From Hollywood to Housing: Rep. Laura Friedman’s Abundance Agenda

In this episode of Everybody Gets Pie, we sit down with Laura Friedman (D-CA-30), whose unique journey took her from producing Hollywood films to shaping housing, transit, and climate policy in Washington. We dive deep into her “abundance agenda,” exploring how streamlining federal approvals, cutting outdated red tape and rethinking land use can unlock affordable housing and smarter growth for communities.

Highlights include:

• How Laura’s background in storytelling and architecture led her into public service and housing reform.
• The bipartisan Cut Red Tape for Housing Act she introduced, which seeks to exempt infill affordable-housing projects from the burdensome National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process. 
• Why parking minimums, transit access and housing supply are deeply connected — and how California’s reforms show the way.
• The federal role in housing: From leveraging transportation and community-development dollars to setting national definitions of infill development.
• How communities can break through “not in my backyard” resistance by showing how new housing improves local economies, mobility, and quality of life.
• Insights into how environmental policy, trade, and local development interlock with the ability to live affordably and in the right place.

Whether you’re working on zoning, housing access, infrastructure, sustainability — or just trying to figure out how we build the spaces where we live — this episode shows how change at the local level connects to decisions made in D.C., and why giving everyone a slice of the pie starts with making the pie itself bigger.

Tune in for a smart, actionable conversation about building more homes, smarter cities, and a more abundant future.

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