I think you and Yglesias are more alike than different in your perspective even if you don't like his writing and it would be educational to readers to ask him for a critique of what you wrote here. Loyal reader so i hope this doesn't get me blocked.
FWIW, you definitely sound more censorious on your Substack when discussing comments than I think you intend to. Maybe that is the source of their confusion.
I have blocked like six accounts in more than two years and a couple of them have been spam; I have deleted maybe eight or nine comments in more than two years and a couple of those have been spam. But I maintain the principle that this is my house and I will keep it how I please. No one should ever mistake this for a free and open forum. It isn't. Here my word is law, and I have zero issue with people understanding that.
Well it's my house in the sense that you're now going to take a timeout, because I have buttons you don't. You may ruminate on that metaphor while you wait.
Take a gander at the un-moderated comment thread for The Free Press. It's a cesspool of gas-lighting and ad hominem. And I say this as a subscriber. The Friday TGIF is worth the price of a subscription.
It's obviously your choice, but you do threaten to block people way more often than any other Substack I read. (I think the others just do it without comment.) Hence, people are afraid of being blocked.
Which would you rather? That I block at a much higher rate, as a lot of people do? Or that I make it clear that I am willing to exercise my right to block, but actually wield that power maybe three times a year, if that?
In my many years of internet, a moderated forum, even one with an ideological bias, has always been superior to an unmoderated one. Look at what has happened to Xitter once the mild, spotty moderation was relaxed.
If you feel threatened by "Be on your best behavior" by the writer of this blog, you should reconsider how you present your arguments.
No, my point was that Freddie doesn't moderate nearly as harshly as his comments on moderating make it seem like he intends to. I think that is a good thing, for the record.
And Shitter was always the worst. Worse than 4chan, worse than kiwifarms, just complete garbage. It is also the most effective video game drug when it comes to making people into complete losers.
Two immediate thoughts - there’s lots in here that I feel he has maybe slightly kinda addressed in bits and pieces, if not properly, but also lots that he hasn’t and really should. I would love to read a structured back and forth between you on this if it was the kind of thing you felt like investing that much time in.
Your point on when one decides to have strategic message discipline (let’s not dignify ‘popularism’ with its own ism) and when one decides the purity of the cause means people need to be confronted with hard truths is very well set out - thanks for doing it.
Annoyingly replying to myself, sorry. I recall him boosting an idea to convert existing residents’ parking permits into a fungible item that they can sell, the idea being it would appreciate in value if you increased density and/or removed parking minimums. That was one practical idea he discussed that might be actually popular and give local people a stake in development. That is one practical idea in an ocean of polemic, though
There's nothing more destructive than racialism. But the entire Democratic Party has embraced it from Beijing Joe down to people LARPing as activists. I personally don't like the idea of prison yard race war mentality, but what does a simple Trumpkin like me know?
If you reverse the races, you have a meaningless hypothetical that has never happened. You conveniently omitted the second part:
“the same white people who cross the street to avoid you. And there’s a good chance that they’ll bring with them white businesses where you won’t feel comfortable and drive out the ones you’ve loved all your life.”
The point is that these whites bring their contempt and fear and animate it using their political/economic power. Police nuisance calls are also a part of this.
So you think it's OK to purposefully identify and exclude an ethnicity from a neighborhood if you can establish that certain subsets of that ethnicity behaved poorly in other neighborhoods? And assuming the absolute worst of someone for simply crossing the street is enough?
Would you accept an argument that black people should not be allowed to move into a neighborhood because of their disproportionately high violent crime rates?
There's no racial exclusion order on the table. The issue here is that the neighborhood does not have agency on whether there is massive development that will transform it into a sea of Whole Foodses, Targets, and hideous condos. If you think someone equates this concern with white people crossing the street, I don't know what to tell you.
No, I would not accept an unreconstructed segregationist argument. High violent crime rates are due to concentrations of poverty, unemployment, neglect, exclusion, and inequality, not from a racial disposition to crime. The latter is textbook racism
Does your opposition to segregation hinge on the cause of crime rates? Personally, I’d say that segregation is wrong regardless. I also found her rhetoric to be pretty racist, although I don’t draw a false equivalence between this brand of racism and white segregationism
Who exactly are all these people that supposedly love housing deregulation but dislike YIMBYs?
I have a really hard time believing that’s a common thing. I’ve seen New Urbanists tangle with Market Urbanists within the YIMBY tent and I know people who don’t like the YIMBY label, but not what you’re describing.
Also your highway example seems off. Most YIMBYs are quite urbanist and anti-car so I have a hard time believing it’s a meaningful example of a standard YIMBY position.
To quote the New Yorker's Jay Caspian Kang, "I agree w 95% of YIMBY prescriptions but you guys really can be fucking annoying know it all bullies." This is not at all an unusual position and I would argue that by denying it exists you're doing exactly what this post critiques.
I’m contesting this attitude exists at any meaningful scale.
I realize it’s hard to provide evidence here but it’s not great that you think this quote from a journalist moves the needle.
I’d argue this post doesn’t make a meaningful critique because it fails to construct an accurate representation of actual YIMBYs and the political landscape they face. (Not to mention the amount of dogged insistence from so many that supply doesn’t affect the price of housing.)
Even if your critique were correct it’s hard to tell what the solution would be in that nearly every political movement of any scale has obnoxious online adherents.
Again, you just are the person being critiqued here. I almost wonder if you're a doing a bit where you exemplify the unhealthy tendencies I'm describing.
As an Yglesias fanboy and online/offline YIMBY who excels at being obnoxious, I’m flattered to get such an article on my behalf. I would, however, prefer you try less psychoanalysis and more reason and evidence because otherwise you’re kind of failing at convincing your target audience.
I posed a couple of issues where your argument seems weakly justified and you’re failing to address those concerns directly.
1. Online YIMBYism seems clearly suboptimal to me in terms of messaging and attitudes towards others, and this has real-world consequences; we may disagree on how prevalent this is.
2. There are NIMBY arguments which are appealing to many real-world people, and they have to be combatted not with snark and derision but with sound messaging.
3. Matt Yglesias exemplifies a certain pernicious online attitude within YIMBYism.
4. But Yglesias is also well known as a popularist, which is all about effective messaging and in particular defending popular positions rather than unpopular.
5. In general, he appears to violate his own perspective on online politics and good messaging, and in specific, he has long publicly advocated a very extreme vision of zero local control of housing regulation.
6. I think this is all suboptimal for the effort to create housing abundance.
I don't think you've effectively rebutted any of that, only attacked the prevalence of the problem. But let's say the problem is one tenth the size I think it is. So what? Shouldn't we want to fix that one tenth?
This discourse I found disquieting. NIMBYers rule the day. If we listen to them and not society at large needs we be doomed to: nothing changes. Do nothingness.
Indeed, so we must DO POLITICS EFFECTIVELY BY BUILDING COALITIONS, WHICH MEANS LISTENING TO INCUMBENT RESIDENTS AND ADDRESSING THEIR CONCERNS COMPASSIONATELY.
