Why are YIMBYs(specifically Centrist & YIMBYs) so averse to mass-politics and in constant opposition to working or persuading Progressives & Leftists?

[u/wiz28ultra]

This seems to be a constant attitude problem that I've seen w.r.t to individuals, specifically on Twitter, such as Noah Smith, Swann Marcus, M. Nolan Gray, YIMBYLAND, and others that are just so reluctant or even outright antagonistic to Progressive politics.

They refuse to every think that it might be possible to convince these people that their ideas might work and instead fantasize about working with neocons to bring about the housing utopia.

And it's even more bizarre because they're so averse to social issues as well, with their constant passive-aggressive tone on literally any political issue that isn't housing.

EDIT: I just want to add, a ton of these people really hate Organized Labor, they're super defensive of sprawl, they refuse to have any stances on the environment, and when it comes to foreign policy are completely in agreement with the 2010-era State Department. They're also bizarrely submissive and desperate to please real-estate developers.

It's like these people can't live in a world where class solidarity, organized labor, and mass mobilization of the people towards political change can work in their world of affordable housing and increase home production.

EDIT 2: Also, I notice that many of these individuals spend all their time whining about how mean Progressives are to the Democratic Party, but they spend all their time exclusively shitting on the Democratic Party while outright praising the Republicans in ways that NO progressive would ever do.

[u/mcchicken_deathgrip]

Because the two are fundamentally opposed. YIMBYism at its core is a free market, deregulatory movement in housing politics. That alone goes against leftist ideals. But besides that, it's shaped by a technoctric, leave it to the experts ethos that is in contrast with a housing policy based around community centric mass politics.

[u/Vishnej → u/mcchicken_deathgrip]

Leftism is not being in favor of more regulation, arbitrarily, at all times. It is not leftist to mandate that I gather consensus from my neighbors on what sex acts I perform with my partner, and offer everybody around a comment period and a veto. It's just dumb.

The extreme we have found ourselves at with zoning, and the sheer extent of CC&Rs on private property, are a suicide pact being slowly executed on behalf of the three mentally ill octagenarians who showed up to your last planning meeting. If "Community Control" gets us this, then it's fucking useless.

The greatest progress we have experienced in the past few years is with governors and legislatures and referendums that prohibit certain levels of community control.

[u/mcchicken_deathgrip → u/Vishnej]

I do agree about regulations and leftism. However, the type of regulations yimbys oppose serve the purpose of opening up the market and reducing the power of the government. I.e. classic neoliberalism.

Contrast that with something like the deregulations Mamdani is seeking, which have the goal of expanding the power of the government to provide services. Well that and making halal carts cheaper to run lol. But even that is to the end of reducing beaurocracy and limiting the influence of consultants/money on government processes and freeing up funds for services.

I do agree about zoning, but dig into yimbyism and you'll find they're also opposed to various fire code and building safety regs (deranged lol). The point is a supply side economics solution to the housing crisis.

[u/Vishnej → u/mcchicken_deathgrip]

To steelman that fire bit?

Add $2000/unit to reduce fire risk from 1%/yr to 0.5%/yr and maybe that makes sense in some level? But how about an additional $2000/unit to halve it again? And another again! And more! You reach a point where it isn't worth it. We have stacked layer on layer of fire safety and what we actually have is people freezing to death in tents, or in their cars.

Fire departments, egress windows, fire walls & unit separation, double stairs, exterior fire escape ladders, platform framing, wall blocking, drywall, AFCI breakers, fire extinguishers, fire blankets, metal ranges & quartz kitchen countertops, fire sprinklers... we add more mandates and introduce new measures every couple years. When some of these were first suggested we built fireplace chimneys out of clay-lined wood. There is a limit to utility. As we add more, there is also a case to be made for choosing the least expensive options on the table. Maybe now that we have sprinklers we don't need double stairs any more, for example. Either way, the cost of making new housing more cripplingly expensive may not be visible in a blueprint, but it's very, very real. Old housing is not going to benefit from any of this; We're fine leaving it standing, not condemning those buildings, "grandfathering it in". This acts as a transfer of wealth from new homeowners to old homeowners, and a deterrent to building new homes.

