Birthed by the housing crisis, can a push to build more homes become the centerpiece of a political coalition" YIMBYism?Yes In My Backyard, an exhortation to build?began as a rejection of a rejection. But what started as refutal of Not in My Backyard sentiments has become an ideology in itself: a locally based, decentralized, pro-housing political movement.
Just a few years old, the YIMBY push to add more homes to cities comes at a time when slow development, the power of single-family homeowners, and the status quo of restrictions and regulations that has shaped housing policy are facing backlash in major American cities. As advocates and backers see it, it also may form the centerpiece of a progressive coalition that could have a large impact on an increasingly urbanizing country. ?This is one of the fastest-growing, organic, grassroots movements I?ve ever seen,? says Matthew Lewis, a longtime journalist and organizer who now directs communications for California YIMBY, one of the nation?s larger pro-housing groups. ?And I mean organic. People, complaining about the rent being too high, go to one city hall meeting, find out the process is insane, and start a group. It?s incredible how much attention it?s getting and how salient the policy issues have become.?
Active in cities from LA and Portland to Boston and Minneapolis, YIMBYism lives in the center of a Venn diagram of urban ills: the intertwined issues of rising rent, scarce opportunity, and increasingly ...