Basically this post is just putting up a sign so I can say don’t make me tap it later. Originally posted on Cohost. (RIP)

Please note: If you are an avowed yimby and want to argue about this, I encourage you to instead block me and move on with your life. I don’t have the energy in 202X and you probably don’t either.

What a yimby is

YIMBY or “Yes In My Back Yard” in the current political context refers to someone who supports the development of new housing and related things like rezoning and the nebulously defined “urbanism.”

This is contrasted with a NIMBY which is typically depicted in yimby discourse as the affluent owner of a single family home who opposes building new housing near them because it will bring down their property values or something. This type of person certainly does exist, and they are terrible.

However, people who identify as yimbies are typically also terrible.

Yimbyism, especially as it exists where I am (the bay area) is a bought and paid for, heavily astroturfed, faux-popular movement funded by real estate development and right wing interests. Note that when I say “right wing” here I don’t necessarily mean republican; I am referring to conservative, pro business elements within solidly blue cities, some of which are koch brothers ass republicans, some of which are centrists or “progressives” when it comes to national politics.

We’re talking generally about the same kind of coalition that brings us stuff like the Chesa Boudin recall. All of these people are political enemies of the poor and working class.

The classic yimby – where they aren’t a literal sock puppet on twitter, that is – is coming from a middle class or better background, often in tech or otherwise a fucking nerd, usually white or with high proximity to whiteness, without generational connections to communities of color who are at risk of displacement, and highly susceptible to the kind of logic you find in an episode of the West Wing. (Plus quite a few just straight-up conservative operatives tbh)

“Affordable housing”

The fundamental refrain of yimbies is that (a) all housing is good and (b) specifically that building new market rate housing is a primary strategy for lowering housing costs and preventing displacement. This is, in my opinion, obviously reaganomics, and at least in my part of the world it fuels real estate speculation more than it does affordable housing.

It’s not so much that new market rate housing is bad – although in some cases it can be, for example when it attracts gentrifiers and the businesses that cater to them, accelerating displacement. It’s that it’s highly suspicious when you are more interested in building market rate housing than you are in

• buying or seizing housing to put into the control of community land trusts
• housing people in state-owned properties
• taxing vacant units to disincentivize speculators squatting on housing stock instead of renting at affordable rates
• building 100% affordable housing
• forcing developers to build affordable units in their market rate projects, and not to buy indulgences from the planning office to get out of it (the carbon offset of housing)
• strengthening and expanding rent control to prevent displacement
• protecting and housing the homeless
• supporting activists who occupy housing controlled by corporate landlords or the state

Some people who describe themselves as yimbies would also support some of the measures I’ve listed here; good for them. I am willing to accept the premise that many yimbies are actually trying to be on the correct side of history, but I strongly encourage those folks to drop the “yimby” label and to hold their allies to account when they prioritize the interests of tech bros and real estate developers over those of communities who are actually being displaced.

Urbanism, urban renewal, ethnic cleansing

“Urbanism” and livable cities discourse is tied directly and genealogically to “urban renewal” campaigns to clean up cities through police violence, bulldozing neighborhoods where non-white people live, etc. Literal ethnic cleansing.

When talking about ways to make our cities better/safe/more livable, it’s always necessary to think about for whom we are doing that. And no, the strategies we use are not going to benefit everyone equally.

I will not read the economics paper you’re linking to

I don’t have time or energy to figure out whether you’re giving me something from a conservative/neo-liberal think tank or just something with terrible experiment design, or even something that’s half-right. I don’t care. Economics is a joke. All offense to economists tbh.

I will not watch your yimby youtube video

The only thing I want to see when I go to youtube is hour-long reviews of expensive backpacks I won’t buy. Or farm animals being unhinged. I’m not watching twenty minutes of whitesplanations of housing policy.