I notice that this whole post doesn’t identify a single argument against the positions you advocate for keeping alive.
What is the strongest argument against, for example, YIMBYism? If I were to ask the average YIMBY critic (not even necessarily a NIMBY) what do you think their strongest argument would be?
The most common arguments against YIMBYism are economics-related, but they mostly flow from misconceptions and econ illiteracy. Stuff like “increasing the supply of housing increases the price of housing because new houses are more expensive than old houses.” This argument fails to actually analyze how the rent and prices of existing housing units change when new units are built nearby; empirical analyses conclusively prove the former decrease significantly, as basic supply-and-demand theories would suggest.
Much more economically literate is the suggestion that the “amenities effect” can push rent up even when the supply of housing increases. The argument goes as follows: if more units are built in a certain neighborhood, business owners and franchises predict a ton of new people will move in soon, so they start setting up shop in this neighborhood to take advantage of the new clientele. This shifts the housing demand curve upwards in this area (because the neighborhood becomes more attractive due to the many amenities available), thereby increasing the price of housing. It’s at least theoretically plausible that this can happen, but the same empirical analyses find that the overall effect of new buildings is to make housing cheaper, not more expensive; the shift in the supply curve is much more significant than the shift in demand.
Then there are critiques of YIMBYism from the left, which mostly distrusts market mechanisms of all kinds and blames rich people, businesses, and “monopoly power” for almost all instances of unaffordability. There are discussions regarding induced demand/gentrification (which Matt Yglesias convincingly disproves here), about market concentration (which Hanania conclusively shows does not meaningfully exist in housing markets here), about how YIMBYism lacks a “theory of power” (it does, it’s just one that doesn’t reflexively blames the rich for everything wrong in the world), about how market-rate housing only helps rich people (it doesn’t, because it helps the market for “affordable” housing clear by allowing the rich and the poor to compete for separate types of housing, thereby reducing overall demand for “affordable” housing and pushing prices down), etc.
The strongest arguments against YIMBYism are ones that flow from more of a conflict theory perspective. They correctly point out that building more houses and enacting YIMBYism is not a Pareto improvement, so your support or opposition to YIMBYism can depend on which of the categories of beneficiary/adversely affected party you belong to or sympathize with. This is the case for two main reasons:
building new houses, as per basic economics, decreases the value of houses. But in the West (and especially in the US), homeownership is for many people by far the largest generator of wealth they have access to. Lowering the price of housing directly lowers their wealth and makes their life worse. Since these people are mostly millionaires,[1] I’m not personally sympathetic to this argument. Nevertheless, I can understand how there was almost an implicit social contract involved, where young Americans in the 60′s/70′s era were told by society that buying a nice, big house should be your ultimate goal and that it will ensure your family’s financial well-being for generations to come precisely because of these anti-competitive mechanisms. So there is a case to be made that tearing this apart breaks some sort of trust or promise; I’m not personally convinced by it, however.
building new houses in a neighborhood changes the character of the neighborhood. Unlike the previous bullet point, which viewed housing solely as an investment good, this objection acknowledges that housing is also a consumption good. And when (mostly upper-middle-class) families decide where to set down roots, many select single-family-zoned suburbs precisely because they enjoy the aesthetic and the lack of fights over parking spots and the vibes and the fact there are significantly fewer poor (or homeless) people around, unlike in the poor-filled city proper. Changing the nature of their area directly harms them by forcing them into a neighborhood type they hate, a neighborhood they presumably paid a premium of many tens of thousands of dollars to get away from in the past.[2] I acknowledge this as a real drawback of YIMBYism, but I believe the benefits ultimately far outweigh it.
