Director @yimbyalliance. Also bsky: https://xitter.cf/t.co/JU59hIdzV7. Housing: https://xitter.cf/t.co/E7dafl5Evt
London, England
Joined March 2009
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These slides from the excellent @lugaricano are a must read for any European policymaker who seriously wants their country to thrive as AI advances.
We urgently need to ensure that our economy is ready to take advantage of AI or we will be left behind. In a rapidly changing and uncertain world, the only way to ensure security is to ensure that we have the means to pay for it.
imfs-frankfurt.de/fileadmin/…
I would add one point: if AI develops to a point where it is a ‘gross substitute’ for human labour (elasticity of substitution > 1), the human labour share of GDP may shrink. At that point there is no reason to assume that GDPs per capita in developed countries will cluster as they have. Being left behind could mean being left very far behind indeed.
@lugaricano argues:
If AI raises global interest rates by boosting productivity, but Europe fails to adopt AI, Europe imports higher r without higher g -- a path to fiscal crisis.
John Myers retweeted
A must-watch video for YIMBYs!
How do we get people to say yes to more housing?
📹👇 Watch our NEW VIDEO on why one small corner of London shows that giving power to local people can actually lead to MORE homes.
Interesting discussion of how devolution in China has enabled strong local industrial growth strategies. Quite a compelling example for opponents of devolution to have to answer: worksinprogress.co/issue/chi…
John Myers retweeted
When a block of flats in Singapore gets old, its owners can vote to sell the whole building to a developer, who rebuilds it with more homes on the same site.
🚨TODAY: A new article on how Singapore lets flat owners VOTE to build more homes.
It's called 'en bloc' 🧵
ALT Before and after aerial views of the same site in Singapore, from Google Earth. Left, labelled Before 2009: the site of an older apartment estate, shaded and outlined in green, among low-rise houses and trees. Right, labelled After 2025: seven tall, curving residential towers now stand on the same land. Headline: How Singapore lets flat owners vote to build more homes. Above it: Before and after an en bloc vote. Below, three figures: 618 flats before, 1,715 homes after, and +1,097 more homes. Imagery: Google Earth, Maxar Technologies, Data SIO, NOAA, U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO, Landsat / Copernicus. Sources: Business Times, 29 Jun 2007; CapitaLand, 22 Jun 2015. YIMBY Alliance logo.
John Myers retweeted
Our proposals for the next wave of devolution on the front page of today’s @yorkshirepost 👇
(Link below)
From 2028, Britain will have 18 mayoral authorities but mayors still lack key powers for building public infrastructure like trams & roads.
🚨 Today @BritishProgress and @ThinkLabour publish our paper with @AnyaM8_, @1jamesHowat and @johnrmyers on the FOUR powers mayors need 🧵
John Myers retweeted
This is the most compelling pro-growth case for devolution I've come across so far. Excellent work from @KaneEmerson, @AnyaM8_, @1jamesHowat & @johnrmyers
Make sure you give it a read 👇
From 2028, Britain will have 18 mayoral authorities but mayors still lack key powers for building public infrastructure like trams & roads.
🚨 Today @BritishProgress and @ThinkLabour publish our paper with @AnyaM8_, @1jamesHowat and @johnrmyers on the FOUR powers mayors need 🧵
John Myers retweeted
From 2028, Britain will have 18 mayoral authorities but mayors still lack key powers for building public infrastructure like trams & roads.
🚨 Today @BritishProgress and @ThinkLabour publish our paper with @AnyaM8_, @1jamesHowat and @johnrmyers on the FOUR powers mayors need 🧵
John Myers retweeted
NEW: Chair of the London Assembly’s Planning and Regeneration Committee @JSmallEdwards calls for a pattern book to unlock upward extensions across London 🏘️📈
Upward extensions could have HUGE POTENTIAL 🏙️
@JSmallEdwards’ letter outlines that they could deliver from 140k-500k NEW HOMES in London alone.
John Myers retweeted
According to our @BritishProgress calculator, the PM's triple lock reform will save £20 billion *a year* by 2040 - and it rises substantially after that.
The basic idea is the same as what my colleagues @matthewgstubbs and @Ezra_Cohen_ proposed for @BritishProgress last year. Keep an inflation rise but assess earnings growth over a longer period. Please to see that the government is taking it on!
The PM is expected to signal an end to the triple lock today. But what are the options for reform, and how much money do they save?
@BritishProgress (namely, @matthewgstubbs) has made a tool to compare the different ideas on the table.
For instance, you can compare @timleunig's '5-year triple lock' with @resfoundation's 'smoothed triple lock' proposal (originally proposed by @TorstenBell and @lauracgardiner) to see that they each would save around £60bn by 2047, and deliver an annual state pension of around £27k (nominal).
As you can see, the amount of money that can be saved – particularly over a longer time-horizon, is enormous.
John Myers retweeted
There is no good reason for mosquitoes to exist in wealthy countries today.
New technologies can get rid of the mosquito species that cause diseases like dengue, yellow fever, and malaria; and others can prevent them from carrying those diseases.
worksinprogress.co/issue/mos…
So why do mosquitoes still exist?
In a new article for Works in Progress, Maya Rosen explains how state incapacity and risk aversion led to over a decade of delays and billions of unnecessary bites in the United States.
Oxitec, for example, engineered an Aedes aegypti mosquito in such a way that its female offspring would die before adulthood. Through sustained releases, they showed they could reduce local mosquito populations by 80% or more, in field trials.
