Leftists and YIMBYs have divergent ideas about how to handle the issue of affordable housing. But more and more of them are coming together.
A movement of young professionals with college degrees has emerged to combat local opposition to liberalizing zoning restrictions that prevent the development of new homes, amid growing concern over the dearth of affordable housing in major U.S. urban regions.
The movement calls itself the yes-in-my-backyard, or YIMBY, movement ― a direct response to the anti-development, not-in-my-backyard, or NIMBY movement it seeks to defeat.
But even as these YIMBY activists, also known as YIMBYs, battle obstinate homeowners, community boards, and elected officials, they frequently clash with left-leaning tenants rights campaigners.
These lefties are often dubious of YIMBYs’ market-driven strategy for tackling the housing issue, as are the working-class renters with whom they align. In response, some YIMBYs have labeled lefties as idealistic idealists who don’t consider supply and demand.
Due to this, the two sides have occasionally been forced to engage in a multi-front conflict as they battle competing housing reformers and firmly established special interests opposed to change of any kind.
However, there have been recent indications of a hesitant détente between YIMBYs and progressives
The largest YIMBY organization in the Empire State, Open New York, made a point of promoting “good cause” eviction legislation in the beginning of January. One of the top priorities for New York’s left-leaning activists is a state-level bill that would, among other things, cap the rate of rent increases in uncontrolled apartments.
There is something there, despite the fact that it is fragile and explosive-prone.
The biggest YIMBY organization in the state, Open New York, executive director Annemarie Gray told HuffPost in a recent interview, “We don’t want to adhere to a scarcity mindset.” “We believe that in order to boost supply, we should be able to pass tenant rights and policies. There is no requirement that it be either/or.
While this is going on, many liberals, who frequently oppose the zoning deregulations supported by YIMBYs, have started to change their minds.
Self-described democratic socialists are among the activists and legislators who concur with YIMBYs that eliminating restrictive zoning is a necessary component of the solution, particularly in affluent regions, and that the housing supply needs to rise. In other instances, communists have decided to put their disagreement with private real estate development projects on hold because the alternative would be incomparably worse.
Diminishing the two camps’ animosity toward one another would at least reduce the number of opponents each camp encounters while pursuing its own objectives. However, leaders in both sides admit that a lasting peace would be iffy.
Samuel Stein, a housing policy expert at the Community Service Society of New York and author of “Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State,” said that from a political science standpoint, they might have one less adversary to worry about. “On the other hand, they also have to feel like, ‘Are we going to alienate our own side by making common cause? ’”
He said, “There’s something there.” It may be fragile and volatile, but there is something there.
The Big Supply Disagreement
There is little doubt that the US is experiencing a crisis in house affordability.
Rent-burdened tenants are those that pay 30% or more of their income in rent, according to experts. Sadly, that characterization now accurately describes the average American earner for the first time since Moody’s Analytics started tracking the indicator in 1999.
People who have relocated to successful coastal metropolises in search of higher-paying employment are basically forced into a devil’s bargain because the situation is significantly worse in many of the most economically affluent cities in the United States. For instance, in New York City, more than 28% of households pay more than half of their income in rent.
The severity of the crisis’ effects varies from requiring borrowers to put off purchasing a home to pushing families into homelessness. Many people who are paying attention are curious—and perhaps angry—about the specific severity of the situation in cities and states with progressive regimes.
Why can’t most Americans afford to live in our most apparently liberal urban areas? ” questioned historian Jacob Anbinder, who is writing a doctoral thesis at Harvard University that attempts to address this particular issue.
YIMBYs have identified the issue as a mismatch between supply and demand based on a growing body of information.
The most stringent zoning regulations, which either severely restrict or outright forbid the construction of new dwellings, are found in the same liberal urban regions that draw job seekers.
These experts and activists point out that it is no accident that San Francisco and New York City, which have some of the highest rents in the nation, are also the top two cities with the most restrictions on the construction of new homes.
Giving renters additional options is how Open New York sees its mission of leveling the balances between tenants and landlords accomplished.
“We firmly believe that landlords should constantly be concerned that you might find another residence.”
The conventional left and the academics who agree with them typically present a different narrative regarding the current rental problem. They draw attention to the fact that the federal government stopped making significant investments in public housing decades ago, enabling its quality to deteriorate and its supply to remain static in comparison to the expanding need. In New York, they hold decision-makers accountable for favoring market-rate building over expanding mid-20th century programs that supported rents and co-ops for middle-class families. They also accuse them of piecemeal set-asides for lower earners.
Left-leaning organizations point out that the needs of the most vulnerable and impoverished citizens of big cities have almost never been satisfied by market-rate housing.
According to Shanti Singh, communications and legislative director for Tenants Together, a state-level renters rights organization in California, “zoning is a barrier, but I don’t think about it as the barrier — the first-among-equals barrier — and I think the YIMBYs do.”
Many leftists also question whether supply and demand principles apply to the housing market, where serving wealthy customers is more lucrative and where owners frequently come up with novel strategies to limit supply or otherwise maintain high prices.