And, additionally, they maintain their wealth by capturing economic rents through banding together in cartel-like HOAs and lobbying local governments to artificially restrict supply, thereby decreasing the overall pie in addition to violating libertarian principles of freedom to contract
There is also an economic efficiency point lurking in the background here; I think Tyler Cowen made it explicitly somewhere on MR. Over time, absent changes in governmental policy, individuals follow their incentives and ultimately get to some sort of equilibrium where an aggregate of economic efficiency and personal aesthetic value reaches a local quasi-maximum. But then when the rules change, chaos ensues, as per Eliezer’s classic post on Free to Optimize.
building new houses in a neighborhood changes the character of the neighborhood. Unlike the previous bullet point, which viewed housing solely as an investment good, this objection acknowledges that housing is also a consumption good. And when (mostly upper-middle-class) families decide where to set down roots, many select single-family-zoned suburbs precisely because they enjoy the aesthetic and the lack of fights over parking spots and the vibes and the fact there are significantly fewer poor (or homeless) people around, unlike in the poor-filled city proper. Changing the nature of their area directly harms them by forcing them into a neighborhood type they hate, a neighborhood they presumably paid a premium of many tens of thousands of dollars to get away from in the past. I acknowledge this as a real drawback of YIMBYism, but I believe the benefits ultimately far outweigh it.
The benefits for who though? Certainly not those people who specifically moved to that neighborhood for its character and are now having said character changed.
Indeed, not for them; they lose out, illustrating why these policies do not generate Pareto improvements.
The benefits are for the marginal residents of this area, who would not be able to live there but for the cost-of-living reduction created by lowering the price of rent and housing through the increase of housing supply.
The benefits are for renters, who are on average significantly poorer than homeowners and need these cost-of-living reductions far more.
The benefits are for the economy, both overall (increasing the supply of housing increases the sum total of real goods produced in the economy, by reducing the deadweight loss and economic rent captured by existing homeowners) and locally (since new, productive residents move in and start purchasing goods and services from local businesses, increasing their sales and profit as a result).
The benefits are for anyone who uses public services in the area (such as roads, parks, police services, schools, etc.), since those services are funded by local taxes, and the local tax base increases when new residents can move in and engage in economic activities.
The benefits are for new homeowners, who would like to purchase a house in a nice area where they have access to good jobs, but who often cannot because houses cost millions of dollars in the most sought-after neighborhoods (see: virtually all of San Francisco) due to artificial restrictions on supply.
The benefits are for investors and construction companies, who would like to create economic value for themselves and their surrounding community but can’t because of zoning regulations or other legal restrictions.
The housing crisis has been going on for quite a while at this point, and its deleterious effects touch almost all aspects of urban and suburban life, particularly in the United States. Increasing the supply of housing through YIMBY policies is the only economically literate and sustainable way of fighting against it.
Alright so there’s an acknowledgement that at the very least, the people who originally occupied that nice area are losing out.
Your breakdown of the benefits seems more or less fair. The only thing I take issue with is “who would like to purchase a house in a nice area where they have access to good jobs”. I don’t think it’s fair to take it for granted that the area will stay nice post-YIMBY change (in fact the core acknowledgement here is that the character of the neighborhood is going to change) or that jobs will stay.
Would you consider that a “load bearing belief” for your YIMBYism? As in, if it’s possible that by enabling YIMBYism to come to a nice neighborhood with lots of jobs, both of those characters of the neighborhood might be changed, that might prompt you to change your position?
Alright so there’s an acknowledgement that at the very least, the people who originally occupied that nice area are losing out.
I’d say those people could be losing out. But usually only if the following conjunction happens:
they are homeowners as opposed to renters (otherwise the reduction in rent would reduce their cost of living and improve their lives to such an extent that it would likely overcome aesthetic sensibilities)
they are not small business owners/investors in such businesses (otherwise the larger clientele should excite them for the potential profit it will allow them to obtain)
they care more about maintaining a specific aesthetic vibe of their neighborhood than they do about the increased quality of public services generated by having a larger tax base
If these bullet points hold (and to be clear, they certainly hold for a non-negligible minority of the population), they would indeed lose out.
I don’t think it’s fair to take it for granted that the area will stay nice post-YIMBY change (in fact the core acknowledgement here is that the character of the neighborhood is going to change) or that jobs will stay.
The types of jobs I had in mind were, for example, tech jobs in California, where even a high-by-national-standards salary is often insufficient to allow those people to buy houses in the Bay Area.
In any case, the types of workers who could move to high-cost-of-living areas tend disproportionately to be white-collar workers, and these industries would have no reason to move away from an area when it becomes larger and more economically productive. On the contrary, the fact that many prospective workers would be able to move to a city after an YIMBY change serves as a powerful economic incentive for these companies to actually stay, since they now have a lot of new possible employees to select from.
