Ten years of YIMBYism have accomplished a lot (in California), but in that decade America housing prices in general and California housing prices in particular have climbed a large amount.
If America is to escape its increasing housing price death spiral, YIMBYism has to be strong enough to survive the political backlash that would come from housing prices declining back towards historical norms.
I have a hard time accepting MY's characterization of Cato before he preached the gospel of YIMBY. Libertarians, Cato included, have always been anti-zoning, pro-market, and this would necessarily mean pro-housing if there is demand for housing. Perhaps he thinks that their lack of support for a pro-housing policy as opposed to a pro-freedom/markets policy means they weren't interested in housing.
Since MY says that 2020 was the early days of YIMBY, let's look at the pre-history in 2017
Zoning, Land‐Use Planning, and Housing Affordability
OCTOBER 18, 2017 • POLICY ANALYSIS NO. 823
By Vanessa Brown Calder
"States and local municipalities can improve housing affordability without federal cash by reforming local zoning and land-use regulations. Reforms such as streamlining approval processes, making development by right, and reallocating state funds to cities reducing regulation provide benefits to all constituents. The benefits of reform include housing affordability, better job-to-worker matching, and improved economic growth."
THE SUBURBAN SQUEEZE: LAND-USE POLICIES IN THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
David E. Dowall
"A suburban land squeeze has hit the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. Extensive post-war land development, increasing use of growth management controls, more restrictive land-use and environmental regulations, and a "go-slow” development posture created by the passage of Propositions 4 and 13 have combined to reduce land conversion opportunities in the region considerably. Although the region contains an enormous supply of vacant land, because of its rugged topography or sensitive environmental character much of it cannot be developed. Other vacant lands that could be developed are restricted from use by local land-use controls."
Hooray for pragmatism, hard-work and patience! Thanks for playing the important role you did in this effort. I know you'll keep it up. Gives one hope for other, seemingly intractable issues like gun control, K-12 school reform, clean energy, etc.
Broadening zoning rules is important but the problem is deeper and wider than that. Take a simple thing like suburban design. Curvy roads, curved sidewalks, cull-de-sacs, etc. Why is this so ubiquitous? Many suburban cities have grown to a point that what they desire the most is a good old fashion downtown.
But their land planning isn’t set up with the typical grid street design. So they get some fancy developer to build them a faux downtown with a commercial core surrounded by dense housing and gradually getting less dense as you get away from the core. These developments are fine. But they’re not the downtowns people are looking for. Grid streets, mixed uses, high density.
Don’t fall for the developers who sell you with “We will bring in the Cheesecake Factor”. Oh wow we’ll be just like downtown Boulder or Austin or whatever college town you enjoy strolling around in - if we can get the Cheesecake Factory. No, no you won’t.
My question is how we can use these tactics for things like building transit, complete streets etc. In terms of climate action I think that’s the other big urbanist project we need to work on aside from building infill.
As someone who started reading your work on the issue in 2013, moved to California in 2014, and has slowly gotten more involved in local organizing here, I want to say "Thank You" for being one of the first popularizers of this issue. I think it goes without saying that without your writing, it would have taken even longer to build the coalition, and get the ball rolling, and hopefully, start seeing some sanity in our state. Take your victory lap Matt
Funny to see this in my inbox the morning after I sent a letter to the local zoning board to be the one voice speaking in favor of allowing a new 12,000 square foot mansion in my suburban Ohio neighborhood. The main issue that prompted me to write in is that some are opposing it because the new home will belong to a family of Orthodox Jews...and it's 2022...and that's like the textbook definition of prejudice...
Now that I've paid off over half my mortgage, the mortgage interest deduction no longer really does much for me on my taxes. Therefore, I now support getting rid of the MID. ;-)
San Francisco is a great motorcycle city in a great motorcycle region. They have had an online forum for motorcycles for a long time, the Bay Area Riders Forum. I suspect SFBARF took at least a little inspiration from them in naming.
Matt alluded to building code reform. THIS seems like the next frontier. To hear my architect/builder spouse tell it, getting things through planning and permitting in the Bay Area takes YEARS. Recent Chron op-Ed put average number of days to get permits in SF at over 900! Once you have your permits, you need an inspection basically any time a new subcontractor does any work on the property. We’re talking scores of inspections for residential, and many times more for commercial. They’re functionally bribes being paid to city officials. It’s completely inflexible. And the regs just keep getting more and more and more stringent. It’s time to take a hard look at the building code.
Even if they can't zone you out or kill you in discretionary review, Peskin and his cronies have a million ways to make sure your project never pencils out or dies half-completed, and they are not even remotely shy about employing all of them.
