I am, as you know, terribly frustrated with (some) (online) YIMBY people. I think the guys who make up a prominent slice of the YIMBY public face need to decide if they want to be a rude hippie-punching online irony cult or part of a political movement that will necessarily include people they don’t like. But I don’t want to constantly react to YIMBY content negatively, as this country desperately needs regulatory and zoning reform that makes building easier and less expensive, along with robust public investment in housing as we inch closer towards a world where housing is fully decommodified. So to be more positive here’s a pro-housing abundance messages that I wish was a little more prominent: higher housing density can actually protect the undeveloped spaces that make the country more verdant and beautiful. Increased density in higher-density places reduces building in America’s beautiful low-density places. This is good substantively and politically. We just have to be strategic and value housing affordability itself rather than engage in the maximalist pro-construction rhetoric that’s too common.
FWIW, I think you have the hippie-punching thing backwards. YIMBYs are culturally aligned with the left but need to do the hippie-punching to build their coalition with the types of people who actually hold power in cities.
On the whole, the bigger problem for YIMBY is lots of YIMBYs want to put their effort into alleviating esoteric leftist concerns (public housing, free transit) rather than normie concerns like parking, traffic, and crime.
When I encounter people who are dismissive of open spaces having value I immediately start to avoid them because they are sociopaths incapable of perceiving beauty or experiencing happiness. I think this is a pretty normal reaction in the USA.
A huge part of my Yimbyism is my desire for aesthetic cities, there’s few things I consider uglier than sprawled out cookie cutter suburban tract homes. I’d much rather live in dense walkable Parisian style beaux-arts revival apartment blocks or eco/neofuturistic towers. The latter are probably more economical since stones very difficult to use in modern times. Every day I walk down the streets of SF I can’t help but scowl at the ugliness of electric wires crisscrossing the sky and ugly rain damaged 1970s modernist facades. SF’s NIMBYs constantly shriek about neighborhood character, but I definitely don’t see it here. In SF Yimbys have had far more success strongarming cities to build dense housing by passing laws at the state level - trying to compromise with city NIMBYs is a fools errand imo. Recently the state forced SF to dramatically revise its housing element and start to approve apartment complexes the board of supervisors had blocked for ludicrous nimby reasons.
I study urban ecology, and one of the fascinating but poorly understood phenomena in my field is deurbanization. There are dozens of medium-sized cities in the US and hundreds of smaller cities that have declined in population in the last several decades, with previously-thriving downtowns and nearby neighborhoods that are in dire condition. If we could make these places desirable with a diversity of housing types, then it could really change the situation. A win-win is building dense or dense-ish housing but not just in NYC, Seattle, and SF. I read Matt Yglesias' "One Billion Americans" and thought it was weakly argued and flippant about obvious criticisms of its central thesis. However, two ideas stuck out as potentially beneficial: 1) relocating national agencies (USDA, FDA, etc etc) out of the DC area and scattering them around the country in smaller cities, and perhaps regionalizing them much more than is currently done; and 2) granting visas to immigrants that are region specific (i.e. you get a visa to live in Rochester, NY for 10 years and then can apply for citizenship). Trump tried #1 as kind of an anti-government punishment for the USDA, but done well it could work just fine. A version of #2 already exists for overseas physicians that are willing to work in rural hospitals. A new round of land-grant universities in struggling small- to medium-sized cities might also be useful. The regional rural campuses are struggling and will start to close or be combined with others, but might find new life in these forgotten cities. Revitalizing these pre-existing urban areas takes a lot of pressure off less-dense areas. Many people would love to have a nice Victorian single-family home in a cute downtown of a small thriving city rather than an ugly Toll Brothers piece of garbage built on a former farm field or clearcut area with no trees or amenities.
The US is in the bottom quintile for sovereign nation population density. It's a big place. And plans to electrify transportation face a real challenge with cars parallel parked on streets in cities. Are owners to toss an extension cord out the window of the apartment building across the sidewalk to the charging port of the Tesla? And if you think putting rows of charging stations along city streets is practical, just look at how well we are doing at replacing lead water pipes in older residential areas. So densification certainly jeopardizes the effort to eliminate fossil fuels.
Transformative, well meaning ideas often run up on the rocks of human choices and behavior. Single family houses are popular for a variety of reasons, all favoring quality of individual life. Experiments seeking to build upwards in the 1950s, funded as urban renewal and similar, mostly failed. The remaining Mies-style housing is in affluent neighborhoods where there is a car hiker who brings the car around when it is needed.