I think there’s an empirical question here of what doing politics effectively on this issue looks like and you and the typical YIMBY disagree about that, even if we get rid of the online aspect.
I was mystified by the initial paragraphs of this post focusing on online YIMBY culture, but got the point once you described the unnamed organizer in Brooklyn. I think that, and your follow up generalizations on local knowledge and the limits of generalization would make a better focus than Yglesias.
I wasn't persuaded by your argument on popularism because I haven't read Yglesias as advocating for housing abundance in the terms you indicate (i.e., local communities should not have regulatory input). I think your criticism of Yglesias is in bounds (though I haven't read him the way you do), but not particularly useful as your principled points are, and likely to undercut the force of those good arguments. (I'm always going to find "I disagree with X because . . ." more persuasive than "I think X is a jerk because . . ."
He has said (on Twitter and elsewhere) that he is explicitly opposed to the idea of local control of housing as such - that there should literally be no such thing as local zoning or regulation and that all such regulation should be minimal and occur only at the state or federal level, such that if someone owns a piece of land, they can develop it however they want. You may call that a correct opinion, you may call it a sensible opinion, but you cannot call it consonant with a political philosophy that explicitly says that we should not argue unpopular things. Period.
No, I agree that it's not a sensible opinion. I've never encountered a statement like that from Yglesias. I could see an argument for the first element (no local zoning) because of the influence of wealthy neighborhoods on local ordinance adoption (I wouldn't, however, support the idea, despite its reasonable impulse--industrial zoning is, I think, essential on the local level). The dismissal of all forms of local regulation and the idea that a landowner should have perfect freedom of use seem like crackpot ideas of the libertarian right, and I don't associate them with Yglesias. If he has in fact tweeted to that effect and will defend it, then I have to acknowledge your point.
You don’t need zoning to keep out buildings/uses with problematic externalities. There are other policy levers that don’t paint with such a broad micromanagement brush.
The Supreme Court case legitimizing zoning was over a housing development, tellingly.
Even we “abolish zoning” types don’t believe in a literally 0 level of “local control” but it needs to be far more limited than what is is now, what should be an illegal taking.
The SCOTUS case I'm aware of is Euclid, Lance, almost a century ago, and it was not about a housing development, it was about dispersed industrial development. (And I think zoning is macromanagement, not micro.)
I am much less absolutist about property rights so I don't see zoning as inherently a "taking." On the spectrum of approaches I think that in general we tend to give too much priority to individual property rights over community interests, which we don't generally view in terms of rights. And I think we also need to see "community interests" as involving varieties of interests by overlapping communities, from neighborhood out to the city and urban region bounds.
The adjustment I'd prefer would still involve robust individual property rights, but I think few Americans, accustomed to thinking of property ownership of almost all kinds as near-absolute, would accept it. (Honestly, as a real life property owner, what I actually want personally and what I think is the best balance are not the same--I want total control and no interference! But not for the neighbors.)
Lance, I acknowledge that the passages you cite show I was wrong to say Euclid was about industrial development.
I agree that the conduct of permitting boards can entail micromanagement, but zoning laws don't in themselves operate on that level. In any event, I'm in favor of micromanagement in the sense you're speaking of, which does not mean that I think it's being done well and in the interests of individuals and community.
(I just deleted long, boring paragraphs about the use and misuse of zoning laws and permitting processes by developers, cities, neighborhoods, and individuals. Let's just say that I think our approach should be non-ideological, understand that changing contexts require compromises and imperfect judgments, and give much more priority to speed in decision making.)
“depriving children of the privilege of quiet and open spaces for play, enjoyed by those in more favored localities — until, finally, the residential character of the neighborhood and its desirability as a place of detached residences are utterly destroyed. Under these circumstances, apartment houses … come very near to being nuisances.””
"Minimal regulation" and "dismissal of all forms of local regulation" are two separate things. Yglesias has made abundantly clear that he wants the former and that is the opinion that is in conflict with the "popularism." I'd imagine he'd permit something like "you have to bring your trashcans back in."
I remember when developers ran rampant in CA. They built in flood plains and on wetlands. They had no responsibility for the upgrades to infrastructure that their developments required. Folsom CA regularly dumped raw sewage into the American River because of inadequate water treatment facilities. They threw up houses on cheap land, made billions and left residents with a mess.
I fought a development out in the foothills that would have put in 1500 homes off of a 15 mile stretch of country road designed for 60 farmers.
YIMBY's need NIMBY's to see that good land use decisions are made. Some laws need to be at the State level like making provisions for Auxiliary Housing Units, but taking all local control away will result in a return of out-of-control speculators.
Yglesias believes in lots of unpopular things from opposing local control on housing to carbon taxes. His point about political popularism is not that folks should never advocate unpopular ideas.
His point is that POLITICIANS should not run on unpopular ideas. In some cases that will mean being quiet about your ideas that are unpopular while stressing the ones that are popular. In other cases, it may mean taking positions or even casting votes that you don't believe are right but are necessary to stay elected (see the Clintons or Obama and gay marriage).
His fundamental point is that politics is about getting things done, not about being right, and a critical part of getting things is to be elected and that may involve making compromises. His Slow Boring article from today (https://www.slowboring.com/p/democrats-need-marie-gluesenkamp) is a perfect example of dynamic.
"I think that this is the biggest difficulty when it comes to changing the minds of local residents - the fact that the downward pressure on rents is mostly invisible and takes time to build while the physical transformation of neighborhoods is impossible to miss."
I understand and appreciate NIMBYism from people who bought property in a rural or suburban community and want it to retain that characteristic or people that object to a neighboring development because of traffic or similar effects on their development. Zoning is something of a social compact, though not an immutable one. But I really don't get anti-gentrification NIMBYism, whether race-obsessed or not. This seems like the concern of the non-property owners and there's a very simple response to the concerns of non-property owners.
Twitter definitely has an impact on politics. It's just a universally 100% bad one, so therefore it is both amusing and morally correct to make fun of all the losers who use twitter - which is all twitter users, because nobody uses twitter for long and avoids becoming a loser.
Hey come on now, not all real estate developers are white. Some are Persian.
More seriously, I think the obnoxious tendency you're describing is rooted in the temperament of the technocratic progressive worldview. History is bending in a direction, we have the knowledge to bend it correctly, and you whiny relics of the past better get the fuck out of the way of its arc. It's usually obscured under a lot of jargon and statistical analysis and wonkery, but it shows up in lots of insufferable social media posts.
But that might be too specific, maybe this is just the cost of a movement that can only really exist on the internet? Where would "YIMBY" people have gotten together in sufficient numbers to form a subculture in the early 90s? The same tendency seems to show up in other distributed online subcultures - identification of stock villains and ways to mock them, etc.
What interests me is that progressives don't see any connection between the way they behave and the way other people react to them. They seem incapable of understanding that other people won't share their conception of themselves as the inevitable protagonist of history. A weird lack of self-awareness.
I don't think it's weird, it's absolutely normal - it's pretty rare that ideological movements construe themselves as anything other than the saviors of humanity, it's much more satisfying and makes for a better sales pitch.
