Jake Anbinder

Thrilled to announce that my book NIMBY NATION: The War on Growth That Created Our Housing Crisis and Remade American Politics, is under contract with Bloomsbury and slated for publication in fall 2027. Please spread the news to anyone and everyone!

Paul Ehrlich built his reputation on radical solutions to avoid what he believed was the planet’s imminent destruction, but there’s something about human ingenuity that the now-deceased scientist failed to understand, @JakeAnbinder argues: theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/…

One of those appearances, in case you were curious youtube.com/watch?v=6E5lUN…

"In its day, The Population Bomb was omnipresent....Ehrlich appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson at least 18 times, at a time when it was not unusual for a third of the country’s entire television audience to be watching." theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/…

@SamAdlerBell it's giving Professor Sam

If you (unlike me) can bear to look at my big face for a few minutes, I was on @amanpour with @NPRMichel last night: youtu.be/60vj7A3l_tA?si…

I wrote for @TheAtlantic on Paul Ehrlich, who died last week, and how "The Population Bomb" still looms over our politics. theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/…

@gllevine @TheAtlantic thanks Gabe!

Highly recommend @JakeAnbinder’s great piece in @TheAtlantic on Paul Ehrlich, which succinctly shows how scarcity fears drive baleful trends on left and right, while still showing why Ehrlich’s views seemed plausible. (Link below)

ICYMI I am in @TheAtlantic on how "The Population Bomb" still looms over our politics

@YAppelbaum thank you!

This whole essay wrestling with the dual dark legacies of Paul Ehrlich, from @JakeAnbinder, is worth your time: theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/…

"It is not, in fact, a law of nature that we can’t make the world of tomorrow better than the one we have now, and neither is the notion that the steps needed to get there are incompatible with broader civic values."

An underrecognized, yet persistent, lack of democratic accountability is shaping restrictions on housing development in communities around the country, @JakeAnbinder argues. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

@bobbibarn @andrewbstern @TheAtlantic thank you!

@JakeAnbinder @andrewbstern @TheAtlantic Really enjoyed- thanks for writing!

I am in @TheAtlantic today on the NYC Council's effort to kill the city's upcoming housing referendum theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

While planning in the Robert Moses era was famously unaccountable, we overlook the extent to which the system that replaced it now suffers from strikingly similar problems theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

In NYC voters will soon consider a series of ballot questions aimed at relieving their dire housing shortage—despite their City Council’s best efforts to deny them a voice, @JakeAnbinder, Klarman Fellow in @CornellHistory, writes in @TheAtlantic theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

Now updated to reflect the (good!) outcome of today's Board of Elections meeting, my piece on the (still worrisome!) illiberal turn of NYC's NIMBYs theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

update to update: not entirely unanimously x.com/JCColtin/statu…

UPDATE: Board votes unanimously to keep the questions on the ballot!

@nicholas_bagley thank you!

This is a must-read from an excellent historian.

Here is the livestream: vote.nyc/page/commissio…

The NYC Board of Elections is meeting this afternoon to decide whether to block the city's housing referendum. Read my article on it from this morning: theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

An underrecognized, yet persistent, lack of democratic accountability is shaping restrictions on housing development in communities around the country, @JakeAnbinder argues. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…