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That's because the "debate" is a disingenuous farce. There is no such thing as a YIMBY. There are people who want something that someone else has and people who

That's because the "debate" is a disingenuous farce. There is no such thing as a YIMBY. There are people who want something that someone else has and people who have something and are trying to keep it for themselves. There is literally no one volunteering their own backyard—it's always someone else's. I've yet to see the YIMBY who rallies everyone in their building or on their block together and collectively agree to be voluntarily displaced so they can demo the building(s) they are in, build one that is taller, and move back in several years later. I've yet to see the YIMBY who comes to a planning meeting and votes to have lot directly next to them rezoned so they can deal with construction for the next two years. I've yet to see the YIMBY who just purchased a home at the height of the market with a view of the GG bridge and who then votes in favor of rezoning the lot across the street so that it's taller and higher density than their unit, which blocks their view, natural sunlight, and decrease their property value. All I see is people who live in Oakland trying to rally people to rezone areas of San Francisco. Or people who live in The Mission trying to rally people to rezone the areas around Golden Gate Park. We need more housing. There are areas that, from a planning perspective, should definitely be rezoned for higher density housing. But the people who already live there don't want that. And well, they live there. One of my favorite areas in the city is the Sea Cliff area. The one mile stretch of land that faces the water contains only about 30 homes. Half of them are vacant because they are investment properties. On any given there are probably like 20 or so people on those cliffs. That same amount of land in NYC would house thousands of people. But if you want to take the YIMBY movement to the extreme why don't go ahead and try to rezone that area. Displace a few dozen extremely rich people and we can house literally a thousand families.