This is good. In the future, unless you feel tired of the topic, you should address Matt Y's indifference or even hatred of rent stabilization. I've written a bit about it but I'd like to hear your view, since you've been immersed in NYC housing issues as well.
I agree this critique is good. I have been deeply immersed in these debates for a decade here in Boulder (where we have 8.3% permanently affordable housing and growing), and I am fully behind FDB's points, both about MY and YIMBY politics in general. The litmus-testing and dismissive 'othering' by the YIMBY clique is actually pretty damaging to (some of) their stated objectives. This bothers me mostly when developer-favorable advocacy prevents otherwise positive (and nominally socialist) actions like increasing an AH linkage fee on office building development for affordable housing projects. The local YIMBY clique (and Chamber of Commerce) fought tooth and nail to prevent this 2018 linkage fee increase, which is now responsible for delivering many millions of $$ towards permanent AH projects. Local 'leftist' YIMBY's have this year argued against interest-free down-payment assistance for low-income home buyers. And on and on - many YIMBY's forget who they should be working for: lower-income folks who can't benefit any time soon from the luxury condos replacing the 1980's strip apartments in town. I can't recommend Patrick Condon and his free e-book Sick City (https://justicelandandthecity.blogspot.com/p/download-sick-city-pdf.html ) enough to those who are authentically interested in sustainable housing solutions in American cities. Zoning reform is a big part of that, but if not coupled with funding for permanent social housing, it won’t do much but enrich existing land owners.
"This bothers me mostly when developer-favorable advocacy prevents otherwise positive (and nominally socialist) actions"
This is why (most) leftists can't be happy with (most) YIMBYs. Developers are the good guys here in basically every case in the same way farmers are in a famine. Most leftists cannot accept that markets and developers are good, actually, because it's contrary to their basic worldview, but the YIMBY position basically demands acknowledging this.
"Local 'leftist' YIMBY's have this year argued against interest-free down-payment assistance for low-income home buyers. "
Probably because this would subsidize demand and raise prices without actually solving the underlying game of musical chairs (and lighting a bunch of taxpayer $$$ on fire in the process). It's better to focus on root causes than expensive and ultimately self-defeating bandaids.
"many YIMBY's forget who they should be working for: lower-income folks"
The great thing about housing abundance is that it's working for all of society (except rent-seeking property owners).
"Zoning reform is a big part of that, but if not coupled with funding for permanent social housing, it won’t do much but enrich existing land owners."
Zoning reform would not enrich existing landowners on average because it would allow more construction everywhere. Increasing competition would erode the rent-seeking advantage landowners currently have. Permanent social housing has nothing to do with that.
Developers might be good guys in a housing famine if they are community-minded, or they might be survival-games hoarders who would as soon see the poor die as live in their luxury condos. We cannot know, and the market will not provide for everyone in all circumstances,, thus government social supports. The interest-free down-payment assistance program that just launched (to pick one that Lance commented on while ignorant of details) creates permanent ownership affordable units to complement the few hundred already in that pool of social ownership housing in Boulder. Each such loan directly increases (by 1) the number of affordable houses in the permanently affordable pool, or is used by a new applicant on a property already in the program. Easy peasy, market plays a role in sorting who is interested in this type of housing, government provides enabling funding, permanently affordable housing is increased, and the game moves on. But with government intervention setting some terms in the market, using carrots in this case. Similarly with using land owned by the city combined with funds raised by the city (further combined with state and Federal tax credits) while taxing other developments to provide for construction of affordable units. The whole I'm-more-laissez-faire-than-you YIMBY game is for mugs who believed Reagan, and I'm not one. Quote me all the von Mises you want, I'm not convinced. Unregulated densification through relaxed zoning regulations absolutely positively enriches current (and nearby) landowners, when it occurs in economically desirable locations. If the value of land does not rise when the amount of construction on the property is allowed to increase, it is by definition not in a particularly desirable area.
Curious how you apply this lens to the left more broadly, and specifically in the 2016 and 2020 primaries. I honestly never know what to think. At the time, the "Bernie Bros" complaints seemed like cynical BS. But then I met a surprising (to me, anyway) number of people on the left side of the Democratic coalition who refused to consider Bernie and by way of explanation mostly pointed to misbehavior online (snarky, hostile, mean, dismissive, arrogant, etc.--same stuff you're listing for YIMBYs). This misbehavior got associated with the Bernie campaign, which seemed crazy to me, but maybe no less crazy than associating a local zoning question with Matt Yglesias? What really stuck with me is talking to Warren supporters in 2020 and pointing out what seemed obvious to me--that ideologically, Bernie should be their second choice if she dropped out. Genuinely surprised me how many people could cite chapter and verse about the lore of pointless internet snark. At this point in my life, the crowd I'm talking to probably self selects for people more likely to be on the internet than voters writ large, but it's still a segment of voters--and one of the most active segments for stuff like off-year local elections or party primaries.
Of course, partisans for other candidates were also being annoying online, and that's a case where you can see that annoying behavior breeds more annoying behavior most clearly. Is that not happening in YIMBY/NIMBY debates? I've certainly seen public statements by politicians or others we would code as "NIMBY" that seem annoying/dismissive/arrogant, etc. I'm open to the possibility that one side is "worse" than the other. Honestly trying to keep score on who's more annoying sounds exhausting.
Anyway, the hard part for me about trying to reckon the impact of stuff like tone in messaging on social media is that...for me personally, so many people are being annoying from such a wide range of perspectives that it just washes over me. My interpersonal advice to people would be not to use "how annoying are the advocates" as the test for where you fall on a policy question. Sometimes, some people can be annoying. That doesn't really tell you anything, even if it's tempting to let your annoyance fuel your response. And because "annoying" is a problem faced by people of all ideological stripes, there's no real point in trying to keep score.
But maybe in the real world, people DO really respond to this stuff. Certainly, I know a lot of conservatives whose entire ideology feels grounded in the true-but-trivial observation that some liberals, or leftists, can be annoying sometimes. I think as strategic advice, Freddie's points are sound, and Matt Yglesias would be wise to consider them. On the other hand, I think I can offer strategic advice: I also think Freddie's points would get more of a hearing from Matt/YIMBYs if he used more generous rhetorical strategies. This essay is written from the perspective of an activist who very much wants to solve this problem, which requires convincing someone. Imagining one's opponent with dick in hand is contraindicated if that's the goal. And obviously such tonal moves will cause responses. The annoying people will get more annoying.
I think people should try to be less annoying on issues they care about, because I suspect that our tone and rhetorical style matters more than we realize (and honestly more than it should). But I also think that telling Freddie, or Matt, HOW they should make their points is itself...kind of annoying?
Writers are not part of a collective activist group, and they're never going to have anything close to message discipline even if they are mostly in ideological agreement. If you want to say that MY in particular plays an extremely special role because of his prominence, okay--but even if he changed course, there would still be so many people making the argument making the argument in an annoying way from the bottom up! There's just a lot of annoying stuff out there once you log in.
"I also think Freddie's points would get more of a hearing from Matt/YIMBYs if he used more generous rhetorical strategies."
