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I agree with all of the above, but it's worth noting that YIMBY policies economically pollute the areas they upzone with an influx of investment that can have d

I agree with all of the above, but it's worth noting that YIMBY policies economically pollute the areas they upzone with an influx of investment that can have disasterous consequences in the short term. Obviously, we need more housing, which needs to get built. And in the very long term, "increasing the supply of housing will lower the price". But in the short term, increasing the supply of housing will raise the price of housing. And regular people still have to buy housing every single day, regardless of the daily price. YIMBYs have never had an answer for the short and medium term, and therefore like to ignore the short term and medium term, which causes them significant opposition from local communities at both ends of the spectrum. The wealthy people want to restrict zoning to inflate their wealth, but the poor/middle class people want careful applications of zoning, so as not to be displaced by the violent increase in 'market rate' for the next 5 to 20 years while we wait for the increased supply to lower the price. They can't just sit around for years while we all wait for the demand to fall -- they need housing to live in during that time, and have to pay for it at whatever the developer chooses to set 'market rate' as. YIMBYs have developer money behind them, so they will win this fight. But they have no answer for the short/medium-term economic pollution they cause, so they are hurting a lot of poor/middle class people they claim to support, and will continue to do so with each victory they achieve over the next decade or two.

toomuchtodo 8y ago
Low and middle class voters outnumber wealthy voters. Why do lower and middle class voters not vote for government regulation of housing? Or government creating land trusts to ensure enough affordable housing now vs 20 years from now? Is it simply apathy? Tangentially, I’m a huge fan of how Germany (Berlin in particular) uses government regulations to keep housing affordable. https://boingboing.net/2018/01/30/then-we-take-berlin-2.html https://boingboing.net/2018/01/30/then-we-take-berlin-2.html
- kd0amg 8y ago
  What sort of regulation do you have in mind? Directly restricting price won't make room for all the people who want to live here. It just changes how the (currently too rare) living space gets allocated.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  Because the less skin you have in the game the less reason you have to go to the polls. Not like it matters much anyway, politicians break their promised by ascending economic order to whom they were made.
- maxsilver 8y ago
  I am also a fan of how Germany (and to some extent, the Netherlands) handle their housing regulations to keep housing affordable. Except for a few minor exceptions, America has nothing even remotely similar. The assumption is that owning your home/condo is the one and only way you are supposed to keep housing affordable in the US. That assumption sort of / kind of worked for a while, back when there were heavy restrictions and regulations on how non-human and/or non-citizen entities could own and invest in housing, and when jobs/"demand" were somewhat-more-evenly distributed. But as soon as that was deregulated, the wheels came off the bus and it's been gotten steadily worse every year. > Why do lower and middle class voters not vote for government regulation of housing? They do, and in some respects, they already have this -- that's why they have some local control of zoning today. The regulatory control lower and middle class voters have is this local control of zoning that YIMBYs are trying to eliminate. Part of the problem is that "YIMBYs" are attacking that authority, by pretending anyone who is anti-YIMBY must be NIMBY. This is because it just so happens that the local control lower and middle class voters can use to promote public housing or "affordable" housing is the same control that wealthy voters can use to eliminate new housing entirely.
- francisofascii 8y ago
  Voters can't vote in municipalities where they don't live. So if you have a muni that has low destiny zoning regs, voters would have to move there first before having any say.
  - moultano 8y ago
    Related: https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/04/25/nightmare-90-minute-super-commutes-more-common-housing-shortage-intensifies/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/04/25/nightmare-90-minute-s... Real "local control" would let people commuting to Cupertino from Stockton decide zoning in Cuptertino.
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      > Real "local control" would let people commuting to Cupertino from Stockton decide zoning in Cuptertino. That's a sham argument. That would be letting corporations who demand workers be on site decide zoning by way of commuters from other areas. Every local zoning/district must then bend to the will of temporary workers (temporary in the sense that their employment is less permanent than land ownership). Local voters, through property ownership or residency is the only acceptable form of governance. Workers should be angered at employers who demand them to be on site, not zoning regulations.
      - moultano 8y ago
        So police, teachers, firefighters, gardeners, construction workers, tradesmen, who work in a community and commute from outside it shouldn't have a say in the policies of the community? Most bay area cities don't have any of those people living locally anymore. http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/08/25/cops-living-in-rvs-outside-san-jose-police-department/ http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/08/25/cops-living-in-r... https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2018/03/08/school-district-considers-land-swap-for-teacher-housing https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2018/03/08/school-district-con... When your city cannot house the people required for its basic functioning, its government is broken.
pnathan 8y ago
Yes, YIMBYs do have the answer. it's in not doing targeted upzones so small that only the wealthy can afford to move in. it's in doing enormous upzones so large that it makes no sense to sell to only the wealthy.
- spoonie 8y ago
  And upzoning such that the cost of land per unit of hosing you can build is affordable.
lmm 8y ago
A price that you can't actually buy at is a fake price. When you replace a $100k single-family home with five $200k apartments, that's one person who's price has gone up (from $100k to $200k) and four people who's price has gone down (from infinity to $200k).
- arh68 8y ago
  Have you got any specific listings for a $100k house in Wallingford? The 3/1 in the article was reportedly $1.3 million.
- sampo 8y ago
  At a location where apartments sell for $200k, a single-family home is probably worth at least $400k, not $100k.
  - tmh79 8y ago
    correct, when adjusting for location, SFHs are more expensive than multi family housing, like 99.9% of the time

