I strongly suspect that Ezra Klein has chosen his simplistic focus on NIMBYism because he is eager to have a reason to bash the “left” who have bashed him and he thinks NIMBYism is the fault of hypocritical lefties. I live a suburb of a major southern city and NIMBYism is a big factor here. This is an area that until this year has always voted Republican. They hate change that brings lower income people, especially minorities, into their areas so they push back hard against affordable housing projects and density.

Powerful mainstream media clearly share this anti-lefty bias so they have eagerly bought into Klein’s simplistic explanation of why we have an affordable housing crisis. Blaming the left not only satisfies their anti-lefty bias, which became blatantly obvious with their freak out over Mamdani, but is also a perfect way to strengthen their obsession with faux balance.