I think you are misunderstanding the point of the post. FdB is not staking out a position that YIMBYs are fundamentally incorrect. He's pointing out that they are arrogant, condescending and off-putting.
No I am responding to precisely that point. He is saying their messaging is arrogant, condescending, and off-putting. He is, implicitly (and explicitly elsewhere), *trying to convince them to adopt better messaging instead.* I am pointing out that this argument would potentially get a better hearing from the people he's trying to convince if he made it in the style he is suggesting YIMBYs employ.
But more broadly, FDB should write what he wants and MY should write what he wants. I think the problem FDB is describing is real, but it's probably a basically uncontrollable bottom-up phenomenon.
I am extremely skeptical that FdB's motivation for writing this piece is a sincere effort to convince online YIMBYs to change the way they make their argument, rather than an airing of grievances. Which is fine. He has an audience paying to hear his interesting grievances.
Sure. That's fine! I'm sure YIMBYs do grievance airing too, and it seems like FdB finds that annoying. Anyway. If the entire exercise is to complain that annoying people are annoying, QED.
FWIW he has frequently explicitly stated that he very much wants YIMBYs to change the way they make their argument, and that he views this outcome as vital to a movement he cares deeply about.
Probably the best use of “contraindicated” I’ve ever seen.
Also agree with you about annoyingness and snark in general. I just do not get any pleasure out of it anymore, if I ever did. I unsubscribed from Taibbi for that reason, one day and in a huff: trying to get a well-rounded take, but the tone became really intolerable (admittedly, I do still read from time to time and do find value as well.)
That objection would make sense if I was a popularist, or if I had a direct line to the White House, or if I thought that my writing had a direct political purpose, or if I was a part of any organized political tendency....
Freddie is god of this space. He can bust his nut wherever he damn pleases. He's a dime store Pol Pot where he can be. To his credit, Freddie puts out the fact that he's an asshole out there in his Substack description. No false advertising here.
The way deBoer describes it sounds like the one thing that unites everyone is their racist hatred of white people. The activist deBoer so admires simply spins a divisive racialist narrative that is so corrosive. Let's reduce everything to skin pigmentation. You = good. Other = bad.
I also find it interesting that close to 90% of this YIMBY bullshit is located in deep blue areas. Here in Florida, we make it easy to build. So does Texas. We don't have stupid regulations, or at least we have a LOT less of them. As somebody who lived in NYC Metro area for close to 30 years, the difference is night and day.
Edit: I'm stealing "Yes my penis is in my hand as I write this".
But I don't admire her. Rather I recognize that her perspective is very common in what are overwhelmingly Democratic spaces, and that this perspective needs to be effectively addressed for the good of everyone so that we can have housing abundance that doesn't unduly threaten longtime residents. I think that's achievable.
I don't think it is achievable. Racialism is inherently unwilling to work on solutions. Left's incessant focus on race has poisoned the well on everything. When white people come, gentrification bad. When white people leave, white flight bad. NIMBYism in this case is just an outgrowth of "Kill Whitey" mentality. And don't forget, activists like the one you described don't want to solve problems, since solutions undermine need for activists.
In my experience, when an activist solves a problem, they move on to solve another. It's called "winning a campaign" and gives them credibility and power.
Wouldn’t be better to ignore this person (and the people you think she speaks for)? Some people don’t want new construction, full stop, no matter the consequences. If they’re starting from that premise, which I personally think sucks but like whatever it exists, the most respectful and efficient strategy is to let them be. Accept and move on!
No, the perspective should not be addressed. She should be defeated and thrown from the Democratic Party for trying to monopolize space that belongs to everyone.
Wish you had led with the comment below as it was extremely powerful. And I'm told that few readers make it to the end of longer substack posts.
"Rich white people have bought land in this neighborhood. Rich white developers want to put up high rises on that land, and if they sell it on to a landlord that landlord will be rich and white. They’ll knock down buildings you’ve known for your whole life and physically transform your neighborhood. The people who live in those buildings will almost all be rich and white. They’ll change the way the neighborhood feels and looks, and instead of seeing faces that look like yours, you’ll see the faces of white people, the same white people who cross the street to avoid you. And there’s a good chance that they’ll bring with them white businesses where you won’t feel comfortable and drive out the ones you’ve loved all your life."
I did read the whole thing and you make a persuasive argument.
I’m not on Twitter but I do subscribe to Yglesias’s Substack and I don’t see much smugness or glibness there. Even when he’s posting a few thousand words on YIMBYism.
I subscribed for a year and had the opposite conclusion. Glib seemed to be a main tone of much of his writing there. It really came through when he would write about something I know more about than he does...the way he would casually wave away the need to engage with counterarguments or holes in his knowledge were infuriating. But I stopped reading him after that first year so maybe he's changed.
Jason: I don't find this. I'm guessing it's been too long for you to remember a specific piece that would serve as an example, but if you can it would be interesting to see an example of one of his Substack pieces that gave you that impression.
I also subscribe to Yglesias and value his willingness to dive into process. As involved in bureaucracy as I am, a lot of what he says makes sense to me. However, I also appreciate Freddie's critique here of the ways in which Yglesias contradicts his own stances.
Yglesias' technocratic approach reminds me of much of the neo liberal project that Obama and Clinton were a part of. There is a kind of utopian hope that if we just look at the big picture we can weather through the transition to get to the nirvana we know is on the other side but somehow or another it doesn't play out that way. Still, I value Yglesias in a a different than deBoer and happily subscribe to both (also maybe I developed my addiction to them both when reading Andrew Sullivan---this post has me really delving into my evolution as a reader!!). I would love to see a post or a conversation between them both.
Yes! I was thinking the same thing! I think I have a strong handle on what each of them thinks, but I feel as though I could really refine my own thinking if I could witness a dialogue. I’m not steeped in the topic enough and frankly find both of them persuasive.
I think you and Yglesias are more alike than different in your perspective even if you don't like his writing and it would be educational to readers to ask him for a critique of what you wrote here. Loyal reader so i hope this doesn't get me blocked.
Why would I block you?
FWIW, you definitely sound more censorious on your Substack when discussing comments than I think you intend to. Maybe that is the source of their confusion.
I have blocked like six accounts in more than two years and a couple of them have been spam; I have deleted maybe eight or nine comments in more than two years and a couple of those have been spam. But I maintain the principle that this is my house and I will keep it how I please. No one should ever mistake this for a free and open forum. It isn't. Here my word is law, and I have zero issue with people understanding that.
Well it's my house in the sense that you're now going to take a timeout, because I have buttons you don't. You may ruminate on that metaphor while you wait.
I come down on the side of comment moderation.
Take a gander at the un-moderated comment thread for The Free Press. It's a cesspool of gas-lighting and ad hominem. And I say this as a subscriber. The Friday TGIF is worth the price of a subscription.
You mean that we all can't just take a vote and, against your will, tell you what you can and can't do with "your house?" Where's your YIMBY spirit?
It's obviously your choice, but you do threaten to block people way more often than any other Substack I read. (I think the others just do it without comment.) Hence, people are afraid of being blocked.
