John Maynard Chainz is the tongue-in-cheek alter-ego of a real-life urban economist and former professor who has spent the past decade disentangling the knot of zoning regulation, land-use politics, and America’s affordable-housing shortfall.
When the spreadsheets close, Chainz turns theory into art. He is the librettist-composer of “Liberation Day! A Trade-War Opera in Real Time,” an unreleased stage work charting tariffs, tantrums, and global value chains, and the songwriter behind “Tenure My Ass, Pass the Flask,” an anti-institutional country album that translates academic angst into twang.