Kenny comments on New Empty Units

[Kenny]

Matt Yglesias on this very topic (broadly):

• The “induced demand“ case against YIMBYism is wrong—Slow Boring

I really like this bit:

What YIMBY is

Last but by no means least, this entire conversation is based on a misconception about what the YIMBY proposal is.

The way high-cost metro areas currently work is this:

1. No building is allowed in desirable inner-ring suburbs.

2. No building is allowed in the most expensive parts of the city.

3. Along a relatively tiny gentrification frontier, a handful of politically well-connected developers can get permits for projects.

4. Because the permitting process is highly politicized, various activists, neighbors, and politicians try to shake the developer down for side-concessions.

5. Prices go up and up because this is just way too little new housing to meet demand.

Because leftists like “activists” and don’t like profit-seeking business people, they focus on (4) and see the YIMBYs as siding with the bad capitalists against the virtuous activists.

The actual YIMBY proposal, however, is to change steps 1-3 of the process so that by-right construction is possible throughout the in-demand parts of the city. Actual developers do not lobby for this change, because even though the developers like to beat the activists in step (4), the whole market niche the developers occupy is built around their expertise in navigating the permitting process. You don’t need a “developer” to convert your garage into an ADU, you need a contractor. And if you drive out to a rural area, there’s no such thing as a “developer;” there are just housebuilders.

The YIMBY is anti-anti-developer in the sense that he does not think that obsessively harping on the bad thing that Developer X did with regard to Project Y is a constructive approach to the housing supply. But YIMBY is not about individual projects, neighborhood-level price impacts, or siding with developers. It’s about a systematic approach to making decisions about housing policy, regional housing abundance, and creating a construction boom that makes The Developer a much less relevant character to metropolitan housing supply.

And last but by no means least, while YIMBY is about housing costs to the extent that it addresses the absurdity that middle-class teachers in Silicon Valley can’t afford to live anywhere near their schools, it’s not a comprehensive solution to poverty.