dougmccune 8y ago
I live in Oakland, in an expensive neighborhood near BART full of single family homes, and very much support rezoning my neighborhood to allow for 4-6 story buildings, and would take those buildings on my own block. No, I am not willing to tear down my own house and inconvenience myself for years while building a 4 story multi unit building. But I would wholeheartedly support a neighbor doing so. I want more people in this area, I want the commercial activity that higher density brings, I want the added demand for public transit investment, more restaurants, more diversity, etc. That is in stark contrast to the typical NIMBY view. So you can call it something else if you want, but there are definitely differences between mentalities.
- themagician 8y ago
  Right, you support it on the other side of the neighborhood. You support in the case where you get all of the benefits and bear none of the costs. I do too. But I'm not so obtuse that I'm going to pretend that I'm part of the some kind of altruistic housing movement.
  - mercutio2 8y ago
    You keep expressing this false dichotomy up and down the thread. Please engage with charity. The argument being made is that the law shouldn’t forbid, or through burueacratic heel dragging prevent, my neighbor from selling to a developer to build a tall building next to me. You said, “The NIMBY’s and YIMBY’s are the same.” In this regard, dougmccune appears to very much disagree, and you’re just dismissing his argument that he’d be happy to have developers build next to him, by claiming that because he doesn’t plan on selling his house, he’s just being a NIMBY. That is very much not where the locus of the argument is. No one is proposing that we eminent domain the whole of Nob Hill, and force everyone to move who doesn’t have any intention of selling.
    - themagician 8y ago
      The law doesn't forbid you from selling to a developer. It's not about personal property and who you can sell to. You can sell to whoever you like. Local planning code determines what can and can't be done, not who you can sell to. This is true everywhere. And I actually don't think eminent domain (over time) is a terrible idea. Make the area around Golden Gate Park look like Central Park and your housing problem is solved.
      - Decade 8y ago
        The law doesn’t forbid you from selling to a developer, but the law does forbid the developer from turning a single-unit house into an apartment. Or even a duplex, a lot of the time. Just look at the zoning maps. Around Golden Gate Park, the height limit is 40 feet, and a lot of it is single-family zoning. http://sf-planning.org/zoning-maps http://sf-planning.org/zoning-maps A lot of the time, it is more practical to take that single-family house and turn it into a fancy single-family house. Satisfying gentrification. https://sf.curbed.com/2018/4/25/17277290/glen-park-home-expensive-over-asking-price https://sf.curbed.com/2018/4/25/17277290/glen-park-home-expe...
tmh79 8y ago
so your position is that neighbors should have defacto veto rights over their direct neighbor's property? Also, do you count someone who is a tenant and not a land owner as "someone" in your diatribe above?
- themagician 8y ago
  I support the position that the people who live in that locality should determine what happens there. In a sense, I support the status quo—because that's the way it is right now. But instead we call that NIMBYism. The whole YIMBY movement is trying to move things up a few levels so that people who live outside of a building/block/neighborhood/city can determine what happens within.
  - peacetreefrog 8y ago
    Again, how about the people who own the property should decide what happens with it? The YIMBY movement is trying to move things down to the appropriate level.
    - themagician 8y ago
      It's literally not. The attempts to pass rezoning laws are moving up (e.g. SB 827) to the state level now because all local attempts are failing. Every time someone tries to build up outside of SOMA it fails and people cry about the NIMBYs. But NIMBY in almost all these cases is just another word for local resident. Just a few weeks ago a group called Mission YIMBY was advocating for rezoning the Sunset and Richmond. Like, how obtuse can you be?
      - peacetreefrog 8y ago
        I'm not talking about who sets the zoning laws, I'm talking about who makes decisions re: a particular property. If you're into local control and people close to the ground making decisions, no one is closer and should know better than the literal property owner. If kicking zoning laws up to the state level helps empower property owners than it absolutely is giving more local control.
peacetreefrog 8y ago
How can you try to claim the moral high ground re: "someone else's" property while supporting zoning laws literally prevent people from doing what they would like with the property they own?
- themagician 8y ago
  I don't claim the moral high ground. I'm just saying that YIMBYism is a farce. We need more housing. We should rezone certain areas. But we should be honest about it. This is a needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few argument, not some fake pseudo- altruistic bullshit.
  - fosk 8y ago
    > not some fake pseudo- altruistic bullshit Ha! Welcome to SF. The city that pretends that letting homeless people shoot up and overdose in the street means that we are respecting their right to live the way they want. In any decent society we would be helping these people, and we would disrupt their destructive way of living, which is destructive not just to them but to society as a whole (public health concerns, needles and human excrements on the street, etc). But...electric scooters are the current biggest problem for the city administration. Edit: to the downvoters, care to explain your disagreement?
    - peacetreefrog 8y ago
      I did not downvote, but this seems like a tangent.
mfringel 8y ago
It appears you're saying that "A YIMBY's only valid political stance is to advocate for the destruction of the building they live in, otherwise they can be safely ignored." I'm assuming I'm wrong, and I sincerely hope I am. "Saint or GTFO" arguments are pretty facile.
- themagician 8y ago
  I'm saying drop the fake YIMBY nonsense and just be honest about it. Stop pretending like we are all in this together and you are going to bear the cost the same as everyone else. It's Yes-In-Your-Backyard. It always has been and there's nothing wrong with that. I 100% support rezoning. Just not in my area.
  - maym86 8y ago
    Do you rent or own a home?
    - themagician 8y ago
      I rent.
  - mfringel 8y ago
    Using a literalist expansion of YIMBY doesn't seem constructive. Do you demand the same locality standard for people who block building housing and/or upzoning in places that aren't their domicile or directly adjacent to it? In your view, how close does someone need to live to construction to have a preference about whether it happens or not? It sounds like your metric is "they should be made personally miserable, so that they regret asking for it in the first place.", which is begging the question a bit.
    - themagician 8y ago
      Don't call your movement YIMBY when the YIMBY position is the exact same as the NIMBY one, but you want to feel morally superior. Both support building as long as they don't have to bear the cost. NIMBYs in the Marina support building in The Mission the same way Mission YIMBY supports building in the Sunset and Richmond. I live in Nob Hill. There's a unit going up across the street from me, but it's not that big and didn't affect me so I don't mind. I went to some of the meetings and had no comment. I 100% support building in San Francisco. Just as long as it doesn't affect me. And the reality is that's true for everyone. So we should figure out how to actually deal with that reality.
maym86 8y ago
There are plenty of places in SF without beautiful views where the density is low. People may choose to sell their four bed home to be developed into a high rise if the price is good but they are being stopped by zoning laws. Relax the zoning laws and we'll find out if you are right.
- themagician 8y ago
  The people who live there don't want to relax the zoning laws. They like it the way it is. That's why they vote against it.
  - maym86 8y ago
    Then no one there will sell to build a high rise. What is the legislation for?
pascalxus 8y ago
I bet no one votes to raise their own income taxes for just themselves. And yet, nearly everyone votes to raise everyone elses because it's supposedly for the common good. Cost effective housing is for the common good to. I support more development in my neighborhood.
- themagician 8y ago
  Actually, in California what people did was vote to raise the property tax rates of people moving into the state without raising their own. That's Prop 13 in a nutshell. I support more development in your neighborhood too.
sudomake 8y ago
So in reality its sounds more like "Yes in someone else's backyard". Which in principle is hardly any different than NIMBY
- themagician 8y ago
  No one votes against their own self interest.
  - manfredo 8y ago
    Plenty of renters vote to constrain and restrict the supply of housing, even in the face of increased demand. That is directly against their own self interest.