Which would you rather? That I block at a much higher rate, as a lot of people do? Or that I make it clear that I am willing to exercise my right to block, but actually wield that power maybe three times a year, if that?
In my many years of internet, a moderated forum, even one with an ideological bias, has always been superior to an unmoderated one. Look at what has happened to Xitter once the mild, spotty moderation was relaxed.
If you feel threatened by "Be on your best behavior" by the writer of this blog, you should reconsider how you present your arguments.
No, my point was that Freddie doesn't moderate nearly as harshly as his comments on moderating make it seem like he intends to. I think that is a good thing, for the record.
And Shitter was always the worst. Worse than 4chan, worse than kiwifarms, just complete garbage. It is also the most effective video game drug when it comes to making people into complete losers.
Two immediate thoughts - there’s lots in here that I feel he has maybe slightly kinda addressed in bits and pieces, if not properly, but also lots that he hasn’t and really should. I would love to read a structured back and forth between you on this if it was the kind of thing you felt like investing that much time in.
Your point on when one decides to have strategic message discipline (let’s not dignify ‘popularism’ with its own ism) and when one decides the purity of the cause means people need to be confronted with hard truths is very well set out - thanks for doing it.
Annoyingly replying to myself, sorry. I recall him boosting an idea to convert existing residents’ parking permits into a fungible item that they can sell, the idea being it would appreciate in value if you increased density and/or removed parking minimums. That was one practical idea he discussed that might be actually popular and give local people a stake in development. That is one practical idea in an ocean of polemic, though
“ They’ll change the way the neighborhood feels and looks, and instead of seeing faces that look like yours, you’ll see the faces of white people,”
Reverse the races and it becomes obviously how deeply racist that comment is.
There's nothing more destructive than racialism. But the entire Democratic Party has embraced it from Beijing Joe down to people LARPing as activists. I personally don't like the idea of prison yard race war mentality, but what does a simple Trumpkin like me know?
Less than nothing.
Thank you for going for ad hominem from the get go. Makes it that much easier when you know what type of intellect you are dealing with.
And this could be said of so many statements emanating from SJW spaces.
"There goes the neighborhood" ...
Yes, I was startled by her overt anti-white racism. I guess I'm old-fashioned.
If you reverse the races, you have a meaningless hypothetical that has never happened. You conveniently omitted the second part:
“the same white people who cross the street to avoid you. And there’s a good chance that they’ll bring with them white businesses where you won’t feel comfortable and drive out the ones you’ve loved all your life.”
The point is that these whites bring their contempt and fear and animate it using their political/economic power. Police nuisance calls are also a part of this.
I see. So blatant racism is OK if you back it up with some hypothetical stereotyping first. Good to know.
What? I presented no hypothetical. The scenario I described has happens and continues to happen.
So you think it's OK to purposefully identify and exclude an ethnicity from a neighborhood if you can establish that certain subsets of that ethnicity behaved poorly in other neighborhoods? And assuming the absolute worst of someone for simply crossing the street is enough?
Would you accept an argument that black people should not be allowed to move into a neighborhood because of their disproportionately high violent crime rates?
There's no racial exclusion order on the table. The issue here is that the neighborhood does not have agency on whether there is massive development that will transform it into a sea of Whole Foodses, Targets, and hideous condos. If you think someone equates this concern with white people crossing the street, I don't know what to tell you.
No, I would not accept an unreconstructed segregationist argument. High violent crime rates are due to concentrations of poverty, unemployment, neglect, exclusion, and inequality, not from a racial disposition to crime. The latter is textbook racism
Does your opposition to segregation hinge on the cause of crime rates? Personally, I’d say that segregation is wrong regardless. I also found her rhetoric to be pretty racist, although I don’t draw a false equivalence between this brand of racism and white segregationism
>If you reverse the races, you have a meaningless hypothetical that has never happened.
Or, rather, you have a maybe 1/3 of New York City neighborhoods.
It's not "deeply racist" just because you ignore all the context surrounding it.
Racism is OK in the right “context”, got it. Thanks for clearing that up.
You don't even have to reverse the races. Go to NYC and hear the echo parens around "white people".
Who exactly are all these people that supposedly love housing deregulation but dislike YIMBYs?
I have a really hard time believing that’s a common thing. I’ve seen New Urbanists tangle with Market Urbanists within the YIMBY tent and I know people who don’t like the YIMBY label, but not what you’re describing.
Also your highway example seems off. Most YIMBYs are quite urbanist and anti-car so I have a hard time believing it’s a meaningful example of a standard YIMBY position.
To quote the New Yorker's Jay Caspian Kang, "I agree w 95% of YIMBY prescriptions but you guys really can be fucking annoying know it all bullies." This is not at all an unusual position and I would argue that by denying it exists you're doing exactly what this post critiques.
I’m contesting this attitude exists at any meaningful scale.
I realize it’s hard to provide evidence here but it’s not great that you think this quote from a journalist moves the needle.
I’d argue this post doesn’t make a meaningful critique because it fails to construct an accurate representation of actual YIMBYs and the political landscape they face. (Not to mention the amount of dogged insistence from so many that supply doesn’t affect the price of housing.)
Even if your critique were correct it’s hard to tell what the solution would be in that nearly every political movement of any scale has obnoxious online adherents.
Again, you just are the person being critiqued here. I almost wonder if you're a doing a bit where you exemplify the unhealthy tendencies I'm describing.
As an Yglesias fanboy and online/offline YIMBY who excels at being obnoxious, I’m flattered to get such an article on my behalf. I would, however, prefer you try less psychoanalysis and more reason and evidence because otherwise you’re kind of failing at convincing your target audience.
I posed a couple of issues where your argument seems weakly justified and you’re failing to address those concerns directly.
My argument is very basic.
1. Online YIMBYism seems clearly suboptimal to me in terms of messaging and attitudes towards others, and this has real-world consequences; we may disagree on how prevalent this is.
2. There are NIMBY arguments which are appealing to many real-world people, and they have to be combatted not with snark and derision but with sound messaging.
3. Matt Yglesias exemplifies a certain pernicious online attitude within YIMBYism.
4. But Yglesias is also well known as a popularist, which is all about effective messaging and in particular defending popular positions rather than unpopular.
5. In general, he appears to violate his own perspective on online politics and good messaging, and in specific, he has long publicly advocated a very extreme vision of zero local control of housing regulation.
6. I think this is all suboptimal for the effort to create housing abundance.
I don't think you've effectively rebutted any of that, only attacked the prevalence of the problem. But let's say the problem is one tenth the size I think it is. So what? Shouldn't we want to fix that one tenth?
I didn’t say I rebutted the whole argument. I brought up two specific points you made where I question the actual level of relevance/accuracy.
If you were correct, Yglesias should modify his approach as should I, even if obnoxious online behavior is impossible to solve overall.
I just don’t think you’re correct about YIMBYs or NIMBYs in some key ways that lead you to be frustrated as you are.
This discourse I found disquieting. NIMBYers rule the day. If we listen to them and not society at large needs we be doomed to: nothing changes. Do nothingness.
