I have a slightly different interpretation of the problem and the solution. NIMBYism is not the origin of the problem, but the consequence. Nimbyism pays off b

I have a slightly different interpretation of the problem and the solution. NIMBYism is not the origin of the problem, but the consequence. Nimbyism pays off because for the owner, increased rents is a stronger incentive than increased value. The more people go into, for example, San Francisco, and less units are build, rents go up, and city revenues go up as well. Thus NYMBIsm has a strong incentive to be used. The situation would be exactly opposite if San Francisco did not charge, for example, Sales taxes to everyone, and used prop taxes to levvy its revenues. Ideally, they would use land value tax. This would change the basic incentive to be nymby: the more the city spends and builds, the more people in low density housing will have to pay. And then they will be asking themselves for developers to build and give them units, which is what happens in cities that have alligned incentives. This is an important idea: this means that the solution is NOT to prevent NIMBY, because you cant fight against powerful incentives. The single most powerful thing the city could do is move sales taxes into land value taxes: every worker's income will increase, including landlords, but will shift the burden from poor to rich, from landlod to renter, and from non-labor to labor.