Скачать или смотреть Why we’re not building enough homes, and the hidden costs of letting our cities stagnate

It's not that most people are actively scheming to prevent new housing. They just don’t want their neighbourhood to get worse. That’s what we explore with Sam Bowman, editor of Works in Progress, a magazine exploring new and underrated ideas to improve the world. In this clip from the Existential Hope Podcast, he unpacks why people oppose building more houses: fear of crime, noise, loss of nature, and, increasingly, the expectation that new buildings will be ugly.

We trace how 19th-century urbanisation and class covenants evolved into today’s zoning rules, and explore how a reasonable desire to protect local quality of life got frozen into “you may not build.” Then we ask: Can we make rules that preserve what people love (safety, beauty, kid-friendly streets) while allowing far more homes and clean infrastructure in the right places?

Watch the full episode here:    • Sam Bowman on what’s holding back progress...