According to Stein, a lefty who is suspicious of the YIMBY movement, the premise that the housing problem can only be resolved by increasing supply “assumes that landlords won’t coordinate with one another.”
Many YIMBYs, on the other hand, are adamant that they recognize the significance of state-subsidized or controlled housing for lower-income people who aren’t catered to by the market.
According to Matthew Lewis, a representative for the statewide organization California YIMBY, YIMBYs support a “all of the above approach to housing.”
What does that imply?
Lewis declared, “We need a lot more market-rate housing. “Much more assistance is required. We require a lot more affordable homes. We need everything.
Developing Faultlines
Theoretically, the socialist left and the diversely ideological YIMBY movement might agree to disagree and pursue their respective agendas in peace.
They even concur, at least in theory, that racial segregation and barriers to higher affordability are caused by suburban and affluent areas that are only designated for single-family houses.
Everyone agrees that some communities are exclusive, according to Singh.
But in campaigns to relax zoning regulations, the two camps frequently take opposing positions, especially when leftists believe development to be a Trojan horse for the gentrification of underprivileged areas.
This is particularly true in San Francisco, where there is a fierce and pervasive animosity between the YIMBY movement and Dean Preston, a democratic socialist tenants’ advocate and member of the city’s board of supervisors.
Preston, who linked the movement to the city’s inflow of wealthy tech professionals, told HuffPost that “anyone who is a progressive running for whatever in San Francisco will be targeted by the coalition of YIMBYs, landlords, and developers.” More than a housing initiative, it is an anti-progressive political movement.
He bemoaned that the majority of YIMBYs did not support Preston’s successful ballot campaign to levy a fee on abandoned San Francisco rental buildings. Furthermore, California YIMBY does not support the removal of Costa-Hawkins, a state statute passed in 1995 that prohibits local governments from enforcing harsher rent control measures.
Housing for low-income and working-class individuals is a top concern for me.
Housing for low-income and working-class individuals is a top issue for Preston. “Promoting or preventing market-rate development has not been my major priority while in office.”
California YIMBY responds that it has pushed for a variety of conventional tenants rights laws at the state level, including the Golden State’s version of a “good cause” eviction bill, which was passed into law in 2019.
They contend that Preston and other like-minded lefties in the Bay Area have adopted a social housing-or-bust strategy to solve affordability at the price of significant incremental advancements.
For instance, YIMBYs strengthened legislation that effectively compels affluent cities like Santa Monica to expedite new housing, provided the projects set aside 20% of units for low-income families. This legislation was supported by California lawmakers like state Sens. Scott Weiner and Nancy Skinner (D).
If he could just slightly change his mind about market-rate housing and acknowledge that we need a comprehensive strategy, Lewis opined that Dean Preston would discover that he was not only more successful but also getting ahead.
The YIMBYs in New York each have a favorite instance of what they consider to be unproductive behavior on the part of a progressive lawmaker.
Even though the developer agreed, under pressure, to construct a roughly equal number of market-rate units and discounted units for renters earning less than the median income, democratic socialist New York City Councilwoman Kristin Richardson Jordan helped kill a new housing development on a vacant lot in Harlem in May. Richardson Jordan mentioned, among other things, her worry that too many residents of Harlem would still be unable to afford the apparently “cheap” flats and the potential for increased traffic in the neighborhood’s streets and subway stop.
The lot’s developer, however, forewarned the local government that if the idea wasn’t authorized, he might convert the land into a truck depot. And as it turned out, he followed through on that threat in January.
Prior to the Democratic primary in June, Richardson Jordan has already attracted two opponents; nevertheless, he did not respond to a HuffPost query.
The Prospect Of A Thaw In New York
Focusing on what it perceives as flimsy evidence of détente with the city’s activist left is what Open New York chooses to do.
Democratic socialist Councilwoman Tiffany Cabán (D), faced with a same decision as Richardson Jordan in September, approved a 1,400-unit building in Astoria, Queens. Cabán emphasized the commitment to keeping the land from turning into a warehouse or truck depot, which would have considerably worse effects on the neighborhood, and the guarantees that 25% of the units would be affordable to persons making less than the median income.
For her choice, Cabán received some criticism from socialists and local community organizers. The new construction is “another iteration of the status quo of housing policy what I term gentrification initiatives,” according to Dannelly Rodriguez, a tenants rights attorney and the founder of the anti-gentrification group “Astoria Not for Sale,” who spoke with HuffPost.
However, this time, labor unions supporting the project and Open New York, which congratulated Cabán for her “leadership” in a joyful tweet, joined voices like Rodriguez’s.
More than ever, Open New York stated, “we need elected officials who are committed to reforming our flawed status quo.”
YIMBYs are less opposed to the building of market-rate housing in low-income areas than lefties are. They cite research that demonstrates that building a new housing complex often results in reducing rents in surrounding areas, particularly lower-income ones, as opposed to raising them.