They sought approval from the USDA in 2010, which then passed it to the FDA, which passed it to the EPA. In 2020, the EPA allowed them to conduct limited field trials in the Florida Keys. Two years ago, their experimental permit expired, and they still need another review before it can be used routinely. Their proposed field trial in California was withdrawn after public opposition.
Another company, MosquitoMate, developed a technique involving Wolbachia, which also suppresses local mosquitoes. They then spent over fifteen years working through the system before finally receiving commercial registration nationwide in 2024.
It seems that, sometimes, the barrier to getting rid of diseases isn’t technology at all. It’s policy and political will.
New products shouldn’t get stuck in regulatory review for so long, especially if the delays are about basic questions like which agency has oversight over the product, rather than testing for safety.
Though some of those uncertainties were being addressed, the broader changes haven’t materialized. After Biden’s 2022 executive order, the agencies planned to update how their coordinated framework was implemented. But Trump rescinded the order last year.
Meanwhile, the EPA unit that reviews new mosquito control products is still a small office backlogged in reviewing a wide range of products.
Mosquitoes are a policy choice. We can get rid of them. Will we choose to?
worksinprogress.co/issue/mos…
John Myers retweeted
The PM is expected to signal an end to the triple lock today. But what are the options for reform, and how much money do they save?
@BritishProgress (namely, @matthewgstubbs) has made a tool to compare the different ideas on the table.
For instance, you can compare @timleunig's '5-year triple lock' with @resfoundation's 'smoothed triple lock' proposal (originally proposed by @TorstenBell and @lauracgardiner) to see that they each would save around £60bn by 2047, and deliver an annual state pension of around £27k (nominal).
As you can see, the amount of money that can be saved – particularly over a longer time-horizon, is enormous.
John Myers retweeted
1/4 Everyone agrees that the Fingleton Review needs to be implemented to get our nuclear costs down. Yet progress towards implementing these recommendations is stalling – more and more of them are off track.
John Myers retweeted
Every year @BritishProgress asks Britain's top economists and policy researchers what the UK should do to increase growth.
🚨 As covered exclusively for @thetimes this morning, the 2026 growth survey results are now in! 🚨
This was our biggest survey yet with over 100 responses.
📉 The bad news: Britain's public finances, with inflation hit by external shocks, are in a bad state.
📈 The good news: the UK is not without options. There is much that can be done on the supply side reforms, & smarter fiscal policy can raise revenue while supporting growth.
Here are the 12 most interesting results 👇
*1. Where should the government prioritise spending political capital?*
We asked "In what areas should the Government invest more (or less) political capital to achieve growth?"
NB this was explicitly not a question about spending – that's the next one.
The key neglected points in the discussion of this clown show are:
1. It was no-one’s job or skillset to ensure it got delivered on time and on budget
2. No one will lose their job for failing to ensure that
3. The contractor was probably on a contract that just let them charge more for unexpected underground features driving higher costs
John Myers retweeted
I am increasingly frustrated about the state of conversation about AI in the UK. It feels like we are in never ending cycles of deluded thinking. Under current trends, Britain will be defenceless against the transformative effects of AI and have no leverage over development at the frontier.
We are the most exposed economy to AI in the world. We have very little data centre capacity and few credible plans to expand – and our high energy costs mean we would struggle to even if we tried.
I am publishing a paper today on what the UK should do to build that leverage, let the economy capture value from AI and prepare the state to adapt, however AI develops.
The three strategies are as follows:
1. Build the infrastructure that gives us leverage. Fix the grid, fix planning, make Britain a place frontier AI can run.
2. Let the economy capture the value of AI. Reform the regulatory, labour and talent barriers that stop British firms adopting AI.
3. Build a state that can adapt to a changing world. Build a tax base that survives the labour market changing, public services that use AI to deliver better, and capacity to weather the upcoming geopolitical storms.
Two years ago, we published a similar report on AI - many recommendations of which ended up in the action plan. I remember feeling hopeful, but sadly the fundamental problems facing the country on AI have not shifted. I truly hope that this week of momentum culminates in action. There’s still a narrow path for the UK, but everyday that path is narrowing.
The original official target for HS2 to be open and carrying passengers between Euston and Birmingham was... December 2026.
Now currently scheduled for ‘2040-43’.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_S…
Just a gentle reminder that if your economy is not effectively attracting some of these annual $ trillions (and growing) as inward investment, your economy is failing to do its best to ensure the future security of its people. dwarkesh.com/p/dylan-patel-3
This is rather surprising because it appears to be opposite in direction to the findings of @ChrisALHilber’s excellent study on whether Help to Buy actually boosted housebuilding where homes where most needed. (Answer: not really.) I'm curious to know a few things:
1. Did it account for other possible scenarios that could have happened, including higher interest rates, which would have increased pressure on affordability? This is a very live question. We are already seeing rates going up. Many smart economists seem to think that the huge wave of AI-driven capex and related activity might drive rates up even further. The resulting defaults and decreases in house prices could massively increase the costs to the Government of such schemes.
2. We are already seeing an uptick in missed payments on some Help to Buy cohorts. Did it consider those and project them forwards?
3. Increased land values are not a net benefit to society unless they help raise welfare in some way. How does the study claim that they did so?
4. Did it account for the deadweight costs of raising the public funds that were used?
5. Have any real economists signed off on this study? Who?
telegraph.co.uk/money/proper…