Plus, I think whether the area is “nice” or not is mostly a matter of taste. A significant proportion of the population prefers class/racial homogeneity and single-family-zoned suburban vibes in their neighborhoods, but that doesn’t make alternatives to it not nice; density, if properly done, allows for a different kind of flourishing that prospective residents with different aesthetic tastes can enjoy.
Would you consider that a “load bearing belief” for your YIMBYism? As in, if it’s possible that by enabling YIMBYism to come to a nice neighborhood with lots of jobs, both of those characters of the neighborhood might be changed, that might prompt you to change your position?
I think it’s not a load bearing belief. The arguments for economic efficiency and the elimination of deadweight loss and economic rents, the benefits to local businesses, the progressive reduction of cost-of-living massively helping the renter class, and the value given to those who either invest in the area or benefit from public services, would still be more than sufficiently compelling for me to remain a YIMBY.
they are homeowners as opposed to renters (otherwise the reduction in rent would reduce their cost of living and improve their lives to such an extent that it would likely overcome aesthetic sensibilities)
It is actually very easy for renters to lose out due to YIMBYism, because your “otherwise” clause is flat wrong—there is essentially no amount of rent reduction that could improve my life to the point of compensating for (to take an obvious example) my favorite restaurants, cafes, stores, bagel shops, etc. all going out of business (which is one possible way in which “the character of a neighborhood” can change). This is basically a trivial, yet critical, point: if something is not available, then I can’t buy it with money. If I can’t buy something I want with money, then no amount of money will get me the thing that I want.
Your term “aesthetic sensibilities” is essentially a trivialization of the factors that constitute, to a large extent, the texture of a person’s day-to-day life. I don’t see why I should give up most of the things that I enjoy about what my day-to-day life is like, in order that… other people… might benefit?
My default position on this sort of topic is to oppose YIMBYism reflexively, for a very simple reason: I like my neighborhood and I don’t want it to change (well, it could stand to be cleaner, but as experience shows, that’s solved by electing better local government officials). If what you’re proposing involves my neighborhood changing, then I don’t like it. You’re gonna have to sell me on your proposition real hard if you want to overcome that very simple point. And basically no amount of “other people will benefit” will suffice to convince me.
there is essentially no amount of rent reduction that could improve my life to the point of compensating for (to take an obvious example) my favorite restaurants, cafes, stores, bagel shops, etc. all going out of business (which is one possible way in which “the character of a neighborhood” can change)
I can believe this statement is true for you-in-particular, but I do not believe it is true for most renters in these high cost-of-living areas. These people usually struggle to make ends meet to the point where rent and housing costs represent a critical part of their monthly budgets; alleviating those is generally more important to them than maintaining the overall vibe of the area.
I also find it difficult to imagine that your “favorite restaurants, cafes, stores, bagel shops, etc. all going out of business” is a likely outcome of building new houses, particularly because new residents coming in increases the demand for those services. I am sure it can happen (and perhaps it has, in your own life), but in the majority of situations these businesses would flourish, expand their services, hire new workers, etc. And to the extent they don’t, that’s largely because of increased competition from more economically efficient and desirable shops and businesses; I view this as good rather than bad.
Your term “aesthetic sensibilities” is essentially a trivialization of the factors that constitute, to a large extent, the texture of a person’s day-to-day life.
You call it a trivialization; I call it a correct factual description. I think I’m correct here; note that I mentioned many people care more about aesthetics and vibes than they do about strictly economic matters. It’s of nontrivial importance, but it’s still aesthetic in nature.
I don’t see why I should give up most of the things that I enjoy about what my day-to-day life is like, in order that… other people… might benefit?
It’s generally referred to as altruism, I think. But in any case, I’m neither fully altruistic myself, nor do I generally prescribe it to others. Given your beliefs and preferences as you’ve expressed them here, I don’t think you should want to give any of that up.
But given my beliefs and preferences as I’ve expressed them here, I think we’re in the realm of conflict and not mistake, and I strongly approve of governmental efforts to remove restrictions on zoning and enact YIMBY policies. This is not an instance of a heavy governmental touch coming in to regulate the economy and restrict individual choice; it’s an instance of deregulation, where the free market right-to-build and right-to-contract are currently impeded by those who themselves restrict the freedom of others, seek out economic rents, and already benefit from the goods and services available. Changing the locus of control from local to state-level, in the US, is one example of an appropriate such structural change.
