most jarring to me..

@LemonPepperYBC

Horrors beyond human comprehension

I'm sorry but what? Abundance is still bad. it's neoliberal BS

Phil BuildTheFutureNow

@PhilSustainable

She is the entire Democratic Socialists of America. This is what they did to One45, to sunnyside, to Gowanus. The NYC DSA raises rents by pursuing “affordability “

this whole thing makes me feel gross because it is such a stark example of the attitude that frustrates me the most, and yet she seems to so sincerely believe that she was trying to help and doing right by her constituents a total misalignment in her perspective vs reality, but?

@BlackOutSpartan

Im even struggling to understand how she thought she was answering the question? Like was she saying "people didn't want this housing complex, so I got them down to 3 stories to be more acceptable" or is she just genuinely bragging about downsizing it?

mind you,

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:-)

@chemdawgrei

Aug 27

the location she’s talking about it is right next to the G line balboa station, the 2nd biggest park space in los angeles, and a compound with *seven* schools foolish decisions like @CD6LosAngeles’s are why the state is reigning in LA’s “local control” over housing x.com/abundancechud/…

Justin Gladhill

“How did you help alleviate the housing crisis in your district?” “I turned a 6 story development into a 3 story development, with extra parking and EV charging” Delivered with a completely straight face and total sincerity. Utterly detached from reality.

dog that lays eggs

They feel like they contributed because they made a suggestion that meaningfully changed the project. Local government is infested with busybodies like this.

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dog that lays eggs

@l_wzbr

Aug 28

Replying to @AnechoicMedia_

There’s a kind of person that I call the “problem noticer” who thinks that moderation is the highest virtue and just pointing out risks and potential problems is a valuable contribution in lieu of proposing solutions.

Alan Zibel (@alanzibel.bsky.social)

right that’s what YIMBYs have been talking about for more than a decade

We know we need more housing the issue people have with the "abundance" guys is that they aren't tackling the actual issues and are just their to push the party to the right and towards the wealthy.

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@marcuslonardo10

Going from 6 to 3 is likely a going from 5 resi levels to 2, a 60% reduction. Broadly applied, this would likely result in a 90%+ reduction in affordable units due to lack of financial feasibilty.

I don't get why you have to lash the albatross of "affordable housing" onto YIMBY just be enthusiastic about letting developers build. Let them build whatever they want. They want to make money. People want places to live. Affordability will come as a function of supply

She was helping a vocal minority in her district. No one likes dealing with construction or traffic. Everyone likes their kid being able to find an apartment nearby.

@ThreeHatsInARow

Hey, if you can force someone else to pay for your parking spot and charging, that makes your housing more affordable

StupidAmericans

@StupidAmerica17

Abundance is not going to help this. Changing the narrative would require questioning (capital) power, something the Abundance authors clearly aren’t really willing to.

I’m choosing to believe that it was either cut the development in half or no project at all, and that’s why she counts this as a win. Nothing else makes sense

I'm begging yall to read a different book about this topic. Abundance is a book by a political pundit, not a "thesis." Try Strong Towns by Charles Marohn. It's actually written by an urban planner and not a pundit. It makes plenty of the abundance arguments much more effectively

It was the more progressive council members like hugo soto-martinez who voted for SB 79 yet abundance folks still blame progressives for housing not getting built. It's not them who need convincing

I don't think you'd undermines the skeptics (I'm one). In the "debate" Senator Scott says they added buncha regs to the bill. Affordability, public transport, enviro, etc. This is what we need, good regs. If this was Abundance, they'd just be deregulating & undermining unions.

@DingusTheMingus

The abundance thesis is so ambiguous in what it advocates for that anyone can claim it means [x], and it's believable. This includes both people who like it and hate it. The ambiguity makes it hard to attack, but simultaneously it becomes difficult to coherently defend.

@bryan_m_willman

And she may well win reelection. The "revealed choice" of the polis is NOT "more housing" - only people looking for housing, who aren't the whole population, care about that.

She knows what she is doing, and she does not care.

John McDonnell Douglas

@MassimoGrazioni

It's debatable if people like her are stupid enough to think they're helping. The more likely reason is that they're advocating for the class interests of their most reliable voters (homeowners/landlords) and using whatever moralistic rhetoric to hand as cover.

Tbh I give her the benefit of the doubt that it seemed like locals wanted to kill the six-story project so she brokered a compromise to at least get some housing? The whole thing seems quite edited. Could be wrong!

She didn’t think she’s helping. She’s doing what her donors paid her to do

Reducing the supply of housing would actually push up housing prices, not lower them.

to be fair, she was actually saying that people in her district wanted to kill the project completely, so the 3 stories instead of 6 was a compromise

@INTIFADAEMRIKIA

Not really, they act the same way about bombing kids. They’re sociopaths. Also more like a-bum-dance, amirite

No this is the perfect encapsulation of a fucking moron who has no business being in public office If you want actual abundance you would advocate for cutting police budgets to fund public social housing and infrastructure. All you turds want is less regulation to boost profits