Love this! I wonder why we don’t already see coalitions between rural & suburban nimbies and urban yimbies? Like, suppose I don’t want to see more construction in Park Slope. Right now, I would probably be simply against upzoning everywhere. What would it take for a Park Slope nimby to support upzoning, say, in Manhattan? Seems like people have pretty strong intuitions about local control, that it would be bad for outer neighborhoods to gang up and upzone the core. (Also, what would stop an even more outer coalition from upzoning Manhattan and inner Brooklyn?)
When I see that photo of Inland Empire, somewhere in the background, the rap hit "Developer's Paradise" is playing in the background...
More seriously, there's a subtle fallacy about density leading to wilder spaces remaining wild.
Of course it's entirely true, that for the same # of people, if some are diverted into denser places than they would otherwise, the less dense places will see smaller population increases and relatively less development.
The problem however is that for places to remain wild or to regain wilderness, virtually no one can develop there. This is a case where absolutes matter, and 'relative' is mostly irrelevant. We know this through studies that find that biodiversity drops just about everywhere within 10km of a road, even with no dwellings.
The best way to slow down the loss of wild places is not density, but decreasing human population (although both is even better). Absent a fall in population, to preserve biodiversity, among other things, we have to prohibit development across large tracts of land, and even de-populate some low-density rural areas.
"Some people won’t be happy until Park Slope looks like Hudson Yards"
This is one thing that I find infuriating. Neighborhoods like PS are a magnificent showcase for how appealing density can be. If we made a lot more of them across the country we would be in great shape. And yet YIMBYs want to destroy it.
Aesthetics 100% matter, are these fools out of their minds? Homes are not just places you sleep and shower in, they are where you LIVE. People need places they can feel comfortable, secure and feel happy in. For many of us, we need green spaces. We need trees, grass, gardens etc. I don't care how cheap it was, you couldn't get me to live n a bare bones, concrete building with nothing to offer. With density there needs to be true neighborhood scaping and care. I lived in Philly for ten years, its remarkably dirty and entire neighborhoods have 0 trees. Its honestly a depressing and stark way to live.
I agree with almost everything you say here Freddie, except for one not-so-little thing: the uniquely American dream of having the suburban mini-estate as the ideal way of life.
Partly because of our history as a late-comer to populating their continent (only talking about non-natives here, the indigenous aspect is another matter), a transportation system overwhelmingly favoring cars, as well as massive post-WW2 suburban planning, a lot of Americans tend to have this insatiable desire for that suburban ideal. The 3-4 bedroom house, with attached garage, green grass and trees surrounding, and a nice backyard patio or even pool to top it off.
I think THAT is a major part of the problem, everyone wants their own mini-estate...even a lot of people living in cities, I would bet, would choose that if they could afford it. I mean, when everyone talks about the good ole' times of America's greatness (not Donald's version here!) it almost always involves images of those zero-crime picturesque suburbs for miles and miles. Granted they were mostly white, but that's a whole 'nother matter I'm not going to get into here.
I think America's infatuation with the suburban ideal is not something that can easily be excised from our own expectations of what it means to live the 'good life' in this country. I mean, we can't even get quality interstate rail in this country (or even poor quality in some cases). And since suburban sprawl goes hand in hand with automobile primacy, what makes us think we can ever fix our housing issues without a massive rethinking on what a good life is here in America?
Another breath of fresh air. You informed me on a subject I care about but hadn’t found time to think about. Your breakdown made logical sense and your experience in this area added credibility. I hope you enjoy your new home.
Ps I think aesthetics and functional quality are not just important, they are essential. High density design must consider human nature.
People bitch about this lobby and the lobby. But you know who ALWAYS wins? Real estate developers. Profit is way higher on single family than high density.
Didn't Mr. DeBoer write an article just this week about waking onto his back deck and luxuriating in the silence and quiet of his new neighborhood? How is high density housing going to be compatible with that?
I think a narrative of 'NIMBYism vs YIMBYism' as two concrete and polarized political identities is a little misleading. NIMBYism is simply a base instinct in America across the political spectrum - people generally like the characteristics of the place that they've decided to live in and there's always a status quo bias in politics. YIMBYism is counterintuitive to the average person in the same way that 'you should want to pay more taxes' is counterintuitive. Even the higher taxes party doesn't campaign on raising *your* taxes, it's always the other guy's taxes. And even a lot of people who subscribe to the broad YIMBY philosophy might not personally think that their neighborhood would be more pleasant with more skyscrapers. That's not some gotcha anymore than 'you're a leftist and yet you do not enjoy it when your taxes go up?' is a gotcha. In some cases you might need to get them to accept something that will make them slightly worse off personally.
