The United States is one of the wealthiest countries in human history, yet for tens of millions of its people, everyday life is defined by scarcity. Affordable housing and childcare are in short supply. Healthy, inexpensive food is difficult to find in some areas, while in others medical care is lacking.
Amy E. Lerman directs UC Berkeley’s policy-focused Possibility Lab, and she sees a challenge: People often assume that scarcity is an inevitable condition of life, and that’s sometimes reflected in government policy. But Lerman is committed to the idea that, even in a time of economic insecurity and political division, practical changes to policy and politics could help unleash the abundance that is possible in California and the nation.
Those ideas and values are at the heart of the Abundance Accelerator, the lab’s rapidly growing two-year-old initiative that is exploring how policy can expand supplies of essential goods and services, from housing and transportation to childcare, health care and eldercare. In recent months, the initiative has recorded remarkable progress, issuing new reports and resources, holding high-powered events and building out a robust network of allies. Now California Gov. Gavin Newsom seems to have embraced the abundance agenda — and its sometimes surprising political orientation.