My impression was that YIMBY’s want to solve one particular problem, which is that there are too many restrictions on building, and they rationally want that to be seen as a non-partisan issue. My understanding is that YIMBY’s on the left then hope that the changes in zoning allows for governments and non-profits/churches to do things like building affordable housing, in addition to allowing developers to provide new housing where the wealthy can dump their money (instead of on existing housing).
I think you're partly right. I see YIMBYs relying on a trickle-down effect that doesn't always happen. The trickle-down ("we're allowing more housing!") can lead to housing exuberance, where you see prices spike in already-desirable communities as a zoning reform sends a message that new construction is coming soon. My experience tells me that developers will pursue the highest price points until that level is saturated, and only then shift downward. On the surface zoning reform allows non-profits and churches to build more affordable housing, but that seems like passing a problem downstream to me.
I don’t really understand what YIMBYism offers to metro areas that don’t have strong population growth. At best it seems like maybe central municipalities can increase their property tax base and population if they allow a lot of dense construction in their most desirable neighborhoods, at the expense I guess of prices and population in desirable suburbs, and maybe that shift of tax revenue allows the central cities to provide better services overall to both rich and poor residents.
I think that the case for YIMBYism is much stronger for rapidly growing Sunbelt metros. Austin and Raleigh, for example, saw a run up in rents, then a building boom, and then falling rents for the past two years even as their populations have continued to grow.
I think allowing churches to build housing is good, just because churches and religious organizations often have a surprisingly large share of land that could be used for development in already built out areas. And a lot of that land is both already cleared of vegetation and doesn’t contain any structures, so it is the closest that you can get to greenfield development in a lot of places (and lower costs of construction). I also think that the politics of churches building affordable housing is more promising than that of the government doing it. So maybe some enterprising politicians somewhere will try to give grants to churches to build affordable housing.
At least where I am (a Sunbelt metro) the YIMBY type changes municipalities have made have largely changed what can be built in the central municipalities, not on the fringes, so they are making the metro area more compact and densely populated than it otherwise would be. The exurbs are still being developed as single family homes (and sometimes townhomes and garden apartments) just like they would be anyways with the amount of population growth the area is seeing, but that development is likely going more slowly than it otherwise would be.
I don't mean sprawl as in "auto-oriented single-family home development on the fringes." I mean it as unleashing housing development without a full understanding of the intended and unintended consequences.
One of the reasons so many Midwestern metros are so affordable is that the housing development spigot was opened up in the '70s and '80s even though no one was moving in. I've said before that in 1970 metro Detroit had 4.4 million people, and in 2020 metro Detroit had... still 4.4 million people. But the six-county region added about a million new housing units, almost 100% of them in the suburbs. There are developers, banks, home sellers and buyers who are expecting that transfer of capital when built, financed, sold and bought. But other places pay the price (literally) if there's no one else moving in.
I suspect that Sunbelt leaders who are moving in a YIMBY direction are hoping to achieve a few things. Restraining growth in housing costs/raising wages is one of those things, and the theory behind it is pretty explanatory. I am guessing that they also believe that the greater proportion of the metro that lives and works in the central municipalities, the easier it will be to govern over the long term, due to needing less coordination between independent government entities, and efficiencies gained from having more people and also from having people living more densely and closer to employment centers.
The only real thought that I have about Midwestern metros is that most of the central municipalities need larger budgets to better serve their residents, and also that the marginal tax dollar spent in the central municipalities probably has a greater positive impact on life in the overall metro than the marginal tax dollar in the suburbs and exurbs. Given that population growth is slow or nonexistent in many of those metros, I don’t see how those central municipalities get to a place where they have the resources commensurate to adequately serve their residents without a greater share of the metro’s wealthier residents living and paying taxes in the core municipalities, absent something like AI boosting wages and tax revenue by a whole lot or by the state or federal government providing a lot more resources.
What YIMBYism offers to metro areas that don't have strong population growth:
1. Having sufficient housing within a metro does not imply that housing supply is in the right places. There are always opportunities for optimizing infill.