*So much needs changing*
Indeed, so we must DO POLITICS EFFECTIVELY BY BUILDING COALITIONS, WHICH MEANS LISTENING TO INCUMBENT RESIDENTS AND ADDRESSING THEIR CONCERNS COMPASSIONATELY.
I think there’s an empirical question here of what doing politics effectively on this issue looks like and you and the typical YIMBY disagree about that, even if we get rid of the online aspect.
Well... sure, of course.
WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE LONG-SINCE PUSHED OUT WHO ARE NOW NIMBY'D BY SO-CALLED INCUMBENT RESIDENTS?
I was mystified by the initial paragraphs of this post focusing on online YIMBY culture, but got the point once you described the unnamed organizer in Brooklyn. I think that, and your follow up generalizations on local knowledge and the limits of generalization would make a better focus than Yglesias.
I wasn't persuaded by your argument on popularism because I haven't read Yglesias as advocating for housing abundance in the terms you indicate (i.e., local communities should not have regulatory input). I think your criticism of Yglesias is in bounds (though I haven't read him the way you do), but not particularly useful as your principled points are, and likely to undercut the force of those good arguments. (I'm always going to find "I disagree with X because . . ." more persuasive than "I think X is a jerk because . . ."
He has said (on Twitter and elsewhere) that he is explicitly opposed to the idea of local control of housing as such - that there should literally be no such thing as local zoning or regulation and that all such regulation should be minimal and occur only at the state or federal level, such that if someone owns a piece of land, they can develop it however they want. You may call that a correct opinion, you may call it a sensible opinion, but you cannot call it consonant with a political philosophy that explicitly says that we should not argue unpopular things. Period.
No, I agree that it's not a sensible opinion. I've never encountered a statement like that from Yglesias. I could see an argument for the first element (no local zoning) because of the influence of wealthy neighborhoods on local ordinance adoption (I wouldn't, however, support the idea, despite its reasonable impulse--industrial zoning is, I think, essential on the local level). The dismissal of all forms of local regulation and the idea that a landowner should have perfect freedom of use seem like crackpot ideas of the libertarian right, and I don't associate them with Yglesias. If he has in fact tweeted to that effect and will defend it, then I have to acknowledge your point.
You don’t need zoning to keep out buildings/uses with problematic externalities. There are other policy levers that don’t paint with such a broad micromanagement brush.
The Supreme Court case legitimizing zoning was over a housing development, tellingly.
Even we “abolish zoning” types don’t believe in a literally 0 level of “local control” but it needs to be far more limited than what is is now, what should be an illegal taking.
The SCOTUS case I'm aware of is Euclid, Lance, almost a century ago, and it was not about a housing development, it was about dispersed industrial development. (And I think zoning is macromanagement, not micro.)
I am much less absolutist about property rights so I don't see zoning as inherently a "taking." On the spectrum of approaches I think that in general we tend to give too much priority to individual property rights over community interests, which we don't generally view in terms of rights. And I think we also need to see "community interests" as involving varieties of interests by overlapping communities, from neighborhood out to the city and urban region bounds.
The adjustment I'd prefer would still involve robust individual property rights, but I think few Americans, accustomed to thinking of property ownership of almost all kinds as near-absolute, would accept it. (Honestly, as a real life property owner, what I actually want personally and what I think is the best balance are not the same--I want total control and no interference! But not for the neighbors.)
Apartments were considered “industrial” in Euclid.
https://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/property/property-law-keyed-to-cribbet/introduction-to-the-traditional-land-use-controls/village-of-euclid-v-ambler-realty-co/amp/
I’ve been to enough city council meetings to know zoning is micromanagement.
Lance, I acknowledge that the passages you cite show I was wrong to say Euclid was about industrial development.
I agree that the conduct of permitting boards can entail micromanagement, but zoning laws don't in themselves operate on that level. In any event, I'm in favor of micromanagement in the sense you're speaking of, which does not mean that I think it's being done well and in the interests of individuals and community.
(I just deleted long, boring paragraphs about the use and misuse of zoning laws and permitting processes by developers, cities, neighborhoods, and individuals. Let's just say that I think our approach should be non-ideological, understand that changing contexts require compromises and imperfect judgments, and give much more priority to speed in decision making.)
“In Euclid v. Ambler (1926) the Court wrote:
“depriving children of the privilege of quiet and open spaces for play, enjoyed by those in more favored localities — until, finally, the residential character of the neighborhood and its desirability as a place of detached residences are utterly destroyed. Under these circumstances, apartment houses … come very near to being nuisances.””
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/22883459/martin-luther-king-jr-fair-housing-act-housing-crisis
"Minimal regulation" and "dismissal of all forms of local regulation" are two separate things. Yglesias has made abundantly clear that he wants the former and that is the opinion that is in conflict with the "popularism." I'd imagine he'd permit something like "you have to bring your trashcans back in."
I remember when developers ran rampant in CA. They built in flood plains and on wetlands. They had no responsibility for the upgrades to infrastructure that their developments required. Folsom CA regularly dumped raw sewage into the American River because of inadequate water treatment facilities. They threw up houses on cheap land, made billions and left residents with a mess.
I fought a development out in the foothills that would have put in 1500 homes off of a 15 mile stretch of country road designed for 60 farmers.
YIMBY's need NIMBY's to see that good land use decisions are made. Some laws need to be at the State level like making provisions for Auxiliary Housing Units, but taking all local control away will result in a return of out-of-control speculators.
Yglesias believes in lots of unpopular things from opposing local control on housing to carbon taxes. His point about political popularism is not that folks should never advocate unpopular ideas.
His point is that POLITICIANS should not run on unpopular ideas. In some cases that will mean being quiet about your ideas that are unpopular while stressing the ones that are popular. In other cases, it may mean taking positions or even casting votes that you don't believe are right but are necessary to stay elected (see the Clintons or Obama and gay marriage).
His fundamental point is that politics is about getting things done, not about being right, and a critical part of getting things is to be elected and that may involve making compromises. His Slow Boring article from today (https://www.slowboring.com/p/democrats-need-marie-gluesenkamp) is a perfect example of dynamic.
"I think that this is the biggest difficulty when it comes to changing the minds of local residents - the fact that the downward pressure on rents is mostly invisible and takes time to build while the physical transformation of neighborhoods is impossible to miss."
I understand and appreciate NIMBYism from people who bought property in a rural or suburban community and want it to retain that characteristic or people that object to a neighboring development because of traffic or similar effects on their development. Zoning is something of a social compact, though not an immutable one. But I really don't get anti-gentrification NIMBYism, whether race-obsessed or not. This seems like the concern of the non-property owners and there's a very simple response to the concerns of non-property owners.
Twitter definitely has an impact on politics. It's just a universally 100% bad one, so therefore it is both amusing and morally correct to make fun of all the losers who use twitter - which is all twitter users, because nobody uses twitter for long and avoids becoming a loser.
Hey come on now, not all real estate developers are white. Some are Persian.
