Abundance Accelerator
Together with a growing network of partners, the Possibility Lab’s Abundance Accelerator initiative is leveraging applied research and community-building to promote government policies that expand California’s capacity to sustainably supply essential resources, goods, and services to its people.
Consortium Members
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Anna Powell
Childcare Expert
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Edward Helderop
Digital Connectivity Expert
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Carrie Hahnel
Education Expert
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Mireille Jacobson
Eldercare Expert
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Anibel Ferus-Comelo
Employment Expert
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Keith Taylor
Energy Expert
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Anastasia Telesetsky
Food Expert
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Leif Haase
Healthcare Expert
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Paavo Monkkonen
Housing Expert
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Mikaela Rabinowitz
Safety Expert
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Juan Matute
Transportation Expert
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Nicola Ulibarri
Water Expert
Mitigating Scarcity
Unlocking Abundance in California
Many of the intractable issues we face in California today, including those related to climate change, housing, and energy, are framed in terms of scarcity and how our resources, opportunities, and solutions are limited. Scarcity, however, is not necessarily inherent to these issues, but is often a product of how we allocate and distribute resources. By reimagining our systems and institutions, we can mitigate this scarcity and unlock abundance.
How do we build a future in which Californians no longer struggle to access fundamental resources like shelter, electricity, water, food, and care for children and elders?
In 2021, more than a quarter of Californians were living in or near poverty.
Government interventions over the past few decades designed to address these concerns have frequently relied upon demand-side programs, such as food stamps and housing vouchers. However, this approach does not address a crucial underlying issue: that there are simply not enough resources available in many communities that need them.
California, one of the wealthiest places on earth, has a scarcity problem. In 2022, approximately half of the U.S.’s unsheltered homeless population lived in California, due in large part to insufficient housing supply. As of 2020, nearly one million Californians were served by water systems out of compliance with state standards while climate change and drought increasingly threaten the state’s water supplies. Powering and heating homes is more costly in California than most other places in the U.S., costs that are particularly burdensome for low-income residents. And in a state that produces almost half of the country’s fruits and vegetables, 20 percent of Californians struggle with food insecurity. How are these basic human needs in such short supply in one of the richest places on earth?
The impacts of scarcity have led to calls from advocates and journalists for governments to reform policies with the specific aim of expanding supply. Proponents advocate for an “abundance agenda” that shifts the paradigm from zero-sum thinking toward abundance thinking, emphasizing the potential for innovation, collaboration, and technological progress to increase supply and thereby create abundance in society. The Abundance Accelerator initiative was created out of this growing recognition that more attention must be paid to the supply side of the economy and our collective capacity to sustainably produce an abundance of what we all need to live healthy lives.
Abundance Accelerator
Our Approach
Establishing an Abundance Policy Agenda for California
We are bringing researchers, practitioners, and policymakers together to collaboratively develop an evidence-based policy agenda to use the power of government to remove bottlenecks and enhance the supply of human essentials in California.
Leveraging Data to Improve Government Capacity
We are partnering with government agencies and leading complex data projects to ensure that California has the data and information it needs to best support its residents across the state’s diverse needs.
Incorporating Community Input into Decision-Making
We are supporting and testing pilot projects aimed at improving California’s capacity to rapidly build out housing and clean energy infrastructure while incorporating community input.
Communicating and Building Abundance
We are building a network of partners—including thought leaders, community organizations, researchers, and policy makers—to increase our understanding of critical issues and to develop a community of stakeholders organized around developing supply-side policy reforms in California.
Developing an Abundance Agenda for California
There are a vast array of potential policy interventions, at many different levels and sites of government, that align with an abundance framework. Our approach to moving from conceptual framework to policy agenda is to start with fundamental human needs. We believe every Californian should be able to readily access 12 human essentials.
12 Human Essentials
Operationalizing Supply-Side Policy Reforms
Often, when lawmakers craft policies they focus on the demand side of the economy—programs that direct more resources to the people that need them most.
Of course, sustaining and strengthening demand-side programs that redistribute resources is critically important. We propose, however, that building a future where far fewer Californians struggle to access the essentials will also require California to develop and implement reforms targeting the supply-side of the economy.
Focusing on the supply-side of the economy is historically associated with deregulatory and anti-tax movements spearheaded by conservatives. However, we recognize that reforming the policies that govern and shape production is a much more nuanced project, which is associated with both expansion and curtailment of government.
Attending the supply side is also necessary for achieving core progressive goals in California, including greater economic equality and environmental sustainability. Indeed, we hope to convince Californians from across the political spectrum of the value of an abundance policy agenda
The idea of the abundance agenda asks policymakers to consider: What is the root of the problem causing this scarcity, and what can the government and other actors do to mitigate that scarcity?
The framework of abundance we are seeking to operationalize through our work does not make assumptions about the origins of scarcities, nor does it prescribe a one-size-fits-all approach to addressing those scarcities.
For some problems, like climate change, the evidence suggests that more government intervention is needed to subsidize deployment of clean energy and make public investments in the technological innovation needed to wean our economy off of fossil fuels. When it comes to housing, however, the evidence suggests that governments—particularly at the local level—are hindering the development of critically needed housing supply through zoning and discretionary review processes. Therefore, with a lighter regulatory touch, governments could facilitate more essential housing construction.
As we conceive it, the abundance agenda also recognizes the vital role that the government plays in basically every essential sector of the economy.
Abundance Accelerator