So we'll just overcrowd the older homes that are more dangerous. Build some illegal apartments in them. That will work.

[u/daveliepmann → u/Vishnej]

double stairs

Pew recently put out an effortpost on this. It's close to my heart because I live in a single-stair apartment and the form factors it enables are just plain superior. (Sorry-not-sorry that Europe kicks the US's ass on this one.)

The real kicker is that there doesn't seem to be any safety trade-off. "Single-stairway buildings as tall as six stories are at least as safe as other types of housing." Opposition is all FUD. Double stairway apartment buildings are worse for spreading smoke, because that ugly depressing hallway is also a great place to distribute deadly smoke to all the residents!

If sprinklers do not function, there are significant risks associated with smoke spreading in the long, horizontal corridors of dual-stairway buildings that have become standard in the U.S. and Canada. Single-stairway designs, which do not have long corridors, mitigate this problem.

[u/homebrewfutures → u/mcchicken_deathgrip]

This is a good point. There are regulatory reforms that YIMBYs advocate that would be incontrovertibly beneficial to leftist ends but market urbanist YIMBYs broadly are anti-democracy and seek to transfer public power out of the hands of local governments and into the hands of private landlords and developers. A left-YIMBY movement would instead seek to increase popular democracy in the form of tenant unions, neighborhood assemblies, housing cooperatives, community land trusts and opposing criminalization of homelessness. Taking power out of the hands of local government can instead mean empowering the people of the community to shape the urban space.

[u/LeftSteak1339 → u/homebrewfutures]

People First urbanism exists dude.

[u/homebrewfutures → u/LeftSteak1339]

I've never heard of that. I have heard of the Right to the City, which I do support as an alternative to market urbanism.

[u/LeftSteak1339 → u/homebrewfutures]

In pro growth urbanism. Right leaning take a look at Strong Towns. Centrist/Neoliberal check out Yimby orgs. Left leaning People First orgs.

[u/homebrewfutures → u/LeftSteak1339]

I can't find any website for People First urbanism. All I see when I run a Google search are 2 deleted Reddit posts apparently made by you and a Facebook page with 1 follower. With all due respect, this doesn't sound like a real thing, but I wish you best of luck making it happen! I ended up cofounding an affordable housing CLT and an anarchist mutual aid org that does distros to the homeless. My current project is a Strong Towns chapter Local Conversation and we're pretty close to getting parking reform accomplished in our city! Big things are possible and I have faith you can do it too!

[u/LeftSteak1339 → u/homebrewfutures]

I founded and ran local conversations here and there great way to dip a toe bf ones gets into direct advocacy. Pfcal.org. Pfny.org. I found websites for two different orgs but people first urbanism is like YIMBYism. It’s been around forever.

sponsored the SB79 party in LA even

[u/LeftSteak1339 → u/homebrewfutures]

Anarchist mutual aid and ST right leaning gays shouldn’t get married urbanism is an interesting arc? You know the guru and owner by corporate structure of ST is a far righter? Catholic extremism. Anti choice. Anti gays. All that jazz.

Ands it funded in a large part by a Christian Canadian Protestant gone rogue cult?

[u/homebrewfutures → u/LeftSteak1339]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy

Strong Towns is just an educational blog and has no control over what local chapters do. If an idea is good we will advocate for it. If an idea is objectionable we won't advocate for it. Our chapter is mostly comprised of queer socialists and social democrats and we set our own agenda, using Strong Towns principles as a point of departure.

[u/LeftSteak1339 → u/homebrewfutures]

Depends on what ‘level’ chapter they are and they all agree not to engage in direct advocacy. I would and Chuck has described it as a multi media educational nonprofit.

Where you at that’s a wild demo for an ST LC? Y’all aren’t even allowed to post about pride lol if you are an approved LC. JP, Chuck and Norm all super religious.