The zoning reforms are good. But as far as I can tell, they’ve done nothing to bring down the cost of building. This is a lynchpin of the housing issue.
Matt mentioned more technical expertise is needed to tackle building code reform, and I don’t totally disagree. Maybe the the American Institute of Architects (AIA) would be well-positioned to lead the technical review side. But I don’t think this should be off-limits to some smart and motivated YIMBYs. Get in there and figure out what is truly safety regulation, and what is graft, grift, and slough in the form of code regs!
We need to push for inclusionary zoning in other areas besides high-cost blue states, too.
In Texas, where I live, areas with good schools often use deed restrictions to prevent people from building smaller and more affordable housing units within them. This perpetuates racial and economic segregation and locks lower- and middle-income families out of the best public schools.
I imagine the same thing happens throughout the South. I know of several municipalities that "seceded" from the main city in their metro area to form their own school districts after schools were integrated.
I agree with some of the proposed solutions, but I have always thought the diagnosis of the root cause was mostly bad, e.g., "Homeowners benefit from scarcity and strong local veto, homeowners care a lot about land use issues."
I have *never* heard anyone say they did not want more housing because *supply/demand* would make it worth less than it is. That would be N, not NIMBY. And most people are not looking more than 1/2 mile from where they area anyway. It's NIM Back Yard, not NIM City. Rather, they think not-unreasonably that if their house in a 1/4 acre community is flanked by two new 4-unit buildings, it will make their house look worse to people who want a home in a 1/4 acre community compared to the other homes.
Many homeowners look at their home as a 30+-year investment and think moving sucks. So they are conservative in the don't want change, because if they wanted something different, they probably would not have moved there in the first place. Many specifically choose a type of community related to density. A friend chose a 2-acre community because he's a homebody who wanted trees, lots of space, and few neighbors. My wife and I chose a 1/4 acre community because it was the balance of density we wanted. Another friend lives in Boston's dense South End and is a foodie and likes a bunch of restaurants to walk to.
Exaggerated, of course, but imagine a billionaire decided to mess with Matt Y and bought all the property except his in a 50 yard radius (or 100, or 200) of his DC townhouse, demolished everything else, and raised corn and chickens. Would he thnk, "food is good, and the new housing scarcity in my area will make my home more valuable"?
> I have *never* heard anyone say they did not want more housing because *supply/demand* would make it worth less than it is
I think many people do think this, but I actually don't see how it's relevant. NIMBY homeowners are able to stop development because they have concentrated political power and a fear of change. Whether or not their understanding of the economics is correct is rather beside the point. You just shouldn't be able to take out a 30 year mortgage then spend those 30 years screaming at local meetings that nothing else should change around you. That's not how life works and I don't care who is mad about it. Things change, deal with it.
If one owns a house in a 1/4 acre community is flanked by two new 4-unit buildings, that house will look VERY attractive to people who want to build another 4-unit building in an area with proven demand, so it would probably appreciate in value quite a bit.
Also, the neighborhood in which I live has duplexes, fourplexes, and single-family homes, and they blend in well with each other because they're all 2-3 stories. IMO, no one should be afraid of fourplexes in their neighborhood.
First kudos to Matt for pointing to progress made. That idea that we are at the worst point yet , in crisis, on the brink of catastrophe wrt issue X is hugely counterproductive.
But.
Some of the progress is self-limiting. The greater part of the benefit from land use regulation that better balances local negative externalities and benefits Is in the higher value of the residential and commercial services that accrue to the builders and their clients. Yes, tax revenues go up and housing and residential cost go down somewhere and to some extent, but if development has to pass the test of showing the general benefits within a specific geographic area, it will fail. Some of the benefits are literally NOT in "my back yard." The gentrified new condo in DC may reduce the demand for a condo in Boise and the extent to which it makes housing somewhere marginally more affordable will be undetectable.
This can be somewhat ameliorated by “taxing” the development by taking some of what would otherwise have been private gains to require x% of “affordable housing” or neighborhood amenities, but that’s probably not the tax with the least deadweight loss.
Ten years of YIMBYism have accomplished a lot (in California), but in that decade America housing prices in general and California housing prices in particular have climbed a large amount.
If America is to escape its increasing housing price death spiral, YIMBYism has to be strong enough to survive the political backlash that would come from housing prices declining back towards historical norms.