Unsurprisingly, I also approve of progressive taxation,[1] even though I also don’t see why rich people should necessarily want to give up their money so that other people might benefit.
The areas of this argument that stands out to me as the biggest loci for disagreements are best summarized in the following sections:
care more about maintaining a specific aesthetic vibe of their neighborhood than they do about the increased quality of public services generated by having a larger tax base
and
Plus, I think whether the area is “nice” or not is mostly a matter of taste.
First, there’s the “aesthetic” point. You’ve said here that you don’t consider crime concerns to be aesthetic preferences. Yet when you’re talking about the character of a neighborhood, you focus on aesthetic concerns. I think ignoring how front of mind the crime concern is to NIMBYs and even YIMBY skeptics is going to do nothing but hurt your odds in convincing anyone.
The assumption in the statement of “increased quality of public services generated by having a larger tax base” is that as population grows and the tax base grows, public services will get better. That is a very large assumption, and one you’re certainly going to need to prove.
Lastly on “nice” being mostly a matter of taste, I think that’s partly true but there are certainly things everyone would agree on being nice. Not having trash littering the streets is nice. Being able to walk around safely at night without fear is nice. There is such a thing as universally preferred “niceness” in neighborhoods.
I’d encourage you to keep in mind that when pitching plans, the ideas behind them simply exist in the world of theory. They have to be executed in reality. When you advocate a position to someone, you should be able to anticipate their worries, and lay out specific and concrete steps to address them. I have seen this in particular with YIMBYs there is a tendency to, as @Said Achmiz pointed out, trivialize concerns (or just ignore them completely as I’m pointing out with the crime).
When it comes to plans, the messenger (or the party who will be trusted with the execution of a plan) and their capabilities are often equally or more important to the message itself.
I’d encourage you to keep in mind that when pitching plans, the ideas behind them simply exist in the world of theory. They have to be executed in reality. When you advocate a position to someone, you should be able to anticipate their worries, and lay out specific and concrete steps to address them. I have seen this in particular with YIMBYs there is a tendency to, as @Said Achmiz pointed out, trivialize concerns (or just ignore them completely as I’m pointing out with the crime).
I appreciate your comment, and I certainly agree with this part. For purposes of time, I will not spend too much additional time illustrating the specific evidence I trust that speaks to the change in the prevalence of crime in upzoned neighborhoods and the way quality of public services changes when the tax base grows, but it’s perhaps unsurprising that I view both topics as providing support for the YIMBY position, as opposed to the reverse.
And while I acknowledge the importance of proper messaging that acknowledges the concerns residents may have, I also believe there are No Universally Compelling Arguments for YIMBYism. Ultimately, somebody with the beliefs and preferences of Said Achmiz should not, from his perspective, support YIMBYs, and should instead oppose them whenever they try to change his neighborhood. I view this fact as inevitable, and the NIMBYs who feel this way as political opponents.
aesthetic and the lack of fights over parking spots and the vibes and the fact there are much fewer poor (or homeless) people around, unlike in the poor-filled city proper
In addition to poor and homeless, it’s also Black. Structural racism is alive and well in the United States on that front.
That depends very much on the local politics. If you are in California “This is structural racism, you can overcome your structural racism by becoming YIMBY” might be useful. If you make the same pitch in Texas it’s likely less successful.
The way the US handled racism in the 20st century is a core reason why there are much more isolated neighborhoods in the US than in Europe. Americans who can’t directly discriminate against Black people found that if you just make housing in a neighborhood expensive enough, you can keep the neighborhood relatively free from Black neighbors.
While you might not convince people to switch to being YIMBY, the structures of racism are still a key reason why those neighborhoods are setup the way they are setup and this is part of what “character of the neighborhood” meant over the last century.
Sure if your goal is to spread awareness about this issue, then talking about it makes sense.
If your goal is to convince people to become YIMBY, IMO its counterproductive.
Personally while I don’t consider myself NIMBY, I’m certainly YIMBY skeptic. I would not only be not convinced to change my mind by someone discussing structural racism, I would actively be less likely to support whatever they were pitching. I’m just trying to tell you honestly about my reaction because I suspect a lot of others would react the same way.
