Did progressives stop government from doing its job?

A writer makes his case for “Why Nothing Works.”

Today’s Morning Edition checks in on a debate that makes some progressives sound like conservatives. They say the government created too many rules and regulations.

That’s awkward for people who believe in government!

I’ve been following this debate for some time, and it came to mind after the Los Angeles fires. Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order to help people rebuild more quickly. He said agencies should waive some requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act, or look for regulations that “can safely be suspended or streamlined,” Newsom said.

But if some rules “can safely be suspended,” does California need them at all?

Marc Dunkelman thinks California may not. “Everyone in California acknowledges that it’s just too hard to build,” he told me.

Dunkelman, who studies American communities from his perch at Brown University, wrote the book Why Nothing Works. He says progressives shot themselves in the foot by making it too easy to stop construction of almost anything. NIMBYism—people who say “Not in my backyard!”—thrives on regulations.

Below are some key points in our conversation.

State and local land use rules are hard to follow.

Dunkelman argues that this makes it too easy for people to protest public works and other projects. Instead of helping people, government stands in the way of help.

Regulations came out of a drive to protect people from government.

Robert Moses, a powerful official in New York in the mid-1900’s, was “enormously effective” at “tearing down neighborhoods” to make way for new roads and bridges. This was good for drivers and bad for residents.

Robert Caro’s 1974 book The Power Broker exposed the way Moses’s projects ruined lives, inspiring new regulations and reforms.

Dunkelman says the reaction went too far.

“We've swung from one extreme where folks like Robert Moses could do almost whatever they wanted without anybody being able to say anything, to another [extreme] where almost any objection stops everything cold.”

Progressive restrictions on government block progressive initiatives.

He tells of a proposed transmission line to bring clean hydropower from Canada to New England. After a decade, it’s still not on line because of “progressive efforts to protect woodlands, to protect small communities have put up so many barriers that we are unable to harness the clean energy that's available to us.”

Conservatives take advantage of environmental rules.

“You see that all the time. People who claim to be against red tape, and then when someone proposes that there be some middle-income housing in their neighborhood, suddenly they're vociferously in favor of certain housing regulations or zoning regulations, very worried about what the what the impacts will be on local wildlife.”

Rules that slow down public works also slow housing construction.

“That's why prices are up on the main… Today, it's apparent to absolutely everyone, I think that government just doesn't work well. So if you want government to work well, which progressives should want and do want, they need to look at the actual machinery of how it works.”

Bottom line: Avoid letting reviews and protests go on for years.

Dunkelman says government should still “consider environmental impacts or noise or inconvenience or what property the government would have to take… But in the end, someone needs to be able to make a decision.”

“Every American has some interest in preserving what they themselves have, even as they want the country to thrive. And you just can't have a system where everyone has a veto.”

There’s a lot in this argument, and no doubt a lot of pushback. I expect we will have more discussion of it.