toomuchtodo 8y ago

Low and middle class voters outnumber wealthy voters. Why do lower and middle class voters not vote for government regulation of housing? Or government creating land trusts to ensure enough affordable housing now vs 20 years from now? Is it simply apathy? Tangentially, I’m a huge fan of how Germany (Berlin in particular) uses government regulations to keep housing affordable. https://boingboing.net/2018/01/30/then-we-take-berlin-2.html https://boingboing.net/2018/01/30/then-we-take-berlin-2.html

kd0amg 8y ago
What sort of regulation do you have in mind? Directly restricting price won't make room for all the people who want to live here. It just changes how the (currently too rare) living space gets allocated.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
Because the less skin you have in the game the less reason you have to go to the polls. Not like it matters much anyway, politicians break their promised by ascending economic order to whom they were made.
maxsilver 8y ago
I am also a fan of how Germany (and to some extent, the Netherlands) handle their housing regulations to keep housing affordable. Except for a few minor exceptions, America has nothing even remotely similar. The assumption is that owning your home/condo is the one and only way you are supposed to keep housing affordable in the US. That assumption sort of / kind of worked for a while, back when there were heavy restrictions and regulations on how non-human and/or non-citizen entities could own and invest in housing, and when jobs/"demand" were somewhat-more-evenly distributed. But as soon as that was deregulated, the wheels came off the bus and it's been gotten steadily worse every year. > Why do lower and middle class voters not vote for government regulation of housing? They do, and in some respects, they already have this -- that's why they have some local control of zoning today. The regulatory control lower and middle class voters have is this local control of zoning that YIMBYs are trying to eliminate. Part of the problem is that "YIMBYs" are attacking that authority, by pretending anyone who is anti-YIMBY must be NIMBY. This is because it just so happens that the local control lower and middle class voters can use to promote public housing or "affordable" housing is the same control that wealthy voters can use to eliminate new housing entirely.
francisofascii 8y ago
Voters can't vote in municipalities where they don't live. So if you have a muni that has low destiny zoning regs, voters would have to move there first before having any say.
- moultano 8y ago
  Related: https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/04/25/nightmare-90-minute-super-commutes-more-common-housing-shortage-intensifies/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/04/25/nightmare-90-minute-s... Real "local control" would let people commuting to Cupertino from Stockton decide zoning in Cuptertino.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    > Real "local control" would let people commuting to Cupertino from Stockton decide zoning in Cuptertino. That's a sham argument. That would be letting corporations who demand workers be on site decide zoning by way of commuters from other areas. Every local zoning/district must then bend to the will of temporary workers (temporary in the sense that their employment is less permanent than land ownership). Local voters, through property ownership or residency is the only acceptable form of governance. Workers should be angered at employers who demand them to be on site, not zoning regulations.
    - moultano 8y ago
      So police, teachers, firefighters, gardeners, construction workers, tradesmen, who work in a community and commute from outside it shouldn't have a say in the policies of the community? Most bay area cities don't have any of those people living locally anymore. http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/08/25/cops-living-in-rvs-outside-san-jose-police-department/ http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/08/25/cops-living-in-r... https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2018/03/08/school-district-considers-land-swap-for-teacher-housing https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2018/03/08/school-district-con... When your city cannot house the people required for its basic functioning, its government is broken.

pnathan 8y ago

Yes, YIMBYs do have the answer. it's in not doing targeted upzones so small that only the wealthy can afford to move in. it's in doing enormous upzones so large that it makes no sense to sell to only the wealthy.

spoonie 8y ago
And upzoning such that the cost of land per unit of hosing you can build is affordable.

lmm 8y ago

A price that you can't actually buy at is a fake price. When you replace a $100k single-family home with five $200k apartments, that's one person who's price has gone up (from $100k to $200k) and four people who's price has gone down (from infinity to $200k).

arh68 8y ago
Have you got any specific listings for a $100k house in Wallingford? The 3/1 in the article was reportedly $1.3 million.
sampo 8y ago
At a location where apartments sell for $200k, a single-family home is probably worth at least $400k, not $100k.
- tmh79 8y ago
  correct, when adjusting for location, SFHs are more expensive than multi family housing, like 99.9% of the time