More seriously, I think the obnoxious tendency you're describing is rooted in the temperament of the technocratic progressive worldview. History is bending in a direction, we have the knowledge to bend it correctly, and you whiny relics of the past better get the fuck out of the way of its arc. It's usually obscured under a lot of jargon and statistical analysis and wonkery, but it shows up in lots of insufferable social media posts.
But that might be too specific, maybe this is just the cost of a movement that can only really exist on the internet? Where would "YIMBY" people have gotten together in sufficient numbers to form a subculture in the early 90s? The same tendency seems to show up in other distributed online subcultures - identification of stock villains and ways to mock them, etc.
Ironically, it’s the progressive technocratic tendency that got us the zoning and regulation we now face.
Plenty of the wonk/planner class doesn’t like the YIMBY emphasis on giving them less work to do.
What interests me is that progressives don't see any connection between the way they behave and the way other people react to them. They seem incapable of understanding that other people won't share their conception of themselves as the inevitable protagonist of history. A weird lack of self-awareness.
I don't think it's weird, it's absolutely normal - it's pretty rare that ideological movements construe themselves as anything other than the saviors of humanity, it's much more satisfying and makes for a better sales pitch.
Yes--I would really love to know what percentage of these online “activists” actually do anything at all IRL. Literally anything.
This is good. In the future, unless you feel tired of the topic, you should address Matt Y's indifference or even hatred of rent stabilization. I've written a bit about it but I'd like to hear your view, since you've been immersed in NYC housing issues as well.
I agree this critique is good. I have been deeply immersed in these debates for a decade here in Boulder (where we have 8.3% permanently affordable housing and growing), and I am fully behind FDB's points, both about MY and YIMBY politics in general. The litmus-testing and dismissive 'othering' by the YIMBY clique is actually pretty damaging to (some of) their stated objectives. This bothers me mostly when developer-favorable advocacy prevents otherwise positive (and nominally socialist) actions like increasing an AH linkage fee on office building development for affordable housing projects. The local YIMBY clique (and Chamber of Commerce) fought tooth and nail to prevent this 2018 linkage fee increase, which is now responsible for delivering many millions of $$ towards permanent AH projects. Local 'leftist' YIMBY's have this year argued against interest-free down-payment assistance for low-income home buyers. And on and on - many YIMBY's forget who they should be working for: lower-income folks who can't benefit any time soon from the luxury condos replacing the 1980's strip apartments in town. I can't recommend Patrick Condon and his free e-book Sick City (https://justicelandandthecity.blogspot.com/p/download-sick-city-pdf.html ) enough to those who are authentically interested in sustainable housing solutions in American cities. Zoning reform is a big part of that, but if not coupled with funding for permanent social housing, it won’t do much but enrich existing land owners.
"This bothers me mostly when developer-favorable advocacy prevents otherwise positive (and nominally socialist) actions"
This is why (most) leftists can't be happy with (most) YIMBYs. Developers are the good guys here in basically every case in the same way farmers are in a famine. Most leftists cannot accept that markets and developers are good, actually, because it's contrary to their basic worldview, but the YIMBY position basically demands acknowledging this.
"Local 'leftist' YIMBY's have this year argued against interest-free down-payment assistance for low-income home buyers. "
Probably because this would subsidize demand and raise prices without actually solving the underlying game of musical chairs (and lighting a bunch of taxpayer $$$ on fire in the process). It's better to focus on root causes than expensive and ultimately self-defeating bandaids.
"many YIMBY's forget who they should be working for: lower-income folks"
The great thing about housing abundance is that it's working for all of society (except rent-seeking property owners).
"Zoning reform is a big part of that, but if not coupled with funding for permanent social housing, it won’t do much but enrich existing land owners."
Zoning reform would not enrich existing landowners on average because it would allow more construction everywhere. Increasing competition would erode the rent-seeking advantage landowners currently have. Permanent social housing has nothing to do with that.
Developers might be good guys in a housing famine if they are community-minded, or they might be survival-games hoarders who would as soon see the poor die as live in their luxury condos. We cannot know, and the market will not provide for everyone in all circumstances,, thus government social supports. The interest-free down-payment assistance program that just launched (to pick one that Lance commented on while ignorant of details) creates permanent ownership affordable units to complement the few hundred already in that pool of social ownership housing in Boulder. Each such loan directly increases (by 1) the number of affordable houses in the permanently affordable pool, or is used by a new applicant on a property already in the program. Easy peasy, market plays a role in sorting who is interested in this type of housing, government provides enabling funding, permanently affordable housing is increased, and the game moves on. But with government intervention setting some terms in the market, using carrots in this case. Similarly with using land owned by the city combined with funds raised by the city (further combined with state and Federal tax credits) while taxing other developments to provide for construction of affordable units. The whole I'm-more-laissez-faire-than-you YIMBY game is for mugs who believed Reagan, and I'm not one. Quote me all the von Mises you want, I'm not convinced. Unregulated densification through relaxed zoning regulations absolutely positively enriches current (and nearby) landowners, when it occurs in economically desirable locations. If the value of land does not rise when the amount of construction on the property is allowed to increase, it is by definition not in a particularly desirable area.
Curious how you apply this lens to the left more broadly, and specifically in the 2016 and 2020 primaries. I honestly never know what to think. At the time, the "Bernie Bros" complaints seemed like cynical BS. But then I met a surprising (to me, anyway) number of people on the left side of the Democratic coalition who refused to consider Bernie and by way of explanation mostly pointed to misbehavior online (snarky, hostile, mean, dismissive, arrogant, etc.--same stuff you're listing for YIMBYs). This misbehavior got associated with the Bernie campaign, which seemed crazy to me, but maybe no less crazy than associating a local zoning question with Matt Yglesias? What really stuck with me is talking to Warren supporters in 2020 and pointing out what seemed obvious to me--that ideologically, Bernie should be their second choice if she dropped out. Genuinely surprised me how many people could cite chapter and verse about the lore of pointless internet snark. At this point in my life, the crowd I'm talking to probably self selects for people more likely to be on the internet than voters writ large, but it's still a segment of voters--and one of the most active segments for stuff like off-year local elections or party primaries.
Of course, partisans for other candidates were also being annoying online, and that's a case where you can see that annoying behavior breeds more annoying behavior most clearly. Is that not happening in YIMBY/NIMBY debates? I've certainly seen public statements by politicians or others we would code as "NIMBY" that seem annoying/dismissive/arrogant, etc. I'm open to the possibility that one side is "worse" than the other. Honestly trying to keep score on who's more annoying sounds exhausting.
Anyway, the hard part for me about trying to reckon the impact of stuff like tone in messaging on social media is that...for me personally, so many people are being annoying from such a wide range of perspectives that it just washes over me. My interpersonal advice to people would be not to use "how annoying are the advocates" as the test for where you fall on a policy question. Sometimes, some people can be annoying. That doesn't really tell you anything, even if it's tempting to let your annoyance fuel your response. And because "annoying" is a problem faced by people of all ideological stripes, there's no real point in trying to keep score.
