What Comes Next

This argument doesn’t yet have an institutional home, and it doesn’t need to invent one from scratch. The pieces already exist, built by others, for other purposes. What’s missing is the introduction.

Convening

The transportation abundance conversation and the state-capacity conversation are happening in adjacent rooms that haven’t been formally introduced. Bringing them into the same room — at conferences, in working sessions, through recurring practitioner check-ins — is the lowest-cost, highest-leverage step available right now.

  • In progress: Abundance 2026 conference session (Tomer/Bain fireside chat); YIMBYtown flash talk; monthly Transportation Abundance check-ins (CPE)

  • Known, not started: Formal introduction between abundance-movement and state-capacity-movement institutions; MIT Vision Day-style cross-institutional session

  • Gap to identify: A venue or mechanism specifically for reaching suburban/rural stakeholders — nothing currently in motion addresses that objection at all

Thought Leadership

The argument needs to keep being made, in the distinct vocabularies of the audiences who need to hear it: the abundance movement’s language of scarcity and delivery, the state-capacity movement’s language of feedback loops and institutional design, and the language of the advocates and practitioners already living inside these systems.

  • In progress: Niskanen/Hypertext piece (under review); For Seattle op-ed (in edit)

  • Known, not started: A version of the argument aimed at the abundance-general (Klein/Thompson) audience specifically, separate from the state-capacity-framed Niskanen piece; direct engagement pieces responding to Zipper and to the AV/micromobility objections specifically

  • Gap to identify: Nothing yet exists that makes the “Americans don’t want these outcomes” case beyond the Seattle-specific version — a more general/national version of that argument is still unwritten

Research Partnership

The empirical case is stronger with more hands on it — quantifying the gap between project-level delivery and system-level outcomes, extending the 50-state accountability survey, testing the measure/diagnose/test/learn cycle against real jurisdictions. This is work built for co-authorship, not solo production.

  • In progress: Ongoing collaboration with Shill/Levine (Iowa Law Review piece already exists and is doing real work here)

  • Known, not started: Co-authored Brookings piece (Tomer/Swedberg interest expressed, not yet formalized); original analysis quantifying project-level vs. system-level accessibility divergence

  • Gap to identify: No current partner is working on the RHNA-style mechanism-design detail itself — the actual institutional architecture doesn’t have an owner yet

Institutional Adoption

Eventually, the argument has to leave the page. A research institution hosting the work, a funder resourcing it, a jurisdiction piloting it — these are the steps that turn a diagnosis into a movement.

  • In progress: Nothing yet — this bucket is honestly still empty of live work

  • Known, not started: Fellowship pursuit (SPUR/Sightline); funder relationship (Arnold Ventures’ RFP is the identified opening)

  • Gap to identify: No pilot jurisdiction has been identified or approached at all; this is the least developed bucket by a wide margin