dougmccune 8y ago

I live in Oakland, in an expensive neighborhood near BART full of single family homes, and very much support rezoning my neighborhood to allow for 4-6 story buildings, and would take those buildings on my own block. No, I am not willing to tear down my own house and inconvenience myself for years while building a 4 story multi unit building. But I would wholeheartedly support a neighbor doing so. I want more people in this area, I want the commercial activity that higher density brings, I want the added demand for public transit investment, more restaurants, more diversity, etc. That is in stark contrast to the typical NIMBY view. So you can call it something else if you want, but there are definitely differences between mentalities.

themagician 8y ago
Right, you support it on the other side of the neighborhood. You support in the case where you get all of the benefits and bear none of the costs. I do too. But I'm not so obtuse that I'm going to pretend that I'm part of the some kind of altruistic housing movement.
- mercutio2 8y ago
  You keep expressing this false dichotomy up and down the thread. Please engage with charity. The argument being made is that the law shouldn’t forbid, or through burueacratic heel dragging prevent, my neighbor from selling to a developer to build a tall building next to me. You said, “The NIMBY’s and YIMBY’s are the same.” In this regard, dougmccune appears to very much disagree, and you’re just dismissing his argument that he’d be happy to have developers build next to him, by claiming that because he doesn’t plan on selling his house, he’s just being a NIMBY. That is very much not where the locus of the argument is. No one is proposing that we eminent domain the whole of Nob Hill, and force everyone to move who doesn’t have any intention of selling.
  - themagician 8y ago
    The law doesn't forbid you from selling to a developer. It's not about personal property and who you can sell to. You can sell to whoever you like. Local planning code determines what can and can't be done, not who you can sell to. This is true everywhere. And I actually don't think eminent domain (over time) is a terrible idea. Make the area around Golden Gate Park look like Central Park and your housing problem is solved.
    - Decade 8y ago
      The law doesn’t forbid you from selling to a developer, but the law does forbid the developer from turning a single-unit house into an apartment. Or even a duplex, a lot of the time. Just look at the zoning maps. Around Golden Gate Park, the height limit is 40 feet, and a lot of it is single-family zoning. http://sf-planning.org/zoning-maps http://sf-planning.org/zoning-maps A lot of the time, it is more practical to take that single-family house and turn it into a fancy single-family house. Satisfying gentrification. https://sf.curbed.com/2018/4/25/17277290/glen-park-home-expensive-over-asking-price https://sf.curbed.com/2018/4/25/17277290/glen-park-home-expe...

tmh79 8y ago

so your position is that neighbors should have defacto veto rights over their direct neighbor's property? Also, do you count someone who is a tenant and not a land owner as "someone" in your diatribe above?

themagician 8y ago
I support the position that the people who live in that locality should determine what happens there. In a sense, I support the status quo—because that's the way it is right now. But instead we call that NIMBYism. The whole YIMBY movement is trying to move things up a few levels so that people who live outside of a building/block/neighborhood/city can determine what happens within.
- peacetreefrog 8y ago
  Again, how about the people who own the property should decide what happens with it? The YIMBY movement is trying to move things down to the appropriate level.
  - themagician 8y ago
    It's literally not. The attempts to pass rezoning laws are moving up (e.g. SB 827) to the state level now because all local attempts are failing. Every time someone tries to build up outside of SOMA it fails and people cry about the NIMBYs. But NIMBY in almost all these cases is just another word for local resident. Just a few weeks ago a group called Mission YIMBY was advocating for rezoning the Sunset and Richmond. Like, how obtuse can you be?
    - peacetreefrog 8y ago
      I'm not talking about who sets the zoning laws, I'm talking about who makes decisions re: a particular property. If you're into local control and people close to the ground making decisions, no one is closer and should know better than the literal property owner. If kicking zoning laws up to the state level helps empower property owners than it absolutely is giving more local control.