But maybe in the real world, people DO really respond to this stuff. Certainly, I know a lot of conservatives whose entire ideology feels grounded in the true-but-trivial observation that some liberals, or leftists, can be annoying sometimes. I think as strategic advice, Freddie's points are sound, and Matt Yglesias would be wise to consider them. On the other hand, I think I can offer strategic advice: I also think Freddie's points would get more of a hearing from Matt/YIMBYs if he used more generous rhetorical strategies. This essay is written from the perspective of an activist who very much wants to solve this problem, which requires convincing someone. Imagining one's opponent with dick in hand is contraindicated if that's the goal. And obviously such tonal moves will cause responses. The annoying people will get more annoying.
I think people should try to be less annoying on issues they care about, because I suspect that our tone and rhetorical style matters more than we realize (and honestly more than it should). But I also think that telling Freddie, or Matt, HOW they should make their points is itself...kind of annoying?
Writers are not part of a collective activist group, and they're never going to have anything close to message discipline even if they are mostly in ideological agreement. If you want to say that MY in particular plays an extremely special role because of his prominence, okay--but even if he changed course, there would still be so many people making the argument making the argument in an annoying way from the bottom up! There's just a lot of annoying stuff out there once you log in.
"I also think Freddie's points would get more of a hearing from Matt/YIMBYs if he used more generous rhetorical strategies."
I think you are misunderstanding the point of the post. FdB is not staking out a position that YIMBYs are fundamentally incorrect. He's pointing out that they are arrogant, condescending and off-putting.
No I am responding to precisely that point. He is saying their messaging is arrogant, condescending, and off-putting. He is, implicitly (and explicitly elsewhere), *trying to convince them to adopt better messaging instead.* I am pointing out that this argument would potentially get a better hearing from the people he's trying to convince if he made it in the style he is suggesting YIMBYs employ.
But more broadly, FDB should write what he wants and MY should write what he wants. I think the problem FDB is describing is real, but it's probably a basically uncontrollable bottom-up phenomenon.
I am extremely skeptical that FdB's motivation for writing this piece is a sincere effort to convince online YIMBYs to change the way they make their argument, rather than an airing of grievances. Which is fine. He has an audience paying to hear his interesting grievances.
Sure. That's fine! I'm sure YIMBYs do grievance airing too, and it seems like FdB finds that annoying. Anyway. If the entire exercise is to complain that annoying people are annoying, QED.
FWIW he has frequently explicitly stated that he very much wants YIMBYs to change the way they make their argument, and that he views this outcome as vital to a movement he cares deeply about.
Probably the best use of “contraindicated” I’ve ever seen.
Also agree with you about annoyingness and snark in general. I just do not get any pleasure out of it anymore, if I ever did. I unsubscribed from Taibbi for that reason, one day and in a huff: trying to get a well-rounded take, but the tone became really intolerable (admittedly, I do still read from time to time and do find value as well.)
The pot/kettle situation here has to be on purpose, right?
That objection would make sense if I was a popularist, or if I had a direct line to the White House, or if I thought that my writing had a direct political purpose, or if I was a part of any organized political tendency....
Freddie is god of this space. He can bust his nut wherever he damn pleases. He's a dime store Pol Pot where he can be. To his credit, Freddie puts out the fact that he's an asshole out there in his Substack description. No false advertising here.
The way deBoer describes it sounds like the one thing that unites everyone is their racist hatred of white people. The activist deBoer so admires simply spins a divisive racialist narrative that is so corrosive. Let's reduce everything to skin pigmentation. You = good. Other = bad.
I also find it interesting that close to 90% of this YIMBY bullshit is located in deep blue areas. Here in Florida, we make it easy to build. So does Texas. We don't have stupid regulations, or at least we have a LOT less of them. As somebody who lived in NYC Metro area for close to 30 years, the difference is night and day.
Edit: I'm stealing "Yes my penis is in my hand as I write this".
But I don't admire her. Rather I recognize that her perspective is very common in what are overwhelmingly Democratic spaces, and that this perspective needs to be effectively addressed for the good of everyone so that we can have housing abundance that doesn't unduly threaten longtime residents. I think that's achievable.
I don't think it is achievable. Racialism is inherently unwilling to work on solutions. Left's incessant focus on race has poisoned the well on everything. When white people come, gentrification bad. When white people leave, white flight bad. NIMBYism in this case is just an outgrowth of "Kill Whitey" mentality. And don't forget, activists like the one you described don't want to solve problems, since solutions undermine need for activists.
In my experience, when an activist solves a problem, they move on to solve another. It's called "winning a campaign" and gives them credibility and power.
Wouldn’t be better to ignore this person (and the people you think she speaks for)? Some people don’t want new construction, full stop, no matter the consequences. If they’re starting from that premise, which I personally think sucks but like whatever it exists, the most respectful and efficient strategy is to let them be. Accept and move on!
No, the perspective should not be addressed. She should be defeated and thrown from the Democratic Party for trying to monopolize space that belongs to everyone.
What on earth is a 'FRED account'?
FRED, is that you? (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/)
Wish you had led with the comment below as it was extremely powerful. And I'm told that few readers make it to the end of longer substack posts.
"Rich white people have bought land in this neighborhood. Rich white developers want to put up high rises on that land, and if they sell it on to a landlord that landlord will be rich and white. They’ll knock down buildings you’ve known for your whole life and physically transform your neighborhood. The people who live in those buildings will almost all be rich and white. They’ll change the way the neighborhood feels and looks, and instead of seeing faces that look like yours, you’ll see the faces of white people, the same white people who cross the street to avoid you. And there’s a good chance that they’ll bring with them white businesses where you won’t feel comfortable and drive out the ones you’ve loved all your life."
I did read the whole thing and you make a persuasive argument.
I’m not on Twitter but I do subscribe to Yglesias’s Substack and I don’t see much smugness or glibness there. Even when he’s posting a few thousand words on YIMBYism.
I subscribed for a year and had the opposite conclusion. Glib seemed to be a main tone of much of his writing there. It really came through when he would write about something I know more about than he does...the way he would casually wave away the need to engage with counterarguments or holes in his knowledge were infuriating. But I stopped reading him after that first year so maybe he's changed.
Jason: I don't find this. I'm guessing it's been too long for you to remember a specific piece that would serve as an example, but if you can it would be interesting to see an example of one of his Substack pieces that gave you that impression.
I also subscribe to Yglesias and value his willingness to dive into process. As involved in bureaucracy as I am, a lot of what he says makes sense to me. However, I also appreciate Freddie's critique here of the ways in which Yglesias contradicts his own stances.
Yglesias' technocratic approach reminds me of much of the neo liberal project that Obama and Clinton were a part of. There is a kind of utopian hope that if we just look at the big picture we can weather through the transition to get to the nirvana we know is on the other side but somehow or another it doesn't play out that way. Still, I value Yglesias in a a different than deBoer and happily subscribe to both (also maybe I developed my addiction to them both when reading Andrew Sullivan---this post has me really delving into my evolution as a reader!!). I would love to see a post or a conversation between them both.
Yes! I was thinking the same thing! I think I have a strong handle on what each of them thinks, but I feel as though I could really refine my own thinking if I could witness a dialogue. I’m not steeped in the topic enough and frankly find both of them persuasive.