Can anyone cite an example in which YIMBY policies have worked?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of "downtown" Arlington; Cathedral Commons, the Wharf, Navy Yard, 14th Street, H Street, U Street, Bethesda Row, Pentagon Row, I could go on, just in the DC area.

Haven’t all those places gotten MORE expensive?

You're missing the point. Development of a particular piece of land is going to be done because it can be converted to a higher use, so yes, the thing you build is going to be more expensive than the thing it replaces. It would be hard to get people to put money up otherwise. The idea is that by building more housing you increase the supply and prices across the market don't rise as much as they would have otherwise.

It's hard to prove whether it works or not because you can't run controlled experiments. Who knows what prices in DC would be if Cathedral Commons hadn't been built? It's just too speculative.

In other words, YIMBY does not actually produce the benefits that it's proponents tout

No, in other words nobody really knows.

The proponents tout benefits that never actually occur, I think that counts as knowing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of "downtown" Arlington; Cathedral Commons, the Wharf, Navy Yard, 14th Street, H Street, U Street, Bethesda Row, Pentagon Row, I could go on, just in the DC area.

Haven’t all those places gotten MORE expensive?

You're missing the point. Development of a particular piece of land is going to be done because it can be converted to a higher use, so yes, the thing you build is going to be more expensive than the thing it replaces. It would be hard to get people to put money up otherwise. The idea is that by building more housing you increase the supply and prices across the market don't rise as much as they would have otherwise.

It's hard to prove whether it works or not because you can't run controlled experiments. Who knows what prices in DC would be if Cathedral Commons hadn't been built? It's just too speculative.

In other words, YIMBY does not actually produce the benefits that it's proponents tout

No, in other words nobody really knows.

The proponents tout benefits that never actually occur, I think that counts as knowing.

But that's simply not true. The PP a few posts ago is mistaken: we actually do know full well that building more housing alleviates demand pressure on existing housing.

Here are some papers that examine this issue:

https://research.upjohn.org/up_workingpapers/307/
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3867764
https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/7fc2bf_ee1737c3c9d4468881bf1434814a6f8f.pdf
https://research.upjohn.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1334&context=up_workingpapers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of "downtown" Arlington; Cathedral Commons, the Wharf, Navy Yard, 14th Street, H Street, U Street, Bethesda Row, Pentagon Row, I could go on, just in the DC area.

Haven’t all those places gotten MORE expensive?

You're missing the point. Development of a particular piece of land is going to be done because it can be converted to a higher use, so yes, the thing you build is going to be more expensive than the thing it replaces. It would be hard to get people to put money up otherwise. The idea is that by building more housing you increase the supply and prices across the market don't rise as much as they would have otherwise.

It's hard to prove whether it works or not because you can't run controlled experiments. Who knows what prices in DC would be if Cathedral Commons hadn't been built? It's just too speculative.

In other words, YIMBY does not actually produce the benefits that it's proponents tout

No, in other words nobody really knows.

The proponents tout benefits that never actually occur, I think that counts as knowing.

But that's simply not true. The PP a few posts ago is mistaken: we actually do know full well that building more housing alleviates demand pressure on existing housing.

Here are some papers that examine this issue:

https://research.upjohn.org/up_workingpapers/307/
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3867764
https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/7fc2bf_ee1737c3c9d4468881bf1434814a6f8f.pdf
https://research.upjohn.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1334&context=up_workingpapers

+1 to all of this. The recent research on this topic is very well done and very persuasive. If you're serious about answering the question, which of course a lot of people are not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of "downtown" Arlington; Cathedral Commons, the Wharf, Navy Yard, 14th Street, H Street, U Street, Bethesda Row, Pentagon Row, I could go on, just in the DC area.

Haven’t all those places gotten MORE expensive?