I have a hard time accepting MY's characterization of Cato before he preached the gospel of YIMBY. Libertarians, Cato included, have always been anti-zoning, pro-market, and this would necessarily mean pro-housing if there is demand for housing. Perhaps he thinks that their lack of support for a pro-housing policy as opposed to a pro-freedom/markets policy means they weren't interested in housing.
Since MY says that 2020 was the early days of YIMBY, let's look at the pre-history in 2017
Zoning, Land‐Use Planning, and Housing Affordability
OCTOBER 18, 2017 • POLICY ANALYSIS NO. 823
By Vanessa Brown Calder
"States and local municipalities can improve housing affordability without federal cash by reforming local zoning and land-use regulations. Reforms such as streamlining approval processes, making development by right, and reallocating state funds to cities reducing regulation provide benefits to all constituents. The benefits of reform include housing affordability, better job-to-worker matching, and improved economic growth."
https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/zoning-land-use-planning-housing-affordability
From the Winter 1983 Cato Journal:
THE SUBURBAN SQUEEZE: LAND-USE POLICIES IN THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
David E. Dowall
"A suburban land squeeze has hit the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. Extensive post-war land development, increasing use of growth management controls, more restrictive land-use and environmental regulations, and a "go-slow” development posture created by the passage of Propositions 4 and 13 have combined to reduce land conversion opportunities in the region considerably. Although the region contains an enormous supply of vacant land, because of its rugged topography or sensitive environmental character much of it cannot be developed. Other vacant lands that could be developed are restricted from use by local land-use controls."
https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/1983/1/cj2n3-4.pdf
In case anyone cares. The triangle house he mentions.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/G7fB66mYqXEyPCXW9?g_st=ic
Hooray for pragmatism, hard-work and patience! Thanks for playing the important role you did in this effort. I know you'll keep it up. Gives one hope for other, seemingly intractable issues like gun control, K-12 school reform, clean energy, etc.
Hopefully the water-rich states will build more housing, as California and other western states are in an ever-worsening water crisis.
Broadening zoning rules is important but the problem is deeper and wider than that. Take a simple thing like suburban design. Curvy roads, curved sidewalks, cull-de-sacs, etc. Why is this so ubiquitous? Many suburban cities have grown to a point that what they desire the most is a good old fashion downtown.
But their land planning isn’t set up with the typical grid street design. So they get some fancy developer to build them a faux downtown with a commercial core surrounded by dense housing and gradually getting less dense as you get away from the core. These developments are fine. But they’re not the downtowns people are looking for. Grid streets, mixed uses, high density.
Don’t fall for the developers who sell you with “We will bring in the Cheesecake Factor”. Oh wow we’ll be just like downtown Boulder or Austin or whatever college town you enjoy strolling around in - if we can get the Cheesecake Factory. No, no you won’t.
My question is how we can use these tactics for things like building transit, complete streets etc. In terms of climate action I think that’s the other big urbanist project we need to work on aside from building infill.
As someone who started reading your work on the issue in 2013, moved to California in 2014, and has slowly gotten more involved in local organizing here, I want to say "Thank You" for being one of the first popularizers of this issue. I think it goes without saying that without your writing, it would have taken even longer to build the coalition, and get the ball rolling, and hopefully, start seeing some sanity in our state. Take your victory lap Matt
Funny to see this in my inbox the morning after I sent a letter to the local zoning board to be the one voice speaking in favor of allowing a new 12,000 square foot mansion in my suburban Ohio neighborhood. The main issue that prompted me to write in is that some are opposing it because the new home will belong to a family of Orthodox Jews...and it's 2022...and that's like the textbook definition of prejudice...
You have a new podcast? Why was I not informed sooner???
I have a fever, and the only cure is MORE UPTALK.
Now that I've paid off over half my mortgage, the mortgage interest deduction no longer really does much for me on my taxes. Therefore, I now support getting rid of the MID. ;-)
San Francisco is a great motorcycle city in a great motorcycle region. They have had an online forum for motorcycles for a long time, the Bay Area Riders Forum. I suspect SFBARF took at least a little inspiration from them in naming.
Matt alluded to building code reform. THIS seems like the next frontier. To hear my architect/builder spouse tell it, getting things through planning and permitting in the Bay Area takes YEARS. Recent Chron op-Ed put average number of days to get permits in SF at over 900! Once you have your permits, you need an inspection basically any time a new subcontractor does any work on the property. We’re talking scores of inspections for residential, and many times more for commercial. They’re functionally bribes being paid to city officials. It’s completely inflexible. And the regs just keep getting more and more and more stringent. It’s time to take a hard look at the building code.
This ^^^^^^
Even if they can't zone you out or kill you in discretionary review, Peskin and his cronies have a million ways to make sure your project never pencils out or dies half-completed, and they are not even remotely shy about employing all of them.
