A Q&A with Abundance New York founders Ryder Kessler and Catherine Vaughan on housing, infrastructure, clean energy, and the politics of abundance.

 

New Yorkers are hungry for change. Skyrocketing costs of living, increasingly blatant corruption, and growing alienation from federal institutions have shaken many of the assumptions that have long underpinned democratic governance in the United States. At the same time, with no clear leadership or cohesive policy platform, many on the American political left are searching for new answers to address society’s mounting challenges.

One such answer is the “Abundance” movement. Popularized by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson in their 2025 book Abundance, the movement argues that solving today’s crises requires a surgical reimagining of many of the rules and regulations that stand in the way of building more housing, infrastructure, and clean energy projects. Abundance offers a refreshingly optimistic vision of the future of American life – defined by affordable housing, modernized infrastructure, clean energy, and technological innovation – at a time when the political landscape is dominated by rising right-wing authoritarianism and liberal pessimism.

Abundance New York is working to bring the Abundance agenda to New York City. I interviewed the group’s founders, Ryder Kessler and Catherine Vaughan, about why they launched the organization and why they think the Abundance agenda could reshape the city. 

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What led you to start Abundance New York? When you talk about ‘abundance,’ what does that mean to you, and how are you putting that vision into practice in New York City?

Ryder: I’m a lifelong New Yorker who started working in politics after 2016. I also joined my Community Board, which was radicalizing: self-proclaimed progressives opposed the housing, streetscape, and resiliency infrastructure that would actually advance affordability, equity, and sustainability. Beyond hurting New York, Democrats’ failure to solve problems undermines the party—and democracy. I ran for Assembly in 2022 against a 30-year NIMBY incumbent on an Abundance Agenda (before the term existed). Though I lost, it was clear that there was a constituency of New Yorkers who wanted the city and state to build more—from skyscrapers to subway lines to solar farms. Abundance energy was widespread but siloed in issue-specific groups. Catherine and I realized that to build more power for this constituency, we needed to organize under a big tent.

Catherine: Like Ryder, I jumped into politics in 2016, starting an organization called Flippable, which identified competitive state legislative districts in purple states and plugged donors and volunteers into Democratic candidates’ campaigns. (We later merged with Swing Left, which targets high-impact races up and down the ballot). So for years I’ve been preaching the gospel of state and local politics, helping people understand just how powerful their local representatives are and encouraging them to spend their time and money strategically toward maximizing Democratic power.

Along the way, I realized that, to win durable majorities, Democrats needed to focus as much on policy as they did on electoral tactics. And while I’d focused primarily on electoral efforts to win power in purple states, blue-state Democrats needed to use their power to make their states and cities more affordable, livable, and vibrant. I was excited to use what I’d learned building and leading political organizations—but with a crisper focus on a policy agenda that could pave the way both for New York and for a political party that had lost its way.

 NYC’s comprehensive zoning reform, City of Yes, is projected to enable the creation of ~80,000 new housing units over the next 15 years. But recent estimates suggest the City will need to build ~500,000 units over the next decade to adequately address the housing crisis. What are the biggest opportunities for NYC to build on the momentum of City of Yes and close the gap in housing production?

Catherine: We’ve already seen rezonings resulting from the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity zoning text amendments. The Midtown South Mixed Use plan, for example, takes advantage of provisions that eliminate parking minimums, facilitate office-to-residential conversions, and upzone transit-rich neighborhoods; it also makes use of the lifted floor area ratio (FAR) cap passed by the state in 2024.

Still, it will be hard to get to 500,000 units one rezoning at a time. We should see COYHO as a first step in a decade-long push to build more housing in New York City and state. From upzoning all of Manhattan to allowing multi-family development in the suburbs to setting development targets for every municipality, as the failed 2023 Housing Compact attempted to do, there are opportunities for even bolder action to build hundreds of thousands of units and make housing significantly more affordable.

Another major obstacle to closing NYC’s housing gap is simply how long it takes to get projects built. Lengthy procurement processes, environmental reviews, and permitting requirements can delay both public and private developments and critical infrastructure projects for years, sometimes even decades. Do you think the City can address this through process reform and streamlining, or are deeper overhauls of these systems needed?

Catherine: There are definitely opportunities to streamline processes without having to overhaul them completely. New Yorkers will have the opportunity to vote on some process improvements this fall, through a set of housing-related charter amendments that will appear on their ballots. Ballot questions 2 and 3 expedite the ULURP process for districts that have built little affordable housing and for modest rezonings; Amendment 4 would create an appeals board that could greenlight a rezoning that is rejected; and Amendment 5 would digitize the city map (since the current reliance on paper maps lengthens the permitting process).

These amendments could cut the ULURP timeline in half—from seven months to 90 days—while still maintaining the original intent of the procedure, to ensure local community input is considered in land use projects. That being said, the environmental review process, which precedes the ULURP, can take 1-3 years. A more substantive overhaul of New York State and city’s environmental laws (SEQRA and CEQR), similar to what California recently passed, could have much more significant impacts on housing production in the city.

With housing costs rising and private-sector job growth slowing, what should City leaders prioritize to ensure both job creation and wage growth that keeps pace with the cost of living?

Ryder: Rents are rising seven times faster than wages, and housing and childcare costs are eating up incomes where they’re not pushing folks out of New York all together. As we spur more business creation, the highest-impact steps we can take to help wages keep pace with costs is to lower costs. Housing abundance is the surest step to broad-based reductions of rent burdens; it’s why business constituencies from the Partnership for New York to Tech:NYC have made housing supply growth core to their business agendas. 

