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Yes, the group California Yimby supports these things, but it absolutely hurts the Yimby movements credibility where they have allows people who spew the "Luxur

Yes, the group California Yimby supports these things, but it absolutely hurts the Yimby movements credibility where they have allows people who spew the "Luxury housing will trickle prices down to the poor" shpiel are given a platform by them to display their beliefs. At best, any new construction that impacts costs will just lead to more upper middle class tech workers being in the bay area while continuing with the current pace of displacement we've seen already. YIMBYism isn't pro gentrification, but those who are pro gentrification will always be YIMBYs. And I can't provide direct links, just this sort of thing is all over YIMBY/NIMBY/PHIMBY facebook and twitter.

epistasis 8y ago
Got it, those are venues that I avoid, preferring to look more at actual policy. I'd never step into facebook, but it could be beneficial to Twitter stuff, since it's fully public. How can CA YIMBY "allow" people to spew things? Are you honestly interested an assessment of YIMBY, or just looking for ways to discount them? If a neighborhood group has official communications that run counter to what a member says, do you go with what the member says or the group itself? Or, more pertinently, if a member of a tenants advocacy group lies about core YIMBY beliefs, does that discredit the entire group? No, of course not. Then again, this may just be the political naïveté of people that don't typically get into politics. Optics are not something that YIMBYs have really cared about, caring more for pragmatism. However, in California politics, optics seems to be more important than action or results. This leads to a lot of duplicitousness.
- zjaffee 8y ago
  That last point is absolutely what I'm trying to get at, and it's not that they are allowing anyone to spew anything, but people are using the word YIMBY to mean what is essentially a "pro gentrification belief system". The word YIMBY has become toxic to the cause.
  - epistasis 8y ago
    If that's the case then it would be disastrous to abandon the YIMBY label and try a new one, because it capitulates to the false accusations, and completely tarnishes all of the ideas of the movement. No, the only counter is to further show the true YIMBY values through policy proposals, discussions, and political legislation. For example, the core YIMBY success so far is SB-35, "Planning and zoning: affordable housing: streamlined approval process." The same people that last year were complaining that YIMBYs are anti-affordable housing have now finally stopped saying that and have moved on to other misrepresentations of YIMBY. And in fact, they often now support SB 35, particularly as a way to prevent actions like SB 827. In the future, they will come to like SB 827, or at least some will. There's a ton of reactionary conservatism in nearly all political movements in California, even the leftist ones, because there's lots of older folks that run them and can't countenance a shift in the political landscape, particularly the emergence of a new political force. There will be lots of rhetoric, but that won't stop the change. So much in politics seems impossible until its done. Gay marriage in California was a similar through the looking glass experience. Housing will come around too. The more people say "that's impossible," the more optimistic I am that they will be proven wrong. Because that's just an admission that they hadn't really considered the possibility, the idea was just outside the realm of feasibility and thought. Eventually, the slow reactionary mind becomes comfortable with it, and reason breaks through. It will take several years, several years that we shouldn't have to waste, but there will be more housing in California.
Decade 8y ago
The phrase “trickle down housing” is an anti-YIMBY smear. It’s the logical fallacy, reasoning by analogy. The real issue is simply N > M, where N is the number of bedrooms needed in San Francisco, and M is the number of bedrooms in existence in San Francisco. As long as N > M, then there will be winners and losers. In most of the market, the winners are decided by price, the highest bid wins. In a small part of the market, the winners are decided by luck, 100 applicants in the lottery for every 1 affordable housing unit. Everybody else loses. The goal of YIMBY is to make everybody into winners. It doesn’t matter whether the units are built as luxury. Run-down shacks in boring neighborhoods are going for multi-millions of dollars. There are not enough homes.
- timr 8y ago
  "The real issue is simply N > M, where N is the number of bedrooms needed in San Francisco, and M is the number of bedrooms in existence in San Francisco. As long as N > M, then there will be winners and losers." No. This is a toy economic model that doesn't account for time or land constraints. The benefits of construction do not immediately and equally accrue to all market participants. In cities where essentially all new construction is infill (i.e. San Francisco), new units will displace older, cheaper units (not always, but it does happen). Therefore, until supply actually exceeds demand, you will have winners and losers, and you must account for the losers. Additionally, an any realistic model of housing, you will see that new construction will continue not until housing is as affordable as existing stock, but only until it is no longer profitable to build. It is expensive to do infill development, and therefore unlikely that any builder will continue to generate supply until prices match those of older properties. It could easily take decades for new construction to lower housing prices. For example, New York, Paris and Tokyo are far more dense than San Francisco, with more liberal development rules, yet are the some of the most expensive cities in the world in which to live. It is thin gruel to say "I'm sorry you lost your currently affordable housing, but come back in 20 years, and everything will be affordable!" But this is essentially the response you are making.
  - Decade 8y ago
    N > M. We need more homes than we have. That is not an economic model. That is a simple, relatable, metric. That is the best property of the YIMBY movement. Whether “missing middle” small apartment buildings or “social housing” hundred-unit buildings, all of those are illegal in places where they should be legal. It can be summed up in a simple metric. We need more homes than we have. If we need 20 years of building, then we better get started now.