peacetreefrog 8y ago

How can you try to claim the moral high ground re: "someone else's" property while supporting zoning laws literally prevent people from doing what they would like with the property they own?

themagician 8y ago
I don't claim the moral high ground. I'm just saying that YIMBYism is a farce. We need more housing. We should rezone certain areas. But we should be honest about it. This is a needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few argument, not some fake pseudo- altruistic bullshit.
- fosk 8y ago
  > not some fake pseudo- altruistic bullshit Ha! Welcome to SF. The city that pretends that letting homeless people shoot up and overdose in the street means that we are respecting their right to live the way they want. In any decent society we would be helping these people, and we would disrupt their destructive way of living, which is destructive not just to them but to society as a whole (public health concerns, needles and human excrements on the street, etc). But...electric scooters are the current biggest problem for the city administration. Edit: to the downvoters, care to explain your disagreement?
  - peacetreefrog 8y ago
    I did not downvote, but this seems like a tangent.

mfringel 8y ago

It appears you're saying that "A YIMBY's only valid political stance is to advocate for the destruction of the building they live in, otherwise they can be safely ignored." I'm assuming I'm wrong, and I sincerely hope I am. "Saint or GTFO" arguments are pretty facile.

themagician 8y ago
I'm saying drop the fake YIMBY nonsense and just be honest about it. Stop pretending like we are all in this together and you are going to bear the cost the same as everyone else. It's Yes-In-Your-Backyard. It always has been and there's nothing wrong with that. I 100% support rezoning. Just not in my area.
- maym86 8y ago
  Do you rent or own a home?
  - themagician 8y ago
    I rent.
- mfringel 8y ago
  Using a literalist expansion of YIMBY doesn't seem constructive. Do you demand the same locality standard for people who block building housing and/or upzoning in places that aren't their domicile or directly adjacent to it? In your view, how close does someone need to live to construction to have a preference about whether it happens or not? It sounds like your metric is "they should be made personally miserable, so that they regret asking for it in the first place.", which is begging the question a bit.
  - themagician 8y ago
    Don't call your movement YIMBY when the YIMBY position is the exact same as the NIMBY one, but you want to feel morally superior. Both support building as long as they don't have to bear the cost. NIMBYs in the Marina support building in The Mission the same way Mission YIMBY supports building in the Sunset and Richmond. I live in Nob Hill. There's a unit going up across the street from me, but it's not that big and didn't affect me so I don't mind. I went to some of the meetings and had no comment. I 100% support building in San Francisco. Just as long as it doesn't affect me. And the reality is that's true for everyone. So we should figure out how to actually deal with that reality.

maym86 8y ago

There are plenty of places in SF without beautiful views where the density is low. People may choose to sell their four bed home to be developed into a high rise if the price is good but they are being stopped by zoning laws. Relax the zoning laws and we'll find out if you are right.

themagician 8y ago
The people who live there don't want to relax the zoning laws. They like it the way it is. That's why they vote against it.
- maym86 8y ago
  Then no one there will sell to build a high rise. What is the legislation for?

pascalxus 8y ago

I bet no one votes to raise their own income taxes for just themselves. And yet, nearly everyone votes to raise everyone elses because it's supposedly for the common good. Cost effective housing is for the common good to. I support more development in my neighborhood.

themagician 8y ago
Actually, in California what people did was vote to raise the property tax rates of people moving into the state without raising their own. That's Prop 13 in a nutshell. I support more development in your neighborhood too.

sudomake 8y ago

So in reality its sounds more like "Yes in someone else's backyard". Which in principle is hardly any different than NIMBY

themagician 8y ago
No one votes against their own self interest.
- manfredo 8y ago
  Plenty of renters vote to constrain and restrict the supply of housing, even in the face of increased demand. That is directly against their own self interest.