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I agree, the YIMBY movement may have good intentions, but so many of the people pushing these policy positions are far less educated than the counterparts who r

I agree, the YIMBY movement may have good intentions, but so many of the people pushing these policy positions are far less educated than the counterparts who recognize the benefits of certain types of zoning as a central aspect of modern life.

Buge 9y ago
Are you saying that the failure of YIMBY to understand counterpoints are what is making disagreements between tech workers and TOT? I think it's the opposite. When YIMBY ignore counterpoints, that's a core point of agreement with TOT. Because TOT ignore counterpoints even harder.
rayiner 9y ago
I disagree. Modern zoning is mostly unsupportable from an economic point of view. YIMBY types get that implicitly. NIMBIYs seem to lack any education in or understanding of economics. It’s all emotion and hand waving.
- paultopia 9y ago
  Oh, they understand economics all right---it's just that the only bit they care about is the bit where they get to hoard all the land use to prop up the price of what they already own.
closeparen 9y ago
YIMBYs do acknowledge the central role of zoning in shaping the sprawled-out, car-dominated shape of modern American life. We disagree that it ought to be preserved. I’ve come to understand that economic-justice arguments on both sides are really ex post facto rationalizations for beliefs like “we should live in houses and drive” vs. “we should live in condos and take transit.” The houses-and-cars people have a point: an abundance of condos in the sky does nothing to help (and probably hurts) affordability for the type of housing they consider fit for human consumption. Unfortunately we talk about boxes in the sky as “luxury” with the subtext that having your own plot of land, some of which you don’t even build on isn’t.
- pcwalton 9y ago
  > I’ve come to understand that economic-justice arguments on both sides are really ex post facto rationalizations for beliefs like “we should live in houses and drive” vs. “we should live in condos and take transit.” Yeah, unfortunately I think this is basically true. You can almost perfectly predict whether someone supports SB 827 based on whether they prefer single family homes or urban density.
  - davidw 9y ago
    The crazy thing is that you can prefer to live in a SFH yourself and still be in favor of letting the market add density. If you already have a SFH, no one will make you move.
    - pcwalton 9y ago
      Well, unless you're renting the home and your landlord evicts you to make room for a condo building. This would be an uncommon situation, but evicting low-income tenants of low-density apartments to make room for higher-end high-density condos is a related, and legitimate, concern. The bill should probably continue to be amended to make sure this doesn't happen. Note that this concern is basically irrelevant to all the Bay Area suburbs like Palo Alto that have virtually no low-income tenants to begin with, as well as San Francisco, which is essentially completely gentrified at this point.
      - kspaans 9y ago
        Or if your land gets up-zoned and suddenly is worth 3x as much, and your property taxes go up accordingly (if you don't live in CA at least).
- zjaffee 9y ago
  The number of times I've seen YIMBYs say things like "Abolish All Zoning" is rather high. Zoning is a far more complicated thing than just restricting density, it prevents industrial manufacturing from happening right next to an elementary school, and it allows cities to make sure that sidewalk space in front of buildings are publicly accessible.
joeblubaugh 9y ago
This statement is so vague as to be meaningless. Many YIMBY groups aren't willing to concede the benefits that exist, instead of making the better argument that the damages outweigh the benefits. "Certain types of zoning" could mean: - density regs,which I think are environmentally destructive garbage - commercial/residential segregation, which I think lead to shitty suburb-type cities that you neeed to drive around -PDR/residential ratio regs, which I think are reasonable (usually) - heavy-industrial/residential segregation. I'm personally in favor of those.
- zjaffee 9y ago
  The concern I'm expressing is there are a large number of people saying the phrase "abolish all zoning". That last point you made is rather important, additionally things like mandated setbacks allow cities to require there to be things like sidewalks around buildings. Other zoning includes not allowing features that could easily fall on people when walking along those sidewalks. You could go through this list for a long time, and keep finding aspects of why zoning is a good thing. Yes using zoning as a tool to prevent diversity/mixed commercial use is a bad thing, but for essentially any other reason that zoning is used, it's usually a good thing.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    The overwhelming majority of zoning’s actual function in the cities in question is to reserve most land exclusively for single-family homes and parking spaces. This isn’t a minor abuse of a mostly-good concept. It is the concept. Still, I think it would be beneficial to reframe the YIMBY position as “upzoning” or “legalize apartment buildings” because the “deregulation” spin invokes a bunch of right-wing baggage unnecessarily. Relatively few of us want complete deregulation. We want different regulations.
    - joeblubaugh 9y ago
      Yeah, my city supervisor recently wrote me to say that SB87 is “supply-side, failed Ronald Reagan” economics. You have to make an argument that wins in CA and you do that by focusing on the benefits to middle class and working class people, which are numerous.