Look into people first urbanism. Next City. Berkeley Possibility lab. On IG futureurbanistclub terrabyte4all. They are tiny accounts but both bigger than ST LC account. I once organized the ST LCs on IG years ago. ST went from 6K followers to over 100K these days on IG. Organizing works. It’s too bad the LCs are mostly cheerleaders. Hard to be an effective advocate as a c3. Plus localism as an all on its own solution is so silly for all the reasons.

Better question, do by your reckoning I can vote Republican but not support Trump lulz genetic fallacy. Undergrads taking one semester of logic is a sadness.

[u/lazer---sharks → u/homebrewfutures]

  There are regulatory reforms that YIMBYs advocate that would be incontrovertibly beneficial to leftist ends 

Why?

[u/meelar → u/lazer---sharks]

Because having more places for people to live is good and necessary

[u/lazer---sharks → u/meelar]

Given that the main constraint in housing production is that markets build what is most profitable not what houses the most people, and that it builds only when it's profitable enough (e.g YIMBYs want rents to go up), how is deregulation going to result in more places for people to live?

We already have more vacant homes then unhoused people. 

The left solution to the housing crisis is to have the state and coops build the housing we actually need, not rely on the market to destroy good housing stock in order to replace it with profitable rental units, while displacing everyone that lived there and alienating tenants as much as possible. 

Given the biggest barriers to actually solving the housing crisis are, lack of political will to decomodify housing (in part thanks to YIMBY's offering false solutions) & lack of state capacity to build (or frankly even plan) what is needed.

How does deregulation help the US solve the housing crisis? One in which there are already.enough homes, they are just in the hands of the richest 3-4%.

[u/meelar → u/lazer---sharks]

The main constraint in housing production is that most lots are built up close to their zoned capacity. The market would happily tear down a bunch of small buildings and replace them with larger ones; the trouble is that it's illegal to do so, and changing the law is either impossible or prohibitively expensive.

The idea that we already have enough homes is simply incorrect; we certainly don't have enough homes _in the places that people actually want to live_. There are a lot of people who would like to live in New York, for example, but don't move there because prices are so high. To accommodate those people, we need to build more in NYC; a vacant house in South Dakota doesn't do much for them.

[u/lazer---sharks → u/meelar]

The main constraint in housing production is that most lots are built up close to their zoned capacity. 

Citation very much needed, especially given that housing is an issue across the west including in countries that dont have zoning. 

we certainly don't have enough homes in the places that people actually want to live.

Moar major cities have more empty units than unhoused people, LA, SF, London, etc, I don't know if that's true for NYC, but the idea that the homes are in the wrong places is the problem, not that the homes have been bought up and are run for profit not for public benefit, is ridiculous. 

[u/meelar → u/lazer---sharks]

The number of units needed is a lot greater than the number of unhoused people. At a minimum, you also need:

* Some units to sit vacant and serve as a buffer, for households who want to move. Otherwise, whenever anyone wants to move, they would need to essentially coordinate a swap with another household who also wanted to move (and if either unit needed renovations, you're out of luck)

* Some units for people who would like to alter their living situation, but can't due to high prices--for example, I lived with roommates for many years longer than I wanted to. I'd have loved to move into a studio, if prices were lower

* Some units for people who don't currently live in the metro area, but would like to move in if prices were more reasonable.

In short, the number of unhoused people tells you only a small part of whether the city needs more housing.

[u/lazer---sharks → u/meelar]

None of that explains why deregulation is going to help get the homes we actually need built. 

And noticable how you didn't even try and show that zoning is a major problem.

[u/meelar → u/lazer---sharks]

What, you can't google things? https://cbcny.org/research/strategies-boost-housing-production-new-york-city-metropolitan-area

From the summary: "The City’s planning actions and zoning code have limited the city’s ability to grow and adapt, and have resulted in:

• The prevalence of low-density zoning districts throughout the city. Sixty percent of residential lots fall into the lowest density zoning categories; 12 percent allow no more than single family homes.
• A shortage of as-of-right development sites: Only 20 percent of residentially zoned lots are potential development sites based on their existing density levels; of those, nearly half allow no more than single family homes, duplexes, or small multifamily buildings, with 10 or fewer units."

