Hudson Yards West almost feels as if it was designed as a test case for the thesis of Abundance, the recent book by Ezra Klein of the New York Times and Derek Thompson of The Atlantic. The long-awaited development project, slated for 13 screws of abandoned rail yard on the west side of Manhattan, would bring thousands of new apartments, hundreds of them designated as affordable, plus expansive new parks and thousands of union jobs. Yet the project keeps stalling.
Klein and Thompson have faced no opposition to their accurate claim that the U.S. ability to build large projects has deteriorated, even and particularly in blue states where hostile Republicans can’t be blamed. The question is whether the obstacle to that growth is well-intentioned regulations that give too much power to environmentalists, busybody neighbors known as NIMBYs, and labor unions, or whether it stems from concentrated financial power—in the form of billionaires, monopolies, or both—who benefit from stalled projects.
