Colin Allen, executive director of the American Property Owners Alliance (APOA), provides a rare, dispassionate analysis of Washington, D.C.’s political ecosystem and its impact on real estate. Drawing from his experience in the Newt Gingrich era and the Bush administration, he explains the “holistic nature of policy making” and how a sober view is necessary to predict outcomes rather than getting lost in the emotion of the issues. Colin points out that the current political volatility is driven by two main factors: economic dislocations caused by technology displacing labor and a proliferation of fragmented information channels that make it harder for people to have a shared point of view. This has shifted power away from centralized institutions like Congress and into the hands of outside groups and social media.