Talk:YIMBY

Describing motivations in the first paragraph

The first sentence starts:

The YIMBY movement (...), based on supply-side economic theory, mostly focuses on ...

The underlined clause should be removed as misleading and polarizing – many readers have strong feelings about other policies that have been described as supply-side economics.

Instead, a sentence should be added near the end of the first paragraph that introduces all of the major motivations for YIMBYism:

The YIMBY movement is rooted in New Urbanism, environmentalism, and a supply-side approach to addressing housing affordability crises through abundance.

Jruderman (talk) 22:39, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree, supply-side economics is not mentioned elsewhere in this article, and is a WP:SYNTH argument of what YIMBY is (has nothing to do with reducing taxes or overall economic effect), and I don't think it should be mentioned in your last statement, because that confuses the reader, maybe something more like "and addressing housing affordability issues by allowing construction of more housing?" ---Avatar317^(talk) 00:56, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

You are correct. I was thrown off by supply-side economics having regulation cuts as a pillar and broad prosperity as a goal. But supply-side economics is fundamentally a macroeconomic theory, whereas most YIMBYs are focused on the microeconomics of the housing market.

However, YIMBYism is a prominent example of supply-side progressivism. Who decided to give those two ideologies such confusingly similar names? Jruderman (talk) 01:22, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

YIMBYism is not an example of "supply-side progressivism." Those who call themselves "supply-side progressives" are part of a YIMBY coalition with non-progressives, i.e.: "The YIMBY movement has supporters across the political spectrum"--as noted in the article, YIMBY coalitions are multifarious collaborations between left, right, and center.

YIMBYism is, as the cited sources explain, based on a supply-side theory of economics. Per Investopedia: "The supply-side theory, or supply-side economics, is a macroeconomic concept that contends that increases in the supply of goods lead to economic growth. Supply-side economists argue that the government should increase production through tax cuts and reduced regulation."

YIMBYism is built on a single, underlying economic policy thrust: reducing regulation of housing (i.e., "exclusionary zoning," environmental regulations), in order to increase the supply of housing. As Bryan Caplan of Reason Magazine makes explicit, this is a direct parallel to supply-side economist Arthur Laffer's infamous napkin:

"In 2019, Chang-Tai Hsieh and Enrico Moretti published "Housing Constraints and Spatial Misallocation" in the American Economic Journal. It's probably academia's most famous Yes In My Backyard (YIMBY) article. H-M imagined a scenario where New York City and the Bay Area never imposed draconian housing regulation. Then they estimated how much bigger the U.S. economy would have been in this alternate history. Their answer was shocking. Restraining local regulation in just two keys localities would have made total U.S. GDP 4-9% higher."

--The YIMBY Napkin

Caplan is incredibly straightforward about what YIMBYism entails at its core, as he demonstrated by titling his New York Times commentary piece "Yes In My Backyard: The Case For Housing Deregulation":

"I know of something close to a panacea policy: one big reform that would raise living standards, reduce wealth inequality, increase productivity, raise social mobility, help struggling men without college degrees, clean the planet and raise birth rates. It’s a sweeping reform that Democrats and Republicans, progressives and conservatives could all proudly support. The panacea policy I have in mind is housing deregulation. Research confirms that there are large benefits in saying yes to tall buildings, yes to multifamily structures, yes to dense single-family development and yes to speedy permitting."

It's understandable for those who fancy themselves "progressives" find a particular discomfort in being associated with the theory behind Reaganomics. This does not change the fact of the matter: YIMBYism's focus on deregulation to stimulate housing supply (the only part which has universal appeal between left- and right- YIMBYs) is an exact recapitulation of supply-side theory.

This is also explicitly referenced in the first source in the Wiki article, Renee Tapp's "Introducing the YIMBYs: Renters, Housing, and Supply-side Politics in Los Angeles." The term "supply-side" is right in the title, and in the body of Tapp's paper:

"Focused on the affordability crisis within Los Angeles’s rental housing market, this paper analyzes the emergence of supply-side politics among the city’s YIMBY groups in order to demonstrate how financialization is reproduced by local efforts. A detailed case study of the city’s YIMBY groups reveals that financialization is embedded in cities not only by the top-down accumulation strategies of investors, but also from the bottom up by renters struggling to find cheaper housing costs."

"The second section analyzes the supply-side economic arguments YIMBYs use to justify development in Los Angeles and the spatial consequences of this on the struggle for affordable housing."

"Significant fault lines exist among renters thanks in large part to the rise of the YIMBY movement. As groups of supply-side oriented housing advocates, YIMBYs are committed to “clear[ing] away the regulatory barriers and let[ting] developers build more housing” (Flint, 2019). Although YIMBYs share the “historical roots of pro-development” associated with the ‘growth machine’ and business elites they are fundamentally a “new form” of housing activists (McElroy and Szeto, 2018: 8). Unlike their pro-growth predecessors, more housing—built as quickly as possible—has become a rallying call for a select group of renters who do not stand to materially benefit from development in the ways that business interests (i.e. landlords) would have in the past."