I’m just trying to tell you honestly about my reaction because I suspect a lot of others would react the same way.
I suspect a vast majority of the general population would react the same way.
But in the specific California ultra-progressive neighborhoods ChristianKL was talking about, mentioning how Euclidean zoning was designed with the specific purpose of keeping Black residents out of white neighborhoods, because the Supreme Court had thrown out previous and more explicitly racist proposals to keep out “negroes and Orientals” in Buchanan v Warley five years prior, could be more persuasive.
I gave YIMBYism as an example of a policy agenda that would benefit from more widespread support for liberalism, not as something I personally support in all cases.
A liberal argument for NIMBYism could be: people are free to choose the level of density and development that they want within their own communities. But they should generally do so deliberately and through the rule of law, rather than through opposition to individual developments (via a heckler’s veto, discretionary review processes that effectively require developers to lobby local politicians and woo random interest groups, etc.). Existing strict zoning laws are fine in places where they already exist, but new laws and restrictions should be wary of treading on the rights of existing property owners, and of creating more processes that increase discretionary power of local lawmakers and busybodies.
I notice that this whole post doesn’t identify a single argument against the positions you advocate for keeping alive.
What is the strongest argument against, for example, YIMBYism? If I were to ask the average YIMBY critic (not even necessarily a NIMBY) what do you think their strongest argument would be?
The most common arguments against YIMBYism are economics-related, but they mostly flow from misconceptions and econ illiteracy. Stuff like “increasing the supply of housing increases the price of housing because new houses are more expensive than old houses.” This argument fails to actually analyze how the rent and prices of existing housing units change when new units are built nearby; empirical analyses conclusively prove the former decrease significantly, as basic supply-and-demand theories would suggest.
Much more economically literate is the suggestion that the “amenities effect” can push rent up even when the supply of housing increases. The argument goes as follows: if more units are built in a certain neighborhood, business owners and franchises predict a ton of new people will move in soon, so they start setting up shop in this neighborhood to take advantage of the new clientele. This shifts the housing demand curve upwards in this area (because the neighborhood becomes more attractive due to the many amenities available), thereby increasing the price of housing. It’s at least theoretically plausible that this can happen, but the same empirical analyses find that the overall effect of new buildings is to make housing cheaper, not more expensive; the shift in the supply curve is much more significant than the shift in demand.
Then there are critiques of YIMBYism from the left, which mostly distrusts market mechanisms of all kinds and blames rich people, businesses, and “monopoly power” for almost all instances of unaffordability. There are discussions regarding induced demand/gentrification (which Matt Yglesias convincingly disproves here), about market concentration (which Hanania conclusively shows does not meaningfully exist in housing markets here), about how YIMBYism lacks a “theory of power” (it does, it’s just one that doesn’t reflexively blames the rich for everything wrong in the world), about how market-rate housing only helps rich people (it doesn’t, because it helps the market for “affordable” housing clear by allowing the rich and the poor to compete for separate types of housing, thereby reducing overall demand for “affordable” housing and pushing prices down), etc.
The strongest arguments against YIMBYism are ones that flow from more of a conflict theory perspective. They correctly point out that building more houses and enacting YIMBYism is not a Pareto improvement, so your support or opposition to YIMBYism can depend on which of the categories of beneficiary/adversely affected party you belong to or sympathize with. This is the case for two main reasons:
building new houses, as per basic economics, decreases the value of houses. But in the West (and especially in the US), homeownership is for many people by far the largest generator of wealth they have access to. Lowering the price of housing directly lowers their wealth and makes their life worse. Since these people are mostly millionaires,[1] I’m not personally sympathetic to this argument. Nevertheless, I can understand how there was almost an implicit social contract involved, where young Americans in the 60′s/70′s era were told by society that buying a nice, big house should be your ultimate goal and that it will ensure your family’s financial well-being for generations to come precisely because of these anti-competitive mechanisms. So there is a case to be made that tearing this apart breaks some sort of trust or promise; I’m not personally convinced by it, however.
building new houses in a neighborhood changes the character of the neighborhood. Unlike the previous bullet point, which viewed housing solely as an investment good, this objection acknowledges that housing is also a consumption good. And when (mostly upper-middle-class) families decide where to set down roots, many select single-family-zoned suburbs precisely because they enjoy the aesthetic and the lack of fights over parking spots and the vibes and the fact there are significantly fewer poor (or homeless) people around, unlike in the poor-filled city proper. Changing the nature of their area directly harms them by forcing them into a neighborhood type they hate, a neighborhood they presumably paid a premium of many tens of thousands of dollars to get away from in the past.[2] I acknowledge this as a real drawback of YIMBYism, but I believe the benefits ultimately far outweigh it.