2. Housing sometimes ages past its useful life; renovation is sometimes more expensive than replacement
My impression was that YIMBY’s want to solve one particular problem, which is that there are too many restrictions on building, and they rationally want that to be seen as a non-partisan issue. My understanding is that YIMBY’s on the left then hope that the changes in zoning allows for governments and non-profits/churches to do things like building affordable housing, in addition to allowing developers to provide new housing where the wealthy can dump their money (instead of on existing housing).
I think you're partly right. I see YIMBYs relying on a trickle-down effect that doesn't always happen. The trickle-down ("we're allowing more housing!") can lead to housing exuberance, where you see prices spike in already-desirable communities as a zoning reform sends a message that new construction is coming soon. My experience tells me that developers will pursue the highest price points until that level is saturated, and only then shift downward. On the surface zoning reform allows non-profits and churches to build more affordable housing, but that seems like passing a problem downstream to me.
I don’t really understand what YIMBYism offers to metro areas that don’t have strong population growth. At best it seems like maybe central municipalities can increase their property tax base and population if they allow a lot of dense construction in their most desirable neighborhoods, at the expense I guess of prices and population in desirable suburbs, and maybe that shift of tax revenue allows the central cities to provide better services overall to both rich and poor residents.
I think that the case for YIMBYism is much stronger for rapidly growing Sunbelt metros. Austin and Raleigh, for example, saw a run up in rents, then a building boom, and then falling rents for the past two years even as their populations have continued to grow.
I think allowing churches to build housing is good, just because churches and religious organizations often have a surprisingly large share of land that could be used for development in already built out areas. And a lot of that land is both already cleared of vegetation and doesn’t contain any structures, so it is the closest that you can get to greenfield development in a lot of places (and lower costs of construction). I also think that the politics of churches building affordable housing is more promising than that of the government doing it. So maybe some enterprising politicians somewhere will try to give grants to churches to build affordable housing.
Bingo. I'm beginning to believe that YIMBYism is sprawl by another name.
How do you see it as sprawl?
At least where I am (a Sunbelt metro) the YIMBY type changes municipalities have made have largely changed what can be built in the central municipalities, not on the fringes, so they are making the metro area more compact and densely populated than it otherwise would be. The exurbs are still being developed as single family homes (and sometimes townhomes and garden apartments) just like they would be anyways with the amount of population growth the area is seeing, but that development is likely going more slowly than it otherwise would be.
I don't mean sprawl as in "auto-oriented single-family home development on the fringes." I mean it as unleashing housing development without a full understanding of the intended and unintended consequences.
One of the reasons so many Midwestern metros are so affordable is that the housing development spigot was opened up in the '70s and '80s even though no one was moving in. I've said before that in 1970 metro Detroit had 4.4 million people, and in 2020 metro Detroit had... still 4.4 million people. But the six-county region added about a million new housing units, almost 100% of them in the suburbs. There are developers, banks, home sellers and buyers who are expecting that transfer of capital when built, financed, sold and bought. But other places pay the price (literally) if there's no one else moving in.
I suspect that Sunbelt leaders who are moving in a YIMBY direction are hoping to achieve a few things. Restraining growth in housing costs/raising wages is one of those things, and the theory behind it is pretty explanatory. I am guessing that they also believe that the greater proportion of the metro that lives and works in the central municipalities, the easier it will be to govern over the long term, due to needing less coordination between independent government entities, and efficiencies gained from having more people and also from having people living more densely and closer to employment centers.
The only real thought that I have about Midwestern metros is that most of the central municipalities need larger budgets to better serve their residents, and also that the marginal tax dollar spent in the central municipalities probably has a greater positive impact on life in the overall metro than the marginal tax dollar in the suburbs and exurbs. Given that population growth is slow or nonexistent in many of those metros, I don’t see how those central municipalities get to a place where they have the resources commensurate to adequately serve their residents without a greater share of the metro’s wealthier residents living and paying taxes in the core municipalities, absent something like AI boosting wages and tax revenue by a whole lot or by the state or federal government providing a lot more resources.
What YIMBYism offers to metro areas that don't have strong population growth:
1. Having sufficient housing within a metro does not imply that housing supply is in the right places. There are always opportunities for optimizing infill.
2. Housing sometimes ages past its useful life; renovation is sometimes more expensive than replacement
Thank you. Your observations dovetail perfectly with my experience in Kansas City.