"Significant fault lines exist among renters thanks in large part to the rise of the YIMBY movement. As groups of supply-side oriented housing advocates, YIMBYs are committed to “clear[ing] away the regulatory barriers and let[ting] developers build more housing” (Flint, 2019). Although YIMBYs share the “historical roots of pro-development” associated with the ‘growth machine’ and business elites they are fundamentally a “new form” of housing activists (McElroy and Szeto, 2018: 8). Unlike their pro-growth predecessors, more housing—built as quickly as possible—has become a rallying call for a select group of renters who do not stand to materially benefit from development in the ways that business interests (i.e. landlords) would have in the past."

"Under the umbrella of YIMBY, renter groups have started to overturn and dismantle specific political institutions that regulate development. Examining this process is crucial to understanding the ways in which housing as a financial object is politically constituted from the ground up. The following empirical sections support that argument and are organized thematically around the reconfiguration of the political landscape engendered by the affordable housing crisis, the economics of supply-side housing, and the rescaling of housing politics with a case study of Los Angeles."

The repeated erasure of YIMBYism's economic theoretical basis is not "confusing to the readers." It's plainly obfuscatory. It follows that a YIMBY who styles themself a "progressive" would not want "supply-side economics" to be associated with their movement, but this is very plainly a violation of WP:NPOV. Both adherents and detractors of YIMBYism agree that YIMBYism is a supply-side economic argument, and this is borne out by the research papers and the secondary sources above. 68.173.118.65 (talk) 02:15, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

To quote from the first source listed: "The first empirical section outlines how the YIMBYs emerged as a viable political force in Los Angeles as a result of a proposed building moratorium, Measure S, in the March 2017 elections. The second section analyzes the supply-side economic arguments YIMBYs use to justify development in Los Angeles and the spatial consequences of this on the struggle for affordable housing." (emphasis added)

Additionally, "supply-side economic arguments" are not a "motivation" for the YIMBY movement, but a critical theoretical underpinning for the movement's policy arguments. Without neoclassical "supply-side" economic arguments such as trickle-down (which YIMBYs call "filtering up"), there is no theoretical basis for YIMBY policy suggestions. 68.173.118.65 (talk) 00:58, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

I'll add that this wording was added by an anon user a little over a month ago. I saw the edits on my watchlist and found them a bit strange, especially since there were no edit summaries, but nothing seemed immediately wrong about them so I didn't revert them. Saucy^{[talk – contribs]} 07:46, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing me to this diff. Seeing the previous wording helped me turn the first sentence into something I'm happy with. Jruderman (talk) 08:26, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

It was a subtle one! It only drew my attention because of my intense hatred for the non-central fallacy, and it took Avatar317's deeper understanding of supply-side theory to realize how completely wrong it was. Jruderman (talk) 10:22, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

"Tension With Leftists..." section wording clarification

The first sentence of paragraph two in the section "Tension With Leftists and Tenant Advocates" is:

"Some socialists, and renter advocates concerned about resident displacement through gentrification who reject market-rate housing or disagree with the view among housing economists that displacement is caused by lack of enough housing."

This sentence, as it is currently constructed (and as I read it), has multiple subjects but no predicate. I think it is meant to be broken up to make the last part of the subjects a predicate instead, but I am unsure. For example, it might be meant as "...displacement through gentrification, reject market-rate..." making the subjects 1) "some socialists" and 2) "renter advocates concerned about resident displacement through gentrification", while the complete compound predicate would be to "reject" or "disagree" with the housing economists' view. This split might be intended to be in a different location, or the sentence could just be entirely missing a predicate that was intended to be added to the sentence end.

Regardless of intended paragraph construction, the unclear nature begs for rewording. Potential additions of commas, em dashes, and/or parentheses could help clarify the meaning. I would fix this myself, but I think there is good meaning in this sentence that I don't want to accidentally remove since I don't have a complete grasp on the sources referenced. Brewatera (talk) 06:53, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

Market urbanism

Market urbanistMarket urbanist and Market urbanismMarket urbanism redirect here. Perhaps these concepts should be discussed in this article? Daask (talk) 15:24, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

IIRC, there was a "market urbanism" article that got deleted because it only had one real "source": a website named "marketurbanismreport.com" (or something like that) run by someone promoting the concept. But that was probably at least 5 years ago now, there may be more material out there about the concept now that we could add to this article. ---Avatar317^(talk) 23:37, 24 July 2026 (UTC)