And, additionally, they maintain their wealth by capturing economic rents through banding together in cartel-like HOAs and lobbying local governments to artificially restrict supply, thereby decreasing the overall pie in addition to violating libertarian principles of freedom to contract
There is also an economic efficiency point lurking in the background here; I think Tyler Cowen made it explicitly somewhere on MR. Over time, absent changes in governmental policy, individuals follow their incentives and ultimately get to some sort of equilibrium where an aggregate of economic efficiency and personal aesthetic value reaches a local quasi-maximum. But then when the rules change, chaos ensues, as per Eliezer’s classic post on Free to Optimize.
The benefits for who though? Certainly not those people who specifically moved to that neighborhood for its character and are now having said character changed.
Indeed, not for them; they lose out, illustrating why these policies do not generate Pareto improvements.
The benefits are for the marginal residents of this area, who would not be able to live there but for the cost-of-living reduction created by lowering the price of rent and housing through the increase of housing supply.
The benefits are for renters, who are on average significantly poorer than homeowners and need these cost-of-living reductions far more.
The benefits are for the economy, both overall (increasing the supply of housing increases the sum total of real goods produced in the economy, by reducing the deadweight loss and economic rent captured by existing homeowners) and locally (since new, productive residents move in and start purchasing goods and services from local businesses, increasing their sales and profit as a result).
The benefits are for anyone who uses public services in the area (such as roads, parks, police services, schools, etc.), since those services are funded by local taxes, and the local tax base increases when new residents can move in and engage in economic activities.
The benefits are for new homeowners, who would like to purchase a house in a nice area where they have access to good jobs, but who often cannot because houses cost millions of dollars in the most sought-after neighborhoods (see: virtually all of San Francisco) due to artificial restrictions on supply.
The benefits are for investors and construction companies, who would like to create economic value for themselves and their surrounding community but can’t because of zoning regulations or other legal restrictions.
The housing crisis has been going on for quite a while at this point, and its deleterious effects touch almost all aspects of urban and suburban life, particularly in the United States. Increasing the supply of housing through YIMBY policies is the only economically literate and sustainable way of fighting against it.
Alright so there’s an acknowledgement that at the very least, the people who originally occupied that nice area are losing out.
Your breakdown of the benefits seems more or less fair. The only thing I take issue with is “who would like to purchase a house in a nice area where they have access to good jobs”. I don’t think it’s fair to take it for granted that the area will stay nice post-YIMBY change (in fact the core acknowledgement here is that the character of the neighborhood is going to change) or that jobs will stay.
Would you consider that a “load bearing belief” for your YIMBYism? As in, if it’s possible that by enabling YIMBYism to come to a nice neighborhood with lots of jobs, both of those characters of the neighborhood might be changed, that might prompt you to change your position?
I’d say those people could be losing out. But usually only if the following conjunction happens:
they are homeowners as opposed to renters (otherwise the reduction in rent would reduce their cost of living and improve their lives to such an extent that it would likely overcome aesthetic sensibilities)
they are not small business owners/investors in such businesses (otherwise the larger clientele should excite them for the potential profit it will allow them to obtain)
they care more about maintaining a specific aesthetic vibe of their neighborhood than they do about the increased quality of public services generated by having a larger tax base
If these bullet points hold (and to be clear, they certainly hold for a non-negligible minority of the population), they would indeed lose out.
The types of jobs I had in mind were, for example, tech jobs in California, where even a high-by-national-standards salary is often insufficient to allow those people to buy houses in the Bay Area.
In any case, the types of workers who could move to high-cost-of-living areas tend disproportionately to be white-collar workers, and these industries would have no reason to move away from an area when it becomes larger and more economically productive. On the contrary, the fact that many prospective workers would be able to move to a city after an YIMBY change serves as a powerful economic incentive for these companies to actually stay, since they now have a lot of new possible employees to select from.
