As elite Democrats enjoy the last gasp of summer in the Hamptons, Lake Geneva or Harbor Country, Michigan, many have brought along “Abundance” by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. The book’s argument, in an AI-friendly nutshell, is that old Democratic ways of thinking, with their protective plethora of rules and regulations, have resulted in buildings that never get built, affordable housing that never gets constructed and rail projects that run into billions of dollars in cost overruns after one environmental review after another. Ad infinitum.

Instead, Klein and Thompson argue, liberals should embrace a doctrine of “build, baby, build,” and admit the reality that the institutions in which they traditionally have put their trust are now dysfunctional, inefficient and poorly equipped to tackle the problems of the 21st century. Democrats are great at seeing problems, this line of thinking goes, but hapless when it comes to solving them because they’ve created such a web of checks and balances that governments can’t actually do anything. As a result, there is no palpable benefit from a technological revolution that was supposed to free Americans from toil and make their lives easier and better. If anything, the opposite is happening.

Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel talked up this doctrine in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, with an eye to laying the groundwork for a campaign for president of the United States or at least to push the Democratic Party more in the directions he believes can help it win.

During a recent visit from congressman Mike Quigley, whose 5th District includes much of Chicago’s North Side and some of its west suburbs, we heard much the same line of reasoning.

Except, in this instance, the focus was on the city of Chicago.

“Everything costs too much,” Quigley told us. “And I am adding government to that list.”

Quigley is embarking on a self-described “let it rip” tour. He was not willing to say it’s the soft launch of a campaign for mayor of Chicago, even though we asked more than once. But it sounded like that to us. Quigley preferred to spin his getting out and about as a kind of truth-telling mission, the next stage of which is a City Club talk slated for Thursday.

Either way, we’re all for elected officials letting it rip on something beyond day-to-day spin control.

What did Quigley plan to say at the City Club to his fellow Chicago Democrats, especially those running a city that seems to us to be sleepwalking toward insolvency?

“That there has been a loss of trust. That the public thinks the game is rigged.”

In Chicago? In Chicago. “I’ve got a list of the taxes being proposed,” Quigley said. “Most of them are horrible ideas. Property tax increases might be the most regressive of all of them. This will only make everything worse as people pay more and get fewer services in return.”

So what’s the antidote for Chicago? Consolidate. Remodel. Rebuild. From scratch, if need be.

“Changing a system,” he said, “is different from someone who talks just about making cuts. We have an old car. It’s inefficient. We can’t just cut off the fender, the tires, the windshield wipers because we’d still be making the same car payments. We need a new car. A more efficient car.”

Beyond the obvious benefits of efficiency in terms of productiveness, Quigley, who has experience as a U.S. House appropriator, also argued at some length that the perception of inefficiency is badly hurting Chicago both in Springfield and Washington, D.C., and making it much harder to get the external help the city so clearly needs, especially since the dispensing of any such help will require political courage in Springfield. That is hard to argue against. The congressman also sees a city stuck in silos.

“You have to think across government lines,” he said, claiming he attempted some of that as a former member of the Cook County Board of Commissioners. “We should be involved just as much with the South Shore Line and Amtrak as we are with the CTA. … Aldermen have to be thinking like the mayor and the mayor has to be thinking like an alderman.”

Alas, he said, parochialism is ubiquitous: “There is no ‘how can I help you’ mentality.”

Hardly shocking. Of course, the “Abundance” creed will have to contend with public sector unions and other entrenched interests invested in that old car, especially in Chicago, where the Chicago Teachers Union is the new internal combustion machine.

Still early days, of course, in the mayoral race. But we’re hoping we get this kind of inward, locally focused thinking in abundance.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.