Open New York, however, has concentrated much of its early activism on urging to allow denser development in higher-income neighborhoods like SoHo in Manhattan or an area of middle-class homeowners in the northeastern Bronx. This is done in an effort to reestablish trust with both the left and working-class renters.
The focus is in contrast to previous New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s zoning strategy, which frequently alternated between easing construction regulations in low-income regions and steps to tighten them in suburban-style districts in the city’s outer boroughs.
The efforts of Open New York to be more amenable have been noted by several in New York’s left-leaning housing community.
Cea Weaver, a campaign coordinator for Housing Justice for All, a left-wing organization promoting “good cause” eviction and more low-income housing, said, “They’re a supply-side organization, but they have certainly been trying to fashion themselves more as an organization that cares about inclusion and racial justice than a pure YIMBY organization.”
All of this is a conscious effort by Open New York to avoid the conflict that has existed between YIMBYs and leftists in some areas of California.
One advantage of New York lagging behind other states in supply policies is that we can learn from them, and we’re having those discussions as soon as we can, Gray told HuffPost.
It helps that at least a few famous socialists in New York City view YIMBY activism as a beneficial addition to left-wing strategies like rent control and the development of social housing. These socialists frequently believe that rules guarding working-class and low-income people against significant rent increases are crucial for averting eviction, even while lowered zoning obstacles stimulate new market-rate construction.
Émilia Decaudin, an active member of both Open New York and the Queens chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, said, “Insofar as we’re pushing for reforms and policy within this capitalist system, we can’t just assume that you all of a sudden take huge sectors of the economy and subject them to non-capitalist or socialist logic.”
Additionally, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D), who was first elected with the assistance of the Democratic Socialists of America, has made support for zoning law liberalization one of the requirements for endorsement by her political action committee. Candidates are questioned on their support for “efforts to abolish exclusionary zoning” as well as for better tenant protections and measures that enable more public housing in the PAC’s questionnaire.
To actively collaborate between Open New York and the state’s left-leaning housing activist community, there are still significant obstacles to overcome.
For starters, endorsing a policy, such as “good cause” eviction, does not entail supporting it politically. Weaver expressed her gratitude for the organization’s support for the “good cause” eviction measure and mentioned that Open New York is just one of many groups that back the law. However, only a small number of organizations are actively trying to pass the legislation.
The two sides also hold different opinions about the plan put forth by New York Governor Kathy Hochul to build 800,000 new housing units by, among other things, implementing a quick approval process for new housing in areas that don’t reach housing growth targets.
While praising the plan, Open Additional York vowed to keep pressuring Democrat Andrew Hochul to “realize the state’s full power” to promote the building of new homes.
Weaver, on the other hand, asserts that Hochul’s recommendations run the risk of displacing low-income renters in the absence of stronger tenant safeguards, social housing, and other policies that Housing Justice for All demands.
Weaver said, “If it passes with our stuff, it’s amazing.” “It’s risky if it goes without our stuff.”
Leaving Localism Behind?
Weaver and other left-leaning housing advocates focus a lot of their energy on the state government, which is telling.
Since so many of the factors governing rent regulation and other laws have an impact on communities, it is imperative that Albany give priority to legislation in New York.
But there are also useful advantages to making housing policy at a higher governmental level. According to housing policy historian Anbinder, one factor in the popularity of NIMBY, or not-in-my-backyard, activists in the decades after World War II is the abundance of options to veto both subsidized and market-rate home building at the hyper-local level.
For instance, in New York City, applications to amend zoning regulations are decided on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis, and housing and commercial developments are subject to a site-by-site approval procedure. This gives a neighborhood the opportunity to wonder why they are affected by a change while another neighborhood that may be more prosperous or influential politically is not.
NIMBYism and localism are so linked that thinking more practically about how to implement housing policy on a regional level is advantageous if you are running for a local or regional position.
Furthermore, while considering whether to approve a housing or commercial development, the 51-member city council has a tradition of deferring to specific members whose district the development will take place in. It is more difficult for these local or hyper-local elected officials to balance the advantages and disadvantages of a certain policy for a whole city, region, or state because they are answerable to a smaller set of constituents.
The fact that Cabán has adopted a more practical stance than other lefties may not be a coincidence since he nearly won a 2019 race for Queens district attorney and might have future ambitions for higher office, claims Anbinder. As California Assemblymember Matt Haney prepared to step down from his position as a member of the San Francisco board of supervisors in 2022, Anbinder noticed a similar pattern in his increased YIMBYism openness.
“NIMBYism and localism are so linked that it lends itself to thinking more constructively about how to approach housing policy on a regional level,” Anbinder said. “If you are going to run for a citywide or a regional position.”
But given their different interests, the devil is in the details when it comes to replacing New York City’s patchwork and highly localized development approach with a citywide policy.
Stein stated that there might be some agreement on comprehensive planning as opposed to site-by-site or neighborhood-by-neighborhood rezoning. “However, it begs the question, who’s in charge? Who would be the mayor if this were to occur? ”