Time for Trump to go all in on Freedom Cities for the midterms

Wonks won’t build the housing we need — but a brash former real estate mogul just might

During the doldrums of the early 2024 Republican primary, Donald Trump released a bunch of oddly specific policy proposals. One of them was to charter ten new “Freedom Cities” on federal land:

We’ve not heard much about this proposal since it was first made in March 2023. But with affordability showing no signs of going away as an issue, it’s time for the White House to dust off this bold Abundance-pilled vision to build the housing the country desperately needs. (And yes, this was the proposal that was paired with talk of flying cars.)

Many liberals this year have latched on to abundance as an organizing principle, bemoaning the failures of the left to build in the cities and states it controls. This criticism, which I heartily agree with, does have a certain honest quality of telling on yourself. Temperamentally, liberalism has hewed towards legalism and consensus. Unlike Trump, they’re not the people you expect to see taking bold action or big risks. At its core, this personality dif…