Plus, I think whether the area is “nice” or not is mostly a matter of taste. A significant proportion of the population prefers class/racial homogeneity and single-family-zoned suburban vibes in their neighborhoods, but that doesn’t make alternatives to it not nice; density, if properly done, allows for a different kind of flourishing that prospective residents with different aesthetic tastes can enjoy.
I think it’s not a load bearing belief. The arguments for economic efficiency and the elimination of deadweight loss and economic rents, the benefits to local businesses, the progressive reduction of cost-of-living massively helping the renter class, and the value given to those who either invest in the area or benefit from public services, would still be more than sufficiently compelling for me to remain a YIMBY.
It is actually very easy for renters to lose out due to YIMBYism, because your “otherwise” clause is flat wrong—there is essentially no amount of rent reduction that could improve my life to the point of compensating for (to take an obvious example) my favorite restaurants, cafes, stores, bagel shops, etc. all going out of business (which is one possible way in which “the character of a neighborhood” can change). This is basically a trivial, yet critical, point: if something is not available, then I can’t buy it with money. If I can’t buy something I want with money, then no amount of money will get me the thing that I want.
Your term “aesthetic sensibilities” is essentially a trivialization of the factors that constitute, to a large extent, the texture of a person’s day-to-day life. I don’t see why I should give up most of the things that I enjoy about what my day-to-day life is like, in order that… other people… might benefit?
My default position on this sort of topic is to oppose YIMBYism reflexively, for a very simple reason: I like my neighborhood and I don’t want it to change (well, it could stand to be cleaner, but as experience shows, that’s solved by electing better local government officials). If what you’re proposing involves my neighborhood changing, then I don’t like it. You’re gonna have to sell me on your proposition real hard if you want to overcome that very simple point. And basically no amount of “other people will benefit” will suffice to convince me.
I can believe this statement is true for you-in-particular, but I do not believe it is true for most renters in these high cost-of-living areas. These people usually struggle to make ends meet to the point where rent and housing costs represent a critical part of their monthly budgets; alleviating those is generally more important to them than maintaining the overall vibe of the area.
I also find it difficult to imagine that your “favorite restaurants, cafes, stores, bagel shops, etc. all going out of business” is a likely outcome of building new houses, particularly because new residents coming in increases the demand for those services. I am sure it can happen (and perhaps it has, in your own life), but in the majority of situations these businesses would flourish, expand their services, hire new workers, etc. And to the extent they don’t, that’s largely because of increased competition from more economically efficient and desirable shops and businesses; I view this as good rather than bad.
You call it a trivialization; I call it a correct factual description. I think I’m correct here; note that I mentioned many people care more about aesthetics and vibes than they do about strictly economic matters. It’s of nontrivial importance, but it’s still aesthetic in nature.
It’s generally referred to as altruism, I think. But in any case, I’m neither fully altruistic myself, nor do I generally prescribe it to others. Given your beliefs and preferences as you’ve expressed them here, I don’t think you should want to give any of that up.
But given my beliefs and preferences as I’ve expressed them here, I think we’re in the realm of conflict and not mistake, and I strongly approve of governmental efforts to remove restrictions on zoning and enact YIMBY policies. This is not an instance of a heavy governmental touch coming in to regulate the economy and restrict individual choice; it’s an instance of deregulation, where the free market right-to-build and right-to-contract are currently impeded by those who themselves restrict the freedom of others, seek out economic rents, and already benefit from the goods and services available. Changing the locus of control from local to state-level, in the US, is one example of an appropriate such structural change.
Unsurprisingly, I also approve of progressive taxation,[1] even though I also don’t see why rich people should necessarily want to give up their money so that other people might benefit.
At least as long as the Overton window doesn’t allow for more economically literate taxation systems like LVT and a VAT + income-based rebates
Would you consider being worried about an increase in crime an “aesthetic preference”?
I think I generally wouldn’t.
The areas of this argument that stands out to me as the biggest loci for disagreements are best summarized in the following sections:
and
First, there’s the “aesthetic” point. You’ve said here that you don’t consider crime concerns to be aesthetic preferences. Yet when you’re talking about the character of a neighborhood, you focus on aesthetic concerns. I think ignoring how front of mind the crime concern is to NIMBYs and even YIMBY skeptics is going to do nothing but hurt your odds in convincing anyone.