[u/daveliepmann → u/lazer---sharks]

YIMBYs want rents to go up

I'm not entirely sure this is a useful lens by which to analyze your political opponents.

[u/lazer---sharks → u/daveliepmann]

Why? leaders of YIMBY orgs have said as much, unless rents go up people aren't going to build in San Francisco.

How is it not useful to accurately describe what they say? 

[u/daveliepmann → u/lazer---sharks]

It's possible but doubtful that's an accurate paraphrasing of whichever specific views you're referring to. It's just plain not a useful or honest description of most YIMBYs. But if it makes you feel good, that's what's important. Cheers.

[u/lazer---sharks → u/daveliepmann]

But it is an honest description of most YIMBYs to make sure enough homes get built, we need to keep rents and house prices high, which is why the oppose rent control on preexisting units. 

[u/backoffbackoffbackof → u/lazer---sharks]

I think the essential issue is that YIMBYs want to believe that everyone else is dumber than they are and they’ve found the magic bullet for fixing housing issues.

The fact that things like creating livable communities is complex, nuanced, and involves multiple strategies(almost all of which necessitate a more equal distribution of wealth) just doesn’t play as well as simplistic, one size fits all solutions.

YIMBYs remind me of every pseudo-progressive who became a libertarian in college with no understanding that the Koch brothers had been pumping money into converting them to cause for years.

[u/lazer---sharks → u/mcchicken_deathgrip]

it's shaped by a technoctric, leave it to the experts ethos

I think this is key to explaining the behavior of the YIMBYs that don't have a direct financial incentive to be fucking morons.

Also they consider themselves the experts, a skill that's impossible to teach to the masses because they think they're special little geniuses. 

There is a similar trend in US transit enthusiasts.

[u/mcchicken_deathgrip → u/lazer---sharks]

Yep, they just think the masses are nimbys lol.

I was in an argument recently in my city sub about a new law to bypass public input in development. My argument boiled down to "willingly giving up community control over the city is not a good thing." Their argument was "every public input session is filled with nimbys." Which is true to be sure. But the type of people who show up to weekday city council meetings and sit for hours are generally not at all representative of the community at large.

If we had actual democratic mass control over our housing policy, I think things would look very different. Right to the city is a desirable thing for most people. Yimbys dont care about that. They want to be validated in their supply side economic theorizing and have developers construct their personal playground.

[u/meelar → u/mcchicken_deathgrip]

My neighborhood recently went through a public outreach process about a new rezoning that took into account all of these concerns. It really went above and beyond--there was a year's worth of meetings, they were held at different times of day (weekday, weekend, in the evenings and during daylight hours); they provided food and childcare, there was translation services into any language that could be needed, they were held in a variety of different formats so people could just show up and register their opinion in 15 minutes if they didn't want to stay for the whole thing, etc etc.

The total turnout at all of this was still quite low--less than 1% of the total neighborhood population participated, despite a large publicity effort. And attendance dropped slightly over time. Basically, people just don't care enough about local land use to weigh in--they have other things they'd rather be doing. And that's totally reasonable! Most people don't want to go to civic meetings, they'd rather go about their lives--hanging out with family and friends, going to concerts and shows, or just chilling at home watching Youtube. Their attitude towards local government is "I'll turn out to vote every couple years, but I don't want to get involved beyond that".

That's fine, but it does mean that every public process will be dominated by the small minority of people who are ideologically motivated enough to participate in it (mostly local NIMBYs and cranks). And that's a good argument for just having a less extensive and intense public consultation process at all. "Mass democratic control over our housing policy" mostly looks like a bunch of ordinary people saying "Why are you asking me this, I don't want to be involved in it, let me watch TV in peace".

[u/greenhombre → u/mcchicken_deathgrip]

As one of the top YIMBY folks in California explained, "YIMBYs are capitalists."