By Jordan Meadows
Staff Writer
On Thursday evening, community members gathered in downtown Durham for a panel discussion hosted by the Carolina Forward Foundation, a non-profit policy organization focused on shaping North Carolina’s future. Titled “Abundance” the event brought together journalist and author Derek Thompson, Raleigh Mayor Janet Cowell, and Durham Mayor Leo Williams.
Carolina Forward founder Blair Reeves moderated the discussion, which explored how cities and states can embrace abundance in housing, infrastructure, and economic opportunity—not just in the Triangle, but across North Carolina and the United States.
At the heart of the conversation was a pressing question: “If we know what we need—affordable housing, clean energy, reliable transit—why is it still so hard to build?”
Derek Thompson, a staff writer at The Atlantic and co-author of Abundance with New York Times columnist Ezra Klein, painted a vivid picture of what a thriving future could look like.
“One theme of the book is that many cities and states struggle with something we call state capacity: the ability of the state, the government, to accomplish its goals,” he told Axios. “A theme of recent efforts to build light rail in the Triangle is that it just takes so damn long, and costs so much damn money, to get projects off the ground.”
The begrudgingly accepted process has got in the way of the desired outcomes, so Thompson argues. Delays and costs keep compounding until the original need is never created.
“Delay is death for complex construction projects: New objections always emerge, motivations flag, costs spiral,” he added. “This is not a North Carolina problem. It’s a truly national problem. The U.S. used to be able to start and complete transit projects in a matter of years. These days it can take decades just to conclude that nothing can be built.”
Thompson highlighted a recent example of swift action: the collapse of a section of I-95 in Philadelphia, a critical artery for 160,000 vehicles daily. Despite early estimates that repairs would take months, less than two weeks later, six new temporary lanes were opened.
“If it requires an emergency declaration to build ships, and people love you for it, maybe we should treat more of our problems as emergencies,” Thompson said. “I hypothesize that there are fallen bridges around us, we just refuse to see them as fallen. Homelessness is that bridge; housing scarcity is that bridge; refusing to build clean energy is that bridge. We live in a world of fallen bridges.”
Durham Mayor Leo Williams brought the conversation to ground level with a sharp critique of the city’s current process and pace. A key topic: Durham’s housing and construction needs.
“Durham now has one of the smallest convention centers in the state of North Carolina. We’ve lost $78 million in denied contracts. We follow the Crisis Intervention Program (CIP), which is a capital current project. We might get it in 30 years,” Mayor Williams said.
The mayor’s frustration with public engagement processes was palpable. “Everyone in the majority wants it but they’re afraid to come because they don’t want to get in the fight at city hall,” he said, referring to prolonged public comment periods where often only opponents of development show up.
“We can reimagine downtown. But we can’t do it with an organization and entity of folks who are worried about getting things done, or we can get yelled at through community engagement and die in the process,” Williams said.
His comments highlighted a common challenge for city leaders: finding the balance between inclusive community input and ambitious goals like clean energy, while still moving forward with decisive action and getting real buildings constructed and opened that the city needs.
Raleigh Mayor Janet Cowell emphasized the importance of cities as the focal point for both progress and human connection. Cowell pointed out four focus areas for her administration: housing, public safety, transportation, and quality of life. The city is facing a housing shortfall of 37,000 units, a number she sees as a challenge and a call to action.
“One of the things we all agreed on at our workshop is that we need mixed-income, mixed-use housing ... so that we can continue to make progress to house people in the city,” Cowell said. She also noted that Raleigh’s city council had already approved around 3,000 new housing units across 13 projects in just her first 100 days—five of those with affordable housing elements.
Cowell also stressed the need to increase pay and retention for public safety workers: “This council is focused on housing, on public safety, on transportation, and that quality of life and resilience that we all need,” she said.
The event also featured participation from local schools and organizations, including members of the Heritage Collegiate Leadership Academy in Raleigh, community charity group Jewish for Good, and students from Duke, UNC, NC State, and Wake Tech—signaling broad interest across generations and backgrounds in how abundance might be realized in the Triangle.
In fact, when questioned about which cities were doing the best jobs in terms of building and keeping up with growth, Thompson mentioned Durham, Raleigh, and Austin, Texas.
From fast-track infrastructure to housing reform and redefining how we respond to crises, the panelists called for a shift in both mindset and process. The consensus was clear: the Triangle is ready to build a future of abundance—but only if it’s willing to confront the systems, fears, and bureaucratic inertia that currently stand in the way. As Derek Thompson noted,“We live in a world of fallen bridges.” The question left hanging in the room: how soon—and how boldly—will we begin to rebuild them?