The zoning reforms are good. But as far as I can tell, they’ve done nothing to bring down the cost of building. This is a lynchpin of the housing issue.
Matt mentioned more technical expertise is needed to tackle building code reform, and I don’t totally disagree. Maybe the the American Institute of Architects (AIA) would be well-positioned to lead the technical review side. But I don’t think this should be off-limits to some smart and motivated YIMBYs. Get in there and figure out what is truly safety regulation, and what is graft, grift, and slough in the form of code regs!
Edited: NIMBYs to YIMBYs
Plug for another great Substack called Construction Physics.
https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/why-are-there-so-few-economies-of
We need to push for inclusionary zoning in other areas besides high-cost blue states, too.
In Texas, where I live, areas with good schools often use deed restrictions to prevent people from building smaller and more affordable housing units within them. This perpetuates racial and economic segregation and locks lower- and middle-income families out of the best public schools.
I imagine the same thing happens throughout the South. I know of several municipalities that "seceded" from the main city in their metro area to form their own school districts after schools were integrated.
What is the YIMBY consensus on inclusionary zoning? Many do-good progressive city councils are obsessed with it (of course).
I agree with some of the proposed solutions, but I have always thought the diagnosis of the root cause was mostly bad, e.g., "Homeowners benefit from scarcity and strong local veto, homeowners care a lot about land use issues."
I have *never* heard anyone say they did not want more housing because *supply/demand* would make it worth less than it is. That would be N, not NIMBY. And most people are not looking more than 1/2 mile from where they area anyway. It's NIM Back Yard, not NIM City. Rather, they think not-unreasonably that if their house in a 1/4 acre community is flanked by two new 4-unit buildings, it will make their house look worse to people who want a home in a 1/4 acre community compared to the other homes.
Many homeowners look at their home as a 30+-year investment and think moving sucks. So they are conservative in the don't want change, because if they wanted something different, they probably would not have moved there in the first place. Many specifically choose a type of community related to density. A friend chose a 2-acre community because he's a homebody who wanted trees, lots of space, and few neighbors. My wife and I chose a 1/4 acre community because it was the balance of density we wanted. Another friend lives in Boston's dense South End and is a foodie and likes a bunch of restaurants to walk to.
Exaggerated, of course, but imagine a billionaire decided to mess with Matt Y and bought all the property except his in a 50 yard radius (or 100, or 200) of his DC townhouse, demolished everything else, and raised corn and chickens. Would he thnk, "food is good, and the new housing scarcity in my area will make my home more valuable"?
> I have *never* heard anyone say they did not want more housing because *supply/demand* would make it worth less than it is
I think many people do think this, but I actually don't see how it's relevant. NIMBY homeowners are able to stop development because they have concentrated political power and a fear of change. Whether or not their understanding of the economics is correct is rather beside the point. You just shouldn't be able to take out a 30 year mortgage then spend those 30 years screaming at local meetings that nothing else should change around you. That's not how life works and I don't care who is mad about it. Things change, deal with it.
If one owns a house in a 1/4 acre community is flanked by two new 4-unit buildings, that house will look VERY attractive to people who want to build another 4-unit building in an area with proven demand, so it would probably appreciate in value quite a bit.
Also, the neighborhood in which I live has duplexes, fourplexes, and single-family homes, and they blend in well with each other because they're all 2-3 stories. IMO, no one should be afraid of fourplexes in their neighborhood.
First kudos to Matt for pointing to progress made. That idea that we are at the worst point yet , in crisis, on the brink of catastrophe wrt issue X is hugely counterproductive.
But.
Some of the progress is self-limiting. The greater part of the benefit from land use regulation that better balances local negative externalities and benefits Is in the higher value of the residential and commercial services that accrue to the builders and their clients. Yes, tax revenues go up and housing and residential cost go down somewhere and to some extent, but if development has to pass the test of showing the general benefits within a specific geographic area, it will fail. Some of the benefits are literally NOT in "my back yard." The gentrified new condo in DC may reduce the demand for a condo in Boise and the extent to which it makes housing somewhere marginally more affordable will be undetectable.
This can be somewhat ameliorated by “taxing” the development by taking some of what would otherwise have been private gains to require x% of “affordable housing” or neighborhood amenities, but that’s probably not the tax with the least deadweight loss.
Developers are already charged impact fees.
Also -- https://www.lewis.ucla.edu/research/value-capture-reconsidered/
Yes. That also makes sense if tied back to compensating local NINBYs.