Sam Bowman on what’s holding back progress (and how to fix it)

Young people across the Western world are struggling to start their lives. In most cases, it's not for lack of ambition, but because they can't find a place to live. The consequences show up anywhere from sluggish economies to low birth rates. But there's a way to fix it.

In this episode, we talk with Sam Bowman, editor of Works in Progress, a magazine focused on high-leverage ideas to improve the world. We discuss why housing is the master key to some of the biggest challenges that Western societies are facing today.

We discuss:

• Why the biggest bottleneck to economic growth in rich countries isn't technology, but where people are allowed to live
• Where laws on housing come from and why we should change them
• Models that have actually worked: from Israel's resident-led densification to Madrid’s low-cost metro expansion
• Why aesthetics matter more than economists think when it comes to getting people to accept new housing
• What it would take for Western cities to grow the way Tokyo or the Pearl River Delta did, and what that could mean for growth, families and optimism

This special episode was recorded live at the 2025 Progress Conference, hosted by our friends at Roots of Progress. We’re grateful to them for bringing together so many thinkers reimagining how humanity can keep moving forward—and for making conversations like this one possible!

Timestamps:

0:00 Cold open

0:38 Intro: Sam Bowman and Works in Progress

4:14 Why a magazine format instead of a think tank or Substack

10:13 When technology isn't the bottleneck to progress: housing, transport and energy

17:56 Why San Francisco thrives despite its dysfunction

24:19 Why industries develop in suboptimal places: the TSMC example

27:06 Why it's so hard to build: the history of zoning laws

36:12 Updates to regulation and policy: local decision-making models

43:56 Housing as a western-world problem that drives everything else

48:06 The role of aesthetics in getting people to accept new buildings

55:48 Works in Progress and the journey to appreciating aesthetics

58:55 Building movements to shift expectations about the future

1:05:44 What a successful future looks like

1:09:16 Italy, Spain and the birth rate crisis

1:11:37 Housing and tech growth aren't in competition

1:12:51 What DOGE got wrong about reforming government

1:20:29 Other hopeful examples: the Madrid Metro project

On the Existential Hope Podcast hosts Allison Duettmann and Beatrice Erkers from the Foresight Institute invite scientists, founders, and philosophers for in-depth conversations on positive, high-tech futures.

Full transcript, listed resources, and more: https://www.existentialhope.com/podcasts

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