epistasis 8y ago

Got it, those are venues that I avoid, preferring to look more at actual policy. I'd never step into facebook, but it could be beneficial to Twitter stuff, since it's fully public. How can CA YIMBY "allow" people to spew things? Are you honestly interested an assessment of YIMBY, or just looking for ways to discount them? If a neighborhood group has official communications that run counter to what a member says, do you go with what the member says or the group itself? Or, more pertinently, if a member of a tenants advocacy group lies about core YIMBY beliefs, does that discredit the entire group? No, of course not. Then again, this may just be the political naïveté of people that don't typically get into politics. Optics are not something that YIMBYs have really cared about, caring more for pragmatism. However, in California politics, optics seems to be more important than action or results. This leads to a lot of duplicitousness.

zjaffee 8y ago
That last point is absolutely what I'm trying to get at, and it's not that they are allowing anyone to spew anything, but people are using the word YIMBY to mean what is essentially a "pro gentrification belief system". The word YIMBY has become toxic to the cause.
- epistasis 8y ago
  If that's the case then it would be disastrous to abandon the YIMBY label and try a new one, because it capitulates to the false accusations, and completely tarnishes all of the ideas of the movement. No, the only counter is to further show the true YIMBY values through policy proposals, discussions, and political legislation. For example, the core YIMBY success so far is SB-35, "Planning and zoning: affordable housing: streamlined approval process." The same people that last year were complaining that YIMBYs are anti-affordable housing have now finally stopped saying that and have moved on to other misrepresentations of YIMBY. And in fact, they often now support SB 35, particularly as a way to prevent actions like SB 827. In the future, they will come to like SB 827, or at least some will. There's a ton of reactionary conservatism in nearly all political movements in California, even the leftist ones, because there's lots of older folks that run them and can't countenance a shift in the political landscape, particularly the emergence of a new political force. There will be lots of rhetoric, but that won't stop the change. So much in politics seems impossible until its done. Gay marriage in California was a similar through the looking glass experience. Housing will come around too. The more people say "that's impossible," the more optimistic I am that they will be proven wrong. Because that's just an admission that they hadn't really considered the possibility, the idea was just outside the realm of feasibility and thought. Eventually, the slow reactionary mind becomes comfortable with it, and reason breaks through. It will take several years, several years that we shouldn't have to waste, but there will be more housing in California.

Decade 8y ago

The phrase “trickle down housing” is an anti-YIMBY smear. It’s the logical fallacy, reasoning by analogy. The real issue is simply N > M, where N is the number of bedrooms needed in San Francisco, and M is the number of bedrooms in existence in San Francisco. As long as N > M, then there will be winners and losers. In most of the market, the winners are decided by price, the highest bid wins. In a small part of the market, the winners are decided by luck, 100 applicants in the lottery for every 1 affordable housing unit. Everybody else loses. The goal of YIMBY is to make everybody into winners. It doesn’t matter whether the units are built as luxury. Run-down shacks in boring neighborhoods are going for multi-millions of dollars. There are not enough homes.

timr 8y ago
"The real issue is simply N > M, where N is the number of bedrooms needed in San Francisco, and M is the number of bedrooms in existence in San Francisco. As long as N > M, then there will be winners and losers." No. This is a toy economic model that doesn't account for time or land constraints. The benefits of construction do not immediately and equally accrue to all market participants. In cities where essentially all new construction is infill (i.e. San Francisco), new units will displace older, cheaper units (not always, but it does happen). Therefore, until supply actually exceeds demand, you will have winners and losers, and you must account for the losers. Additionally, an any realistic model of housing, you will see that new construction will continue not until housing is as affordable as existing stock, but only until it is no longer profitable to build. It is expensive to do infill development, and therefore unlikely that any builder will continue to generate supply until prices match those of older properties. It could easily take decades for new construction to lower housing prices. For example, New York, Paris and Tokyo are far more dense than San Francisco, with more liberal development rules, yet are the some of the most expensive cities in the world in which to live. It is thin gruel to say "I'm sorry you lost your currently affordable housing, but come back in 20 years, and everything will be affordable!" But this is essentially the response you are making.
- Decade 8y ago
  N > M. We need more homes than we have. That is not an economic model. That is a simple, relatable, metric. That is the best property of the YIMBY movement. Whether “missing middle” small apartment buildings or “social housing” hundred-unit buildings, all of those are illegal in places where they should be legal. It can be summed up in a simple metric. We need more homes than we have. If we need 20 years of building, then we better get started now.