The assumption in the statement of “increased quality of public services generated by having a larger tax base” is that as population grows and the tax base grows, public services will get better. That is a very large assumption, and one you’re certainly going to need to prove.
Lastly on “nice” being mostly a matter of taste, I think that’s partly true but there are certainly things everyone would agree on being nice. Not having trash littering the streets is nice. Being able to walk around safely at night without fear is nice. There is such a thing as universally preferred “niceness” in neighborhoods.
I’d encourage you to keep in mind that when pitching plans, the ideas behind them simply exist in the world of theory. They have to be executed in reality. When you advocate a position to someone, you should be able to anticipate their worries, and lay out specific and concrete steps to address them. I have seen this in particular with YIMBYs there is a tendency to, as @Said Achmiz pointed out, trivialize concerns (or just ignore them completely as I’m pointing out with the crime).
When it comes to plans, the messenger (or the party who will be trusted with the execution of a plan) and their capabilities are often equally or more important to the message itself.
I appreciate your comment, and I certainly agree with this part. For purposes of time, I will not spend too much additional time illustrating the specific evidence I trust that speaks to the change in the prevalence of crime in upzoned neighborhoods and the way quality of public services changes when the tax base grows, but it’s perhaps unsurprising that I view both topics as providing support for the YIMBY position, as opposed to the reverse.
And while I acknowledge the importance of proper messaging that acknowledges the concerns residents may have, I also believe there are No Universally Compelling Arguments for YIMBYism. Ultimately, somebody with the beliefs and preferences of Said Achmiz should not, from his perspective, support YIMBYs, and should instead oppose them whenever they try to change his neighborhood. I view this fact as inevitable, and the NIMBYs who feel this way as political opponents.
In addition to poor and homeless, it’s also Black. Structural racism is alive and well in the United States on that front.
Okay, so what would be your pitch to those people for why they should be YIMBYs?
That depends very much on the local politics. If you are in California “This is structural racism, you can overcome your structural racism by becoming YIMBY” might be useful. If you make the same pitch in Texas it’s likely less successful.
Well arguments aside it’s worth noting that Texas is afaik more YIMBY than California.
Generally though I think the “you can overcome racism by doing what I want” well is basically dry at this point.
The way the US handled racism in the 20st century is a core reason why there are much more isolated neighborhoods in the US than in Europe. Americans who can’t directly discriminate against Black people found that if you just make housing in a neighborhood expensive enough, you can keep the neighborhood relatively free from Black neighbors.
While you might not convince people to switch to being YIMBY, the structures of racism are still a key reason why those neighborhoods are setup the way they are setup and this is part of what “character of the neighborhood” meant over the last century.
Sure if your goal is to spread awareness about this issue, then talking about it makes sense.
If your goal is to convince people to become YIMBY, IMO its counterproductive.
Personally while I don’t consider myself NIMBY, I’m certainly YIMBY skeptic. I would not only be not convinced to change my mind by someone discussing structural racism, I would actively be less likely to support whatever they were pitching. I’m just trying to tell you honestly about my reaction because I suspect a lot of others would react the same way.
I suspect a vast majority of the general population would react the same way.
But in the specific California ultra-progressive neighborhoods ChristianKL was talking about, mentioning how Euclidean zoning was designed with the specific purpose of keeping Black residents out of white neighborhoods, because the Supreme Court had thrown out previous and more explicitly racist proposals to keep out “negroes and Orientals” in Buchanan v Warley five years prior, could be more persuasive.
I gave YIMBYism as an example of a policy agenda that would benefit from more widespread support for liberalism, not as something I personally support in all cases.
A liberal argument for NIMBYism could be: people are free to choose the level of density and development that they want within their own communities. But they should generally do so deliberately and through the rule of law, rather than through opposition to individual developments (via a heckler’s veto, discretionary review processes that effectively require developers to lobby local politicians and woo random interest groups, etc.). Existing strict zoning laws are fine in places where they already exist, but new laws and restrictions should be wary of treading on the rights of existing property owners, and of creating more processes that increase discretionary power of local lawmakers and busybodies.