Build, Baby, Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing Regulation is the type of book academia needs more of—one that emphasizes pedagogy over original research in an effort to provide digestible information for the non-expert. It is the second graphic novel written by economist Bryan Caplan, whose first foray into educational comics came with his 2019 publication of Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration.

The premise of Build, Baby, Build is straightforward: government regulation is the cause of housing scarcity, and deregulation is the cure. Much of the book focuses on the extreme example of San Francisco, where the median home price in 1982 was only $125,000 but today is nearing $1.5 million. This extraordinary increase in housing costs, Caplan explains, is due to the government “manufacturing scarcity” through a litany of costly regulations, from zoning restrictions to bureaucratic delays and the denial of city services.

Caplan writes in the form of a Socratic dialogue, at times playing the role of Socrates himself and other times acting as the student while a guest scholar steps in as the teacher on their topic of expertise. By adapting this into a graphic novel, Caplan and his illustrator Ady Branzei are able to break the monotony of the dialogue with art and incorporate visual metaphors to convey information more efficiently. The result is that a reader with no prior knowledge of the subject can, in a single sitting, acquire a comparable understanding of the economics of housing as somebody who slogs through several tedious academic tomes.

One of the central themes of the book is that housing deregulation is a “panacea policy.” By removing artificial barriers to construction, Caplan argues, the cost of housing will come down, which will in turn provide many extended benefits for society. Greater social mobility, a cleaner environment, and lower rates of homelessness are but a few of the positive side effects that would follow the deregulation of the housing market. With reference to Anne Case and Angus Deaton’s book Deaths of Despair (Princeton University Press, 2020), Caplan even makes the case that by creating more construction jobs for working-class men, “deregulation will actually save lives” (p. 97).

Near the end of the book, Caplan turns from economics to politics, introducing the concept of “consilience” to show how the various benefits of deregulation would accomplish policy goals championed by each side of the political spectrum. Want to improve the environment? Then you should support housing deregulation. Worried about declining fertility rates? Then you should also support housing deregulation. Caplan shows how deregulation in the housing market fits the values of every major political philosophy, from the libertarianism of Robert Nozick to the egalitarianism of John Rawls.

Caplan brings together a wide body of research to support his arguments. For readers who wish to explore the topic further, the author and illustrator weave source citations into both the narrative and artwork. “Why, look! It’s the economic psychologists Mario Rizzo and Glen Whitman, authors of Escaping Paternalism and the world’s experts on slippery slopes!” Caplan exclaims in one instance, while the two scholars race down a waterslide (p. 142). Of course, readers who want to reference the full citations can still find them at the end of the book.

Although Caplan makes a compelling case for housing deregulation, there are times when he seems to expect the reader to have prior knowledge of relatively esoteric issues. When discussing San Francisco’s anti-skyscraper regulations, for example, he adds that “2020’s Proposition E could easily knock things back to the no-growth ’90s” (p. 42), with no further explanation about what this local ballot initiative entailed. Incidentally, San Francisco had two Proposition E ballot initiatives in 2020—one in March that limited office-building development, and one in November that removed police-staffing requirements—but it seems unreasonable to expect readers to stay apprised of the municipal politics of any city.

Similarly, the abrupt reference to “Plato’s cave” (p. 78) is confusing enough even for those familiar with the allegory. Caplan invokes the cave allegory to help the reader imagine what the world would look like without housing regulation, but he accomplishes this far more effectively in chapter 5, “Bastiat’s Buildings,” where the French economist Frédéric Bastiat discusses the “unseen” benefits of a deregulated world.

But while diehard sports fans might take offense at the depiction of a San Francisco basketball player in what appears to be an LA Lakers uniform (p. 67), the rest of us are likely to find that the book suffers from only a few minor problems that do not detract from its value as a primer on the housing crisis.

Overall, Caplan and Branzei’s graphic novel presents a compelling and thorough case for housing deregulation and makes for a quick and pleasant read. It is not meant for an academic audience of housing experts, but for the intelligent layperson who wants a place to start understanding the growing housing crisis, and Build, Baby, Build does not disappoint.