4 ms·

There seems to be a growing gap between the people who define "community" as the group of people who live in and wish to direct the changes in the area they are

There seems to be a growing gap between the people who define "community" as the group of people who live in and wish to direct the changes in the area they are in. And the people who define community as the group who receives the benefits of government intervention. YIMBYs is a silly term, since its usually a developers talking about forcing changes in someone else's neighbourhood. Considering the input they like, it's only from the second definition of community, notably people not currently in an area, or standing to endure the downsides.

natmaka 1y ago
> "community" as the group of people who live in and wish to direct the changes in the area they are in IMHO it is the genuine and most adequate 'community', because the less abusive way to decide is subsidiarity ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity ). Constraining people who live near the potential site makes them at best suspicious, they will better memorize this constraint than any benefit from other projects.
morsecodist 1y ago
The idea behind the YIMBY movement is not that community input is bad it's that the community input process structurally encourages input only from people who don't like the project. The point of YIMBY activism is to show up in your own community (your back yard if you will) to say that you do want housing.
- giantg2 1y ago
  The main problem is that many people do want things, until those things present a negative impact to them personally. Yes, build housing, but do it the next street over. I don't personally know anyone who wants an apartment building or trailer park next to their single family home. The real point of zoning should be to group those types of housing together, but it seems many cities are too fragmented, not to mention that consumer preference is strongly aligned with SFH ownership.
  - morsecodist 1y ago
    I agree that people want things in theory but aren't willing support the policies necessary but that's why we need a movement to help change that. Also I think it's important to consider what we call a community. We can't consider every single block a community, a community is a town or even a metro area. They use shared water, to to shared schools, and they need to make decisions together because these things are interconnected. Is there a genuine market preference for single family home ownership? I'm sure some people prefer to live that way especially because it allows you to take advantage of the ample subsidies we give single family home ownership. But if there was a preference for it we wouldn't need to artificially restrict people's ability to redevelop them into multi family homes. No one would choose to live in them so no one would build them.
    - giantg2 1y ago
      "We can't consider every single block a community, a community is a town or even a metro area." And that's how you end up with the interstate cutting off the poor/black section of town from the rest. Of course there are different levels of community, but there tends to be some out-group that gets the short stick. If every neighborhood says no to new section 8 housing, where does it go? Yeah, preferences vary by demographic and market, but overall, 65% of people want a SFH and the average preferred size has increased continuously over the past few generations. The restiction isn't that people don't want to live there. The restriction is because you're intermingling the people who want SFH lifestyle with people who want multi-family home lifestyle. Of course the SFH current residents are concerned about the potential issues caused by neighbor renters, parking, etc. Even SFH rental properties are similarly looked down on due to the common problems that some tenants cause (noise, lack of respect for property, etc).
      - morsecodist 1y ago
        > And that's how you end up with the interstate cutting off the poor/black section of town from the rest. It is the exact opposite. Fighting this sort of thing is exactly why I want to get involved. The reason that these projects are put in poorer, less white areas is because we give small groups of individuals (sometimes even one individual if they are willing to file a lawsuit) veto power over projects provided they have the time and resources to use these levers. So people build projects through poorer less white areas because these areas often don't have the time or resources to fight back. In my town the plans were to build two wide fast arterial roads, one through the rich neighborhood and one through the poor immigrant neighborhood. Guess which one had a successful campaign to shut it down? The whole concept of zoning was created, not to concentrate uses as you say but to enforce racial segregation and horde wealth among land owners. > If every neighborhood says no to new section 8 housing, where does it go? Exactly! We do have this happen because of this hyper-specific veto levers so we are left with section 8 housing pushed to the worst parts of towns. People want a single family home but is it because they want the shape or because society is arranged such that it is functionally the only way for the middle class to build wealth and feel a sense of housing stability? And would they still want it if the subsidies were removed and they had to internalize the costs? I am sure that some people really do want it, probably a lot but it seems strange to use that as a reason to put your thumb on the scales. I get that people are concerned but I feel like all of society is negotiating things like this. Some people feel uncomfortable seeing people with piercings or tattoos, should we ban them or restrict the places they should go? Everything is a trade off but I don't feel good treating certain types of people like they are toxic waste that needs to be contained.
- typewithrhythm 1y ago
  It's a bullshit disingenuous media tactic trying to make people outside an area who would benefit from a project appear just as valid as the community members opposing it. The fact is it's not actually your backyard just because you've added that label to yourself. (See the DPRK)

natmaka 1y ago

> "community" as the group of people who live in and wish to direct the changes in the area they are in IMHO it is the genuine and most adequate 'community', because the less abusive way to decide is subsidiarity ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity ). Constraining people who live near the potential site makes them at best suspicious, they will better memorize this constraint than any benefit from other projects.

