Why We Stopped Building
The institutional decay behind America's construction crisis
It now takes longer to approve a housing project in San Francisco than it took to build the Golden Gate Bridge.
The United States built the Hoover Dam in five years, the Interstate Highway System in a generation, and the Apollo program in less than a decade. Today, a single apartment building in Manhattan can spend seven years in the permitting process. Something has gone profoundly wrong with America’s capacity to build.
The housing shortage is now estimated at 3.8 million units nationally, a deficit that grows each year as population increases outpace construction. The median home price has reached 7.5 times median household income — a ratio that would have been considered a crisis in any previous era.
It now takes longer to approve a housing project in San Francisco than it took to build the Golden Gate Bridge.
The Vetocracy
The problem is not economic. Developers have capital, demand is overwhelming, and construction technology has never been more advanced. The problem is institutional: a thicket of environmental reviews, neighborhood approvals, historic preservation rules, and litigation rights that gives every stakeholder an effective veto.
The YIMBY Counterrevolution
A political movement has emerged in response — the YIMBYs, or “Yes In My Back Yard” — arguing that housing abundance should be a progressive priority. Their legislative victories in California, Montana, and other states represent the first significant challenge to the vetocracy in decades.