The Download: US house-building barriers, and a fusion energy facility tour

Housing is an election issue. But the US sucks at it.

Ahead of abortion access, ahead of immigration, and way ahead of climate change, US voters under 30 are most concerned about one issue: housing affordability. And it’s not just young voters who say soaring rents and eye-watering home sale prices are among their top worries. For the first time in recent memory, the cost of housing could be a major factor in the presidential election.  

It’s not hard to see why. From the beginning of the pandemic to early 2024, US home prices rose by 47%. In large swaths of the country, buying a home is no longer a possibility even for those with middle-class incomes. 

Permitting delays and strict zoning rules create huge obstacles to building more and faster—as do other widely recognized issues, like the political power of NIMBY activists across the country and an ongoing shortage of skilled workers. But there is also another, less talked-about problem: We’re not very efficient at building, and we seem somehow to be getting worse. Read the full story.

—David Rotman

Inside a fusion energy facility

—Casey Crownhart

On an overcast day in early October, I picked up a rental car and drove to Devens, Massachusetts, to visit a hole in the ground.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems has raised over $2 billion in funding since it spun out of MIT in 2018, all in service of building the first commercial fusion reactor. The plan is to have it operating by 2026.