Interview
Why We Can't Build Anything Any More – And How To Fix It | Sam Bowman, editor of Works in Progress
- The UK economy is projected to face persistent stagnation if unresolved limitations in housing construction, transit infrastructure, and energy supply cause birth rates to fall, exacerbate climate change, and worsen obesity outcomes, with industrial electricity prices in the UK having already more than doubled in real terms between 2003 and 2021, contributing to up to a 15% drop in energy-intensive manufacturing output in Europe over three years.
- Productivity gains are anticipated if building constraints are lifted, potentially yielding an average wage uplift of approximately $16,000 per capita annually in markets similar to New York and San Francisco, whereas current housing and lab space limitations are expected to stifle scientific breakthroughs by forcing research into risk-averse strategies.
- Over the next five to ten years, a continued reliance on wind and solar instead of nuclear energy is expected to result in higher electricity prices compared to a strategy focused on driving down nuclear costs, unless regulatory hurdles are removed to allow scalable construction similar to South Korea's efficiency.
- Mid-tier English cities like Birmingham are forecast to continue struggling with time-consuming commutes and missed agglomeration benefits without significant infrastructure investment, while regional inequality and housing constraints may be driving political polarization, though confirmation against recent US election data is pending.
- Policy proposals such as "Street Votes" could unlock significant value by converting veto rights into tradable assets, potentially allowing residents to capture hundreds of thousands or millions in property value uplifts, while the "Estate Regeneration" model in London has already demonstrated a 93% approval rate for public housing redevelopment when residents control the process.
- Political opposition to major infrastructure projects, including nuclear plants and runways, may be significantly reduced through "benefit sharing" mechanisms that provide local residents with discounted energy or direct benefits, and retaining business property tax revenue locally is predicted to incentivize councils to approve developments like prisons and data centers.
- New institutions like ARIA are expected to outperform existing bodies like UKRI in securing high-risk, high-reward outcomes by bypassing bureaucratic inertia, while architectural shifts toward aesthetically "agreeable" designs could further reduce NIMBY opposition to new housing.
- Nuclear power plants for data centers could potentially begin construction within a matter of years under a separate regulatory regime to meet high-uptime demands, and the "Progress Studies" movement is expected to shift focus toward pragmatic, near-term policy reforms such as housing deregulation.
- GLP-1 agonists like Semaglutide are expected to become widely accepted as a standard solution for obesity, potentially reversing the 40-year trend of rising rates in the US, with potential additional benefits for alcohol dependence, dementia prevention, and life extension pending further independent verification.