What Would ‘Transportation Abundance’ Look Like?
Fans of the abundance movement say that adding supply solves big problems in housing and health care. But when it comes to getting around, things get complicated.
An abundance of traffic moves along the 610 West Loop during rush hour in Houston in 2022.
Photographer: Mark Mulligan/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images
Abundance seems poised to be the policy literati’s favorite term of 2025, as an array of center-left academics, activists and pundits continue to spread its gospel. The buzzy word is the subject of an eponymous book by the journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson; in it, they write that abundance “reorients politics around a fresh provocation: Can we solve our problems with supply?”
In recent months, the merit of that idea has been debated in outlets ranging from the Washington Post to the Financial Times to Jacobin, while philanthropies, think tanks, and a growing number of elected officials have all chimed in.