I think growing success of YIMBYism has less to do with weirdos on the internet making convincing arguments (the arguments were just as true in 1990 as they are today, but nobody cared) and more to do with the state of the world, where even fairly high income people can't afford to live in the places that they want to live in.
This doesn't work because if you get a good college degree you aren't allowed to leave liberal-approved blue cities or you're an apostate.
FWIW, I think you have the hippie-punching thing backwards. YIMBYs are culturally aligned with the left but need to do the hippie-punching to build their coalition with the types of people who actually hold power in cities.
On the whole, the bigger problem for YIMBY is lots of YIMBYs want to put their effort into alleviating esoteric leftist concerns (public housing, free transit) rather than normie concerns like parking, traffic, and crime.
When I encounter people who are dismissive of open spaces having value I immediately start to avoid them because they are sociopaths incapable of perceiving beauty or experiencing happiness. I think this is a pretty normal reaction in the USA.
Freddie, you always reporting on the very thing that’s on my mind! ❤️🙏
A huge part of my Yimbyism is my desire for aesthetic cities, there’s few things I consider uglier than sprawled out cookie cutter suburban tract homes. I’d much rather live in dense walkable Parisian style beaux-arts revival apartment blocks or eco/neofuturistic towers. The latter are probably more economical since stones very difficult to use in modern times. Every day I walk down the streets of SF I can’t help but scowl at the ugliness of electric wires crisscrossing the sky and ugly rain damaged 1970s modernist facades. SF’s NIMBYs constantly shriek about neighborhood character, but I definitely don’t see it here. In SF Yimbys have had far more success strongarming cities to build dense housing by passing laws at the state level - trying to compromise with city NIMBYs is a fools errand imo. Recently the state forced SF to dramatically revise its housing element and start to approve apartment complexes the board of supervisors had blocked for ludicrous nimby reasons.
I study urban ecology, and one of the fascinating but poorly understood phenomena in my field is deurbanization. There are dozens of medium-sized cities in the US and hundreds of smaller cities that have declined in population in the last several decades, with previously-thriving downtowns and nearby neighborhoods that are in dire condition. If we could make these places desirable with a diversity of housing types, then it could really change the situation. A win-win is building dense or dense-ish housing but not just in NYC, Seattle, and SF. I read Matt Yglesias' "One Billion Americans" and thought it was weakly argued and flippant about obvious criticisms of its central thesis. However, two ideas stuck out as potentially beneficial: 1) relocating national agencies (USDA, FDA, etc etc) out of the DC area and scattering them around the country in smaller cities, and perhaps regionalizing them much more than is currently done; and 2) granting visas to immigrants that are region specific (i.e. you get a visa to live in Rochester, NY for 10 years and then can apply for citizenship). Trump tried #1 as kind of an anti-government punishment for the USDA, but done well it could work just fine. A version of #2 already exists for overseas physicians that are willing to work in rural hospitals. A new round of land-grant universities in struggling small- to medium-sized cities might also be useful. The regional rural campuses are struggling and will start to close or be combined with others, but might find new life in these forgotten cities. Revitalizing these pre-existing urban areas takes a lot of pressure off less-dense areas. Many people would love to have a nice Victorian single-family home in a cute downtown of a small thriving city rather than an ugly Toll Brothers piece of garbage built on a former farm field or clearcut area with no trees or amenities.
The US is in the bottom quintile for sovereign nation population density. It's a big place. And plans to electrify transportation face a real challenge with cars parallel parked on streets in cities. Are owners to toss an extension cord out the window of the apartment building across the sidewalk to the charging port of the Tesla? And if you think putting rows of charging stations along city streets is practical, just look at how well we are doing at replacing lead water pipes in older residential areas. So densification certainly jeopardizes the effort to eliminate fossil fuels.
Transformative, well meaning ideas often run up on the rocks of human choices and behavior. Single family houses are popular for a variety of reasons, all favoring quality of individual life. Experiments seeking to build upwards in the 1950s, funded as urban renewal and similar, mostly failed. The remaining Mies-style housing is in affluent neighborhoods where there is a car hiker who brings the car around when it is needed.
Love this! I wonder why we don’t already see coalitions between rural & suburban nimbies and urban yimbies? Like, suppose I don’t want to see more construction in Park Slope. Right now, I would probably be simply against upzoning everywhere. What would it take for a Park Slope nimby to support upzoning, say, in Manhattan? Seems like people have pretty strong intuitions about local control, that it would be bad for outer neighborhoods to gang up and upzone the core. (Also, what would stop an even more outer coalition from upzoning Manhattan and inner Brooklyn?)
