You’re invited to the forum
featuring DEREK THOMPSON!
APRIL 9, 2026 at carolina theatre
The Abundance Agenda: A Hopeful New Roadmap From Scarcity to Abundance
On April 9, The Charlotte Center hosts the Forum featuring Derek Thompson, staff writer at The Atlantic and #1 New York Times bestselling author, for a forward-looking conversation on how we can move from a world defined by scarcity to one shaped by abundance. With clarity and optimism, Thompson explores how bold ideas, innovative policies, and risk-taking strategies can help us unlock extraordinary growth and possibility.
In this talk, drawn from his book Abundance (co-written with Ezra Klein), Thompson examines how to expand affordable housing, transform energy infrastructure, and spark a new wave of technological breakthroughs. He highlights concrete ways businesses and governments can clear barriers to progress—like reducing red tape to accelerate building—and reveals how rethinking our legal, cultural, and political paradigms can open the door to an era of abundance.
About Derek Thompson
Derek Thompson is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he writes the popular “Work in Progress” newsletter and hosts the widely followed Plain English podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. He is the author of Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction and the co-author of Abundance (with Ezra Klein). Known for his insightful and accessible style, Thompson has been featured on NPR, CNBC, and major media outlets as one of today’s most engaging voices on economics, culture, and innovation.
Connect. Consider. Ignite. The program runs from 6:30PM to 8:00 PM including time for conversation, connections, and Q&A.
The Forum has a three-part structure:
• First third: Participants connect and build relationships in small break-out groups prompted by a question;
• Middle third: Participants consider a presentation that ends with the speaker posing a community-facing question;
• Final third: Participants discuss the question, igniting new ideas and interactions.
THE HUMANITIES | Languages | Literature | History | Philosophy | Religion | And More!
Participate in the important questions of our time. The Forum is a conversation and speaker series that brings people together to explore challenges and opportunities that affect human flourishing through the lens of the humanities and civic imagination.
