Jerusalem Demsas

Earlier this year, the Pentagon swooped in to give Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s Democratic governor, the perfect reason to veto a valuable bill. The proposed Arizona Starter Homes Act sought to legalize smaller dwellings to address the affordability crisis straining the fast-growing state. After the state legislature had already passed the bill, a regional Navy official wrote a letter to Hobbs opposing it. The intervention seemed bizarre, as I noted in an article at the time.

Total and complete victory. For a niche technocratic movement hyper-obsessed with increasing the supply of housing, that’s what the past few weeks in Democratic politics have felt like. In recent years, a remote-work-induced housing-market boom has pushed housing affordability higher on the national political agenda. And years of advocacy by yes-in-my-backyard, or YIMBY, activists has familiarized politicians with the logic of the housing shortage.

This article has been adapted from the introduction of On the Housing Crisis: Land, Development, Democracy.
Consider how a home is built in America. Long before the foundation is poured, the first step is to check the rule books. For the uninitiated, the laws that govern the land appear hopelessly technical and boring, prescribing dozens upon dozens of requirements for what can be built and where.

The election is a “fight for America’s future,” Kamala Harris said in her speech to the Democratic National Convention tonight. She painted a picture of what a second Trump presidency might look like: chaotic and dangerous. Donald Trump would take the country back, whereas she would take the country forward. “I will be a president who leads and listens, who is realistic, practical, and has common sense, and always fights for the American people,” she said.

Joe Biden says he ran for president in 2020 because of Charlottesville. He says he ran because he saw the threat Donald Trump posed to the country and the threat he posed to democracy. If Biden truly believes that, he needs to end his reelection campaign. Indeed, dropping out could be the most patriotic gesture of his long career in public service, and every senior Democratic official and leader in the country should be pressuring him to act immediately.

When the mayor of New York, of all places, warned that a recent influx of asylum seekers would destroy his city, something didn’t add up.
“I said it last year when we had 15,000, and I’m telling you now at 110,000. The city we knew, we’re about to lose,” Eric Adams urged in September. By the end of the year, more than 150,000 migrants had arrived. Still, the mayor’s apocalyptic prediction didn’t square with New York’s past experience.

The Texas National Guard has taken hostage a 2.5-mile stretch of the U.S. border with Mexico. According to a shocking Supreme Court filing by the Justice Department early yesterday morning, armed soldiers and vehicles deployed by the state have repeatedly denied U.S. Border Patrol agents access to the Shelby Park area in Eagle Pass, Texas.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Does the U.S. really want clean energy? A step forward in fusion technology raises questions about what it will take to have a carbon-free future.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
The Twitter Files are a missed opportunity.

Usually when rich people rage against the possibility that someone less wealthy might become their neighbor, nobody bats an eye. Why would they? NIMBYism is the dominant fact of American urban geography. But in recent years, a number of very rich people, including the billionaire investor Marc Andreessen, have positioned themselves on the other side of the debate, arguing against supply restrictions and deriding purportedly progressive places for failing to address the rising cost of housing.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Our institutions are poised to repeat the mistakes of COVID-19.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
The gun industry created a new consumer. Now it’s killing us.
Could genetics be the key to never getting the coronavirus?
Mike Pence is trying to send a message.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.House Democrats are rolling out a new strategy to protect civil rights post-Roe. Senate Democrats should get on board.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
Of course Biden has COVID.
America’s self-obsession is killing its democracy.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.The pandemic made it possible for many Millennials to purchase their first home. Could it also have set the stage for a new breed of NIMBYs?But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
The world is burning once again.
This Court has revealed conservative originalism to be a hollow shell.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.As monkeypox cases rise in the U.S., public officials are scrambling to balance concerns about stigmatization with the fact that the disease is largely affecting gay and bisexual men.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
The cause of the crime wave is hiding in plain sight.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.The anti-abortion movement spent decades citing states’ rights as an argument for overturning Roe. That facade fell away within weeks.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
New COVID vaccines will be ready this fall. America won’t be.

For much of American history, freedom from an oppressive legal system could be found by picking up and leaving. During the Great Migration, millions of Black Americans abandoned the Jim Crow South for the North, Midwest, and West; at a smaller scale, LGBTQ people have long fled communities where they felt unwelcome for liberal cities. On some level, Americans—with our unique system of federalism—have always voted with our feet.