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The people who live in coastal urban cities tend to be a pretty liberal bunch. We*re leading the country on minimum wage laws, paid sick leave, climate change mitigation, and a host of other important issues. We care deeply about equality of opportunity, and we*re willing to invest our time and money to advance that effort*even if the people we help don*t always look like us or come from the same neighborhood, state, or even country. I*m proud to count myself among their number.
And then we turn to housing. Maybe it*s just because we*re doing great on so many other fronts, but when I look at our inability to solve the housing crisis in places like San Francisco, New York, and Washington, D.C., I*m left feeling nothing but depression and hopelessness. It*s all the more frustrating because unaffordable housing might be the most important economic problem facing residents of liberal U.S. cities, and we*re perfectly, comprehensively, and unmistakably blowing it.