Buge 9y ago

Are you saying that the failure of YIMBY to understand counterpoints are what is making disagreements between tech workers and TOT? I think it's the opposite. When YIMBY ignore counterpoints, that's a core point of agreement with TOT. Because TOT ignore counterpoints even harder.

rayiner 9y ago

I disagree. Modern zoning is mostly unsupportable from an economic point of view. YIMBY types get that implicitly. NIMBIYs seem to lack any education in or understanding of economics. It’s all emotion and hand waving.

paultopia 9y ago
Oh, they understand economics all right---it's just that the only bit they care about is the bit where they get to hoard all the land use to prop up the price of what they already own.

closeparen 9y ago

YIMBYs do acknowledge the central role of zoning in shaping the sprawled-out, car-dominated shape of modern American life. We disagree that it ought to be preserved. I’ve come to understand that economic-justice arguments on both sides are really ex post facto rationalizations for beliefs like “we should live in houses and drive” vs. “we should live in condos and take transit.” The houses-and-cars people have a point: an abundance of condos in the sky does nothing to help (and probably hurts) affordability for the type of housing they consider fit for human consumption. Unfortunately we talk about boxes in the sky as “luxury” with the subtext that having your own plot of land, some of which you don’t even build on isn’t.

pcwalton 9y ago
> I’ve come to understand that economic-justice arguments on both sides are really ex post facto rationalizations for beliefs like “we should live in houses and drive” vs. “we should live in condos and take transit.” Yeah, unfortunately I think this is basically true. You can almost perfectly predict whether someone supports SB 827 based on whether they prefer single family homes or urban density.
- davidw 9y ago
  The crazy thing is that you can prefer to live in a SFH yourself and still be in favor of letting the market add density. If you already have a SFH, no one will make you move.
  - pcwalton 9y ago
    Well, unless you're renting the home and your landlord evicts you to make room for a condo building. This would be an uncommon situation, but evicting low-income tenants of low-density apartments to make room for higher-end high-density condos is a related, and legitimate, concern. The bill should probably continue to be amended to make sure this doesn't happen. Note that this concern is basically irrelevant to all the Bay Area suburbs like Palo Alto that have virtually no low-income tenants to begin with, as well as San Francisco, which is essentially completely gentrified at this point.
    - kspaans 9y ago
      Or if your land gets up-zoned and suddenly is worth 3x as much, and your property taxes go up accordingly (if you don't live in CA at least).
zjaffee 9y ago
The number of times I've seen YIMBYs say things like "Abolish All Zoning" is rather high. Zoning is a far more complicated thing than just restricting density, it prevents industrial manufacturing from happening right next to an elementary school, and it allows cities to make sure that sidewalk space in front of buildings are publicly accessible.

joeblubaugh 9y ago

This statement is so vague as to be meaningless. Many YIMBY groups aren't willing to concede the benefits that exist, instead of making the better argument that the damages outweigh the benefits. "Certain types of zoning" could mean: - density regs,which I think are environmentally destructive garbage - commercial/residential segregation, which I think lead to shitty suburb-type cities that you neeed to drive around -PDR/residential ratio regs, which I think are reasonable (usually) - heavy-industrial/residential segregation. I'm personally in favor of those.

zjaffee 9y ago
The concern I'm expressing is there are a large number of people saying the phrase "abolish all zoning". That last point you made is rather important, additionally things like mandated setbacks allow cities to require there to be things like sidewalks around buildings. Other zoning includes not allowing features that could easily fall on people when walking along those sidewalks. You could go through this list for a long time, and keep finding aspects of why zoning is a good thing. Yes using zoning as a tool to prevent diversity/mixed commercial use is a bad thing, but for essentially any other reason that zoning is used, it's usually a good thing.
- closeparen 9y ago
  The overwhelming majority of zoning’s actual function in the cities in question is to reserve most land exclusively for single-family homes and parking spaces. This isn’t a minor abuse of a mostly-good concept. It is the concept. Still, I think it would be beneficial to reframe the YIMBY position as “upzoning” or “legalize apartment buildings” because the “deregulation” spin invokes a bunch of right-wing baggage unnecessarily. Relatively few of us want complete deregulation. We want different regulations.
  - joeblubaugh 9y ago
    Yeah, my city supervisor recently wrote me to say that SB87 is “supply-side, failed Ronald Reagan” economics. You have to make an argument that wins in CA and you do that by focusing on the benefits to middle class and working class people, which are numerous.