One of the frustrating aspects of arguing with those who oppose new housing in their neighborhood is the typical dodge-and-weave around Econ 101 issues. As any first-year econ student will tell you, more supply of housing will lower prices. But many NIMBYs instead argue that more housing just drives up prices by gentrifying neighborhoods, when the exact opposite is true.1. Econ 101 supply-and-demand theory is helpful in discussing these issues, but don’t rely on it exclusively. Instead, use a mix of data, simple theory, thought experiments, and references to more complex theories.2. Always remind people that the price of an apartment is not fixed, and doesn’t come built into its walls and floors.3. Remind NIMBYs to think about the effect of new housing on whole regions, states, and the country itself, instead of just on one city or one neighborhood. If NIMBYs say they only care about one city or neighborhood, ask them why.4. Ask NIMBYs what they think would be the result of destroying rich people’s current residences.5. Acknowledge that induced demand is a real thing, and think seriously about how new housing supply within a city changes the location decisions of people not currently living in that city.
6. NIMBYs care about the character of a city, so it’s good to be able to paint a positive, enticing picture of what a city would look and feel like with more development.
Housing scarcity—exacerbated by the ridiculous amount of this city zoned for single-family housing—deserves as much blame for the displacement crisis as gentrification. More. And unlike gentrification (“a once in a lifetime tectonic shift in consumer preferences”), scarcity and single-family zoning are two things we can actually do something about. Rezone huge swaths of the city. Build more units of affordable housing, borrow the social housing model discussed in the Rick Jacobus’ piece I quote from above (“Why We Must Build“), do away with parking requirements, and—yes—let developers develop. (This is the point where someone jumps into comments to point out that I live in a big house on Capitol Hill. It’s true! And my house is worth a lot of money—a lot more than what we paid for it a dozen years ago. But the value of my house is tied to its scarcity. Want to cut the value of my property in half? Great! Join me in calling for a radical rezone of all of Capitol Hill—every single block—for multi-family housing, apartment blocks and towers. That’ll show me!)
Both pieces are worth reading in full, especially for those concerned about the lack of new housing supply in our job- and transit-rich urban centers.
There’s a legitimate debate to be had about housing growth in California. On the pro-housing side, you generally have millennials and smart growth environmentalists who are concerned about a long-running housing shortage and its effect on the environment and economy.
On the other side, you often have homeowners concerned about changes to their neighborhoods, as well as pro-sprawl conservatives who see the suburban lifestyle as a symbol of the good life.
Count me as firmly on the pro-housing side.
But increasingly in these debates, I see the homeowner types smearing pro-housing advocates as simply corporate tools. They charge the few brave elected leaders who champion more infill housing as politicians “bought” by large developers. Here’s an example from the San Francisco Chronicle’s new columnist, author David Talbot, about a pro-housing group in San Francisco:
[“31-year-old, bow-tied, corporate public relations man named Justin”] Jones’ club is part of a network of young, corporate-backed activists who see themselves in opposition to the city’s progressive establishment. One such Jones comrade is 29-year-old Laura Foote Clark, a vice president of the RFK Club and the founder of Grow SF, a pro-development group that attracts funding from some of the same sources as the RFK Club [“Ron Conway and his Big Tech friends, and from the real estate industry”].
Clark is spearheading a campaign to wrest control of the Sierra Club’s San Francisco chapter from its traditional, sustainable-growth leadership. She is one of four pro-development candidates running for the chapter’s executive committee.
And this from a longtime San Francisco homeowner, a self-described “progressive” who is fortunate to live in a neighborhood where low supply has pushed average house prices north of $3 million.
Of course, Talbot’s smears about “pro-corporate” policies and funding from the “real estate industry” are meant to distract from the merits of the underlying argument, which he is unable to clearly articulate or rebut. For him, it’s all about the takeover of his beloved city by wealthy interests — nothing about how to address the chronic under-supply of housing and what it has done to further inequality, economic stress, and environmental degradation.
Furthermore, Talbot exhibits no sympathy for a millennial generation that has been priced out of major job centers and urban areas by first-in-the-door homeowners who refuse to allow new housing to stabilize prices. To add insult to injury, these longtime homeowners then get to watch their home values skyrocket.
The pro-housing movement among this new generation is blossoming in San Francisco but now spreading to places like San Diego. As the New York Times reports, a new group there is successfully harnessing millennial frustration with housing:
Many of San Diego’s Yimbys [yes-in-my-backyard] are millennials who say they’re fed up with spending upward of 40 percent of their income on housing.
“The older people, they already have their house,” said Chance Shay, 28, who became a father last year. “Now that they have their homes, they’re saying, ‘Hey, I don’t want a bunch of other houses built. I like my green space.’”
Sounds like another corporate tool.
The headlines this morning from the Bay Area are not looking good, if you’re concerned about California’s woeful lack of housing production, particularly in the coastal metropolitan areas. As I’ve written before, the historic underproduction has led to insane housing and rental prices, extreme gentrification, outlying sprawl, and terrible traffic and air quality problems.
San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim is leading the charge against market-rate housing production.
Yet in response to the challenge, we’re seeing more of the same activists attempting to shut down or stunt housing development in the inner core — exactly where we need new housing. First, San Francisco’s board of supervisors narrowly shot down a proposal to put a moratorium on new housing in the Mission District. It’s now likely to go to the ballot. Second, activists shut down an Oakland City Council meeting on a proposed 24-story residential tower. And finally, San Francisco supervisor Jane Kim wants to go to the ballot to shut down the San Francisco Giants mixed-use project next to their ballpark.
All this on the heels of restrictive zoning and ballot challenges that we’ve seen up and down the state, particularly in places like Santa Monica and San Francisco. If local government leaders continue to defer to these opponents, our present environmental and economic challenges will only worsen.