morsecodist 1y ago

The idea behind the YIMBY movement is not that community input is bad it's that the community input process structurally encourages input only from people who don't like the project. The point of YIMBY activism is to show up in your own community (your back yard if you will) to say that you do want housing.

giantg2 1y ago
The main problem is that many people do want things, until those things present a negative impact to them personally. Yes, build housing, but do it the next street over. I don't personally know anyone who wants an apartment building or trailer park next to their single family home. The real point of zoning should be to group those types of housing together, but it seems many cities are too fragmented, not to mention that consumer preference is strongly aligned with SFH ownership.
- morsecodist 1y ago
  I agree that people want things in theory but aren't willing support the policies necessary but that's why we need a movement to help change that. Also I think it's important to consider what we call a community. We can't consider every single block a community, a community is a town or even a metro area. They use shared water, to to shared schools, and they need to make decisions together because these things are interconnected. Is there a genuine market preference for single family home ownership? I'm sure some people prefer to live that way especially because it allows you to take advantage of the ample subsidies we give single family home ownership. But if there was a preference for it we wouldn't need to artificially restrict people's ability to redevelop them into multi family homes. No one would choose to live in them so no one would build them.
  - giantg2 1y ago
    "We can't consider every single block a community, a community is a town or even a metro area." And that's how you end up with the interstate cutting off the poor/black section of town from the rest. Of course there are different levels of community, but there tends to be some out-group that gets the short stick. If every neighborhood says no to new section 8 housing, where does it go? Yeah, preferences vary by demographic and market, but overall, 65% of people want a SFH and the average preferred size has increased continuously over the past few generations. The restiction isn't that people don't want to live there. The restriction is because you're intermingling the people who want SFH lifestyle with people who want multi-family home lifestyle. Of course the SFH current residents are concerned about the potential issues caused by neighbor renters, parking, etc. Even SFH rental properties are similarly looked down on due to the common problems that some tenants cause (noise, lack of respect for property, etc).
    - morsecodist 1y ago
      > And that's how you end up with the interstate cutting off the poor/black section of town from the rest. It is the exact opposite. Fighting this sort of thing is exactly why I want to get involved. The reason that these projects are put in poorer, less white areas is because we give small groups of individuals (sometimes even one individual if they are willing to file a lawsuit) veto power over projects provided they have the time and resources to use these levers. So people build projects through poorer less white areas because these areas often don't have the time or resources to fight back. In my town the plans were to build two wide fast arterial roads, one through the rich neighborhood and one through the poor immigrant neighborhood. Guess which one had a successful campaign to shut it down? The whole concept of zoning was created, not to concentrate uses as you say but to enforce racial segregation and horde wealth among land owners. > If every neighborhood says no to new section 8 housing, where does it go? Exactly! We do have this happen because of this hyper-specific veto levers so we are left with section 8 housing pushed to the worst parts of towns. People want a single family home but is it because they want the shape or because society is arranged such that it is functionally the only way for the middle class to build wealth and feel a sense of housing stability? And would they still want it if the subsidies were removed and they had to internalize the costs? I am sure that some people really do want it, probably a lot but it seems strange to use that as a reason to put your thumb on the scales. I get that people are concerned but I feel like all of society is negotiating things like this. Some people feel uncomfortable seeing people with piercings or tattoos, should we ban them or restrict the places they should go? Everything is a trade off but I don't feel good treating certain types of people like they are toxic waste that needs to be contained.
typewithrhythm 1y ago
It's a bullshit disingenuous media tactic trying to make people outside an area who would benefit from a project appear just as valid as the community members opposing it. The fact is it's not actually your backyard just because you've added that label to yourself. (See the DPRK)