Also important is making New York hospitable to business. That includes innovation-friendly policy—but it also means making the city and state hospitable to talent. Safer, cleaner, more vibrant streets and high-quality transit are also key to creating a virtuous circle of a place folks want to live and work. That’s why business groups also support congestion pricing.   

NYC and NYS have some of the most ambitious clean energy goals in the country. With federal support for wind and solar projects no longer available, what specific steps should the City and State take to stay on track with their clean energy and decarbonization goals while ensuring energy remains affordable for residents?

Ryder: This is a really sticky situation given the federal government quashing funding and approvals for renewables projects. The state is also getting in the way of meeting the legally mandated emissions reductions in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, with the PSC denying NYPA the ability to build a major transmission line. Abundant clean energy is how we’ll get emissions and costs down, so we need to be pulling out all the stops to permit new projects while supporting innovative approaches from rooftop solar to new nuclear power. At the same time, we can keep driving down emissions through reducing vehicle miles traveled and electrifying buildings. Simultaneously, we can’t forget resiliency infrastructure to address rising heat, rainfall, and sea levels.

You’ve argued that abundance isn’t just another point on the traditional left–right political spectrum, but rather its own axis. Why do you see it that way, and do you think an abundance agenda could help play a role in reviving progressive policymaking at the federal level, particularly looking ahead to the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election?

Ryder: New York has two big centers of political power: the center-left establishment (e.g. Democratic Clubs, Community Boards) and the organized left (e.g. the Working Families Party, Democratic Socialists of America). NIMBYism has been endemic left, right, and center. The center-left has a strong preservationist instinct, with many of its institutions arising in response to Robert Moses. The left has been focused on demand-side support (e.g. rental subsidies) and state-provided supply (e.g. public housing). We know Abundance is a new axis because the strongest voices for increased focus on outcomes and increased supply—from both the public and private sectors—are found across the existing spectrum, as are the loudest opponents.

Catherine: Thinking ahead to the midterms and 2028, I am of two minds on how the abundance agenda could help progressives. On the one hand, I think we need to continue message testing abundance as a campaign message. It’s not clear right now that it is always a winner, electorally—though that may be because we (collectively, as a movement) are still figuring out the best way to message what abundance is to a mass audience. On the other hand, I think Democrats need to campaign on tangible results delivered to constituents—so enacting the abundance agenda locally, in states and cities controlled by Democrats—strengthens the national brand, and electoral prospects in 2026 and 2028.

While we don’t believe that abundance is a point on the left-to-right political spectrum, it is often positioned that way in the national discourse. There have been a number of articles and polls, for example, comparing the effectiveness of abundance vs. populist campaign messaging. This polling has generally shown populist messages to be more popular—which indicates that the abundance movement has more work to do on the messaging front, but also highlights the opportunity to combine abundance policies with populist messaging. This feels like a promising avenue for progressives running in the midterms and in 2028. And connecting the local and federal levels, it can only help the national brand for blue-state and blue-city Democrats to enact the abundance agenda and campaign on the tangible results they have delivered.

Getting back to local politics, an August 2025 Siena College poll shows Zohran Mamdani leading in the NYC mayoral race with 44% support, compared with 25% for his closest opponent, former Governor Andrew Cuomo. Despite his focus on affordability, Mamdani’s signature proposals – rent freezes, free buses, and publicly owned grocery stores – seem more closely aligned with the politics of left-wing populism than with abundance principles. What would you hope to see from a potential Mamdani administration, and how might an abundance agenda fit into his governing style and policy priorities?

Ryder: We appreciate that Assemblyman Mamdani is focused on the same issues we are—housing, transit, and costs generally. Of course, we don’t agree that freezing or zeroing prices is the best approach; rent freezes especially have true negative externalities for housing. However, we’re confident that a Mayor Mamdani would want to pull all the levers available to realize his goals. For example, he said the issue he’s changed his mind about most is the role market-rate housing development plays in addressing the affordability crisis. Mamdani has the power to weave abundance into populist leadership—unleashing public and private sector power, and focusing on demand and supply-side solutions, to transform the city to the benefit of all New Yorkers. We’ll be working to encourage the next mayor to embrace abundance whoever wins in November.

Catherine: Ultimately, an abundance agenda is an affordability agenda—so I agree that, while Mamdani’s emphasis has been on demand-side solutions, he could turbocharge his affordability agenda by marrying them with abundance-oriented, supply-side policies. We see a lot of potential on the streetscape, as well—to achieve his promise of “fast, free buses,” Mamdani has to tackle not only eliminating fares but redesigning streets and traffic flows, so that New York’s buses move faster than an abysmal 8 miles per hour. A transit rider himself, he’s shown his willingness to implement the Streets Plan, install busways and bike lanes, and make New York a friendlier place for pedestrians and transit commuters. Taking a step back, the primary results prove that New Yorkers want a break from a broken status quo—we do too.

Finally, are there any writers or thinkers you’re particularly enjoying or drawing inspiration from right now?

Ryder: For keeping up with New York politics and policy, local outlets like City & State, The City, and New York Focus can’t be beat. Ben Max’s podcast, Max Politics, is a must-listen. And of course our Substack is a one-stop shop for abundance news from New York.  More broadly, I recently enjoyed two articles about abundance being key to achieving progressive goals, contrary to some of the leftist criticism of the movement after the release of Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s book.

Catherine: Ryder mentioned a bunch of great local content—I’d add Michael Lange’s Substack, The Narrative Wars, which has really in-depth electoral coverage, and the cheekily named Not In My Backyard, a monthly political comedy roundtable (and podcast) at UCB. For more national abundance content, I’ve been enjoying Jerusalem Demsas’s new publication, The Argument, and Jen Pahlka’s Substack, Eating Policy.

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The author of this piece, Joey Smith, can be reached at jts512@nyu.edu