When I see that photo of Inland Empire, somewhere in the background, the rap hit "Developer's Paradise" is playing in the background...
More seriously, there's a subtle fallacy about density leading to wilder spaces remaining wild.
Of course it's entirely true, that for the same # of people, if some are diverted into denser places than they would otherwise, the less dense places will see smaller population increases and relatively less development.
The problem however is that for places to remain wild or to regain wilderness, virtually no one can develop there. This is a case where absolutes matter, and 'relative' is mostly irrelevant. We know this through studies that find that biodiversity drops just about everywhere within 10km of a road, even with no dwellings.
The best way to slow down the loss of wild places is not density, but decreasing human population (although both is even better). Absent a fall in population, to preserve biodiversity, among other things, we have to prohibit development across large tracts of land, and even de-populate some low-density rural areas.
"Some people won’t be happy until Park Slope looks like Hudson Yards"
This is one thing that I find infuriating. Neighborhoods like PS are a magnificent showcase for how appealing density can be. If we made a lot more of them across the country we would be in great shape. And yet YIMBYs want to destroy it.
Aesthetics 100% matter, are these fools out of their minds? Homes are not just places you sleep and shower in, they are where you LIVE. People need places they can feel comfortable, secure and feel happy in. For many of us, we need green spaces. We need trees, grass, gardens etc. I don't care how cheap it was, you couldn't get me to live n a bare bones, concrete building with nothing to offer. With density there needs to be true neighborhood scaping and care. I lived in Philly for ten years, its remarkably dirty and entire neighborhoods have 0 trees. Its honestly a depressing and stark way to live.
I agree with almost everything you say here Freddie, except for one not-so-little thing: the uniquely American dream of having the suburban mini-estate as the ideal way of life.
Partly because of our history as a late-comer to populating their continent (only talking about non-natives here, the indigenous aspect is another matter), a transportation system overwhelmingly favoring cars, as well as massive post-WW2 suburban planning, a lot of Americans tend to have this insatiable desire for that suburban ideal. The 3-4 bedroom house, with attached garage, green grass and trees surrounding, and a nice backyard patio or even pool to top it off.
I think THAT is a major part of the problem, everyone wants their own mini-estate...even a lot of people living in cities, I would bet, would choose that if they could afford it. I mean, when everyone talks about the good ole' times of America's greatness (not Donald's version here!) it almost always involves images of those zero-crime picturesque suburbs for miles and miles. Granted they were mostly white, but that's a whole 'nother matter I'm not going to get into here.
I think America's infatuation with the suburban ideal is not something that can easily be excised from our own expectations of what it means to live the 'good life' in this country. I mean, we can't even get quality interstate rail in this country (or even poor quality in some cases). And since suburban sprawl goes hand in hand with automobile primacy, what makes us think we can ever fix our housing issues without a massive rethinking on what a good life is here in America?
Another breath of fresh air. You informed me on a subject I care about but hadn’t found time to think about. Your breakdown made logical sense and your experience in this area added credibility. I hope you enjoy your new home.
Ps I think aesthetics and functional quality are not just important, they are essential. High density design must consider human nature.
People bitch about this lobby and the lobby. But you know who ALWAYS wins? Real estate developers. Profit is way higher on single family than high density.
Didn't Mr. DeBoer write an article just this week about waking onto his back deck and luxuriating in the silence and quiet of his new neighborhood? How is high density housing going to be compatible with that?
I think a narrative of 'NIMBYism vs YIMBYism' as two concrete and polarized political identities is a little misleading. NIMBYism is simply a base instinct in America across the political spectrum - people generally like the characteristics of the place that they've decided to live in and there's always a status quo bias in politics. YIMBYism is counterintuitive to the average person in the same way that 'you should want to pay more taxes' is counterintuitive. Even the higher taxes party doesn't campaign on raising *your* taxes, it's always the other guy's taxes. And even a lot of people who subscribe to the broad YIMBY philosophy might not personally think that their neighborhood would be more pleasant with more skyscrapers. That's not some gotcha anymore than 'you're a leftist and yet you do not enjoy it when your taxes go up?' is a gotcha. In some cases you might need to get them to accept something that will make them slightly worse off personally.
I think growing success of YIMBYism has less to do with weirdos on the internet making convincing arguments (the arguments were just as true in 1990 as they are today, but nobody cared) and more to do with the state of the world, where even fairly high income people can't afford to live in the places that they want to live in.