America has a housing affordability crisis. Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s Abundance , Yoni Appelbaum’s Stuck , and Mark Dunkelman’s Why Nothing Works argue to varying degrees that land-use restrictions, mostly at the local level, are what created this problem and that easing them will solve it. Build more housing and it will become more affordable. I don’t disagree that these defensible goals often act a smokescreen for indefensible goals—such as the exclusion of lower-income people, or the