Jul 29, 2025 politics government infrastructure seattle
State Capacity and Eight Parking Spaces
Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s book, Abundance, makes a compelling case that American government has systematically eroded its own capacity to build things. Through decades of well-intentioned regulations, environmental reviews, and bureaucratic processes, we’ve created a system that prioritizes blocking bad projects over enabling good ones. The result is a country that can’t build high-speed rail, can’t streamline housing development, and struggles with even basic infrastructure improvements.
It’s a compelling argument about mega-projects and national priorities. But you don’t need to look at California’s failed high-speed rail or New York City’s decades-long 2nd Avenue Subway project to see this dynamic in action. Sometimes the failure of state capacity is perfectly illustrated by something much smaller: eight parking spaces.
A modest proposal
In March 2022, Seattle City Light announced plans for a small EV charging station in West Seattle’s Morgan Junction. The project was refreshingly straightforward: convert a tiny city-owned lot into eight EV charging spaces. Construction would begin in Q4 2022 and take approximately three months. The charging station would be operational by March 2023.
That was three years ago.
Today, in July 2025, that lot remains empty. No charging stations, no construction, no progress. Just a small patch of dirt and weeds that perfectly encapsulates everything Klein and Thompson argue about American governance: our inability to execute even the most basic infrastructure projects.
The bureaucratic gauntlet
What happened? Everything and nothing. The project didn’t fail due to lack of funding, community opposition, or technical impossibility. It failed because it had to navigate a maze of bureaucratic processes that would be comical if they weren’t so predictable.
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