When I was in grad school at Georgetown, I rented a studio in Arlington near Ft. Myer at $270 a month. The building was torn down about 10 years ago and now rents are about $2,500 a month for a one bedroom. Laughs on the building owner because Arlington County is about to put several affordable housing buildings across the street. They talk about neighborhoods changing -- from bad to good and now back to bad thanks to YIMBY

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of "downtown" Arlington; Cathedral Commons, the Wharf, Navy Yard, 14th Street, H Street, U Street, Bethesda Row, Pentagon Row, I could go on, just in the DC area.

Haven’t all those places gotten MORE expensive?

You're missing the point. Development of a particular piece of land is going to be done because it can be converted to a higher use, so yes, the thing you build is going to be more expensive than the thing it replaces. It would be hard to get people to put money up otherwise. The idea is that by building more housing you increase the supply and prices across the market don't rise as much as they would have otherwise.

It's hard to prove whether it works or not because you can't run controlled experiments. Who knows what prices in DC would be if Cathedral Commons hadn't been built? It's just too speculative.

In other words, YIMBY does not actually produce the benefits that it's proponents tout

No, in other words nobody really knows.

The proponents tout benefits that never actually occur, I think that counts as knowing.

But that's simply not true. The PP a few posts ago is mistaken: we actually do know full well that building more housing alleviates demand pressure on existing housing.

Here are some papers that examine this issue:

https://research.upjohn.org/up_workingpapers/307/
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3867764
https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/7fc2bf_ee1737c3c9d4468881bf1434814a6f8f.pdf
https://research.upjohn.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1334&context=up_workingpapers

+1 to all of this. The recent research on this topic is very well done and very persuasive. If you're serious about answering the question, which of course a lot of people are not.

If you want to live in a two bedroom apartment with two kids, it does make housing affordable for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of "downtown" Arlington; Cathedral Commons, the Wharf, Navy Yard, 14th Street, H Street, U Street, Bethesda Row, Pentagon Row, I could go on, just in the DC area.

Haven’t all those places gotten MORE expensive?

You're missing the point. Development of a particular piece of land is going to be done because it can be converted to a higher use, so yes, the thing you build is going to be more expensive than the thing it replaces. It would be hard to get people to put money up otherwise. The idea is that by building more housing you increase the supply and prices across the market don't rise as much as they would have otherwise.

It's hard to prove whether it works or not because you can't run controlled experiments. Who knows what prices in DC would be if Cathedral Commons hadn't been built? It's just too speculative.

In other words, YIMBY does not actually produce the benefits that it's proponents tout

On of the benefits they touted was putting bike lanes on Seminary Road and narrowing it from four lanes to two lanes. The result is traffic jams every morning and afternoon and rarely used bike lanes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of "downtown" Arlington; Cathedral Commons, the Wharf, Navy Yard, 14th Street, H Street, U Street, Bethesda Row, Pentagon Row, I could go on, just in the DC area.

Haven’t all those places gotten MORE expensive?

You're missing the point. Development of a particular piece of land is going to be done because it can be converted to a higher use, so yes, the thing you build is going to be more expensive than the thing it replaces. It would be hard to get people to put money up otherwise. The idea is that by building more housing you increase the supply and prices across the market don't rise as much as they would have otherwise.

It's hard to prove whether it works or not because you can't run controlled experiments. Who knows what prices in DC would be if Cathedral Commons hadn't been built? It's just too speculative.

I thought the point with upzoning/increased density was to build projects that, while they may be more expensive overall, can house more people on the same amount of land. When an apartment building replaces a single-family home, the building may cost more than the house, but that does not mean each apartment needs to cost more than the house. If you build luxury apartments, they will. But if you build mid-range or low-income units, then they would not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of "downtown" Arlington; Cathedral Commons, the Wharf, Navy Yard, 14th Street, H Street, U Street, Bethesda Row, Pentagon Row, I could go on, just in the DC area.

Haven’t all those places gotten MORE expensive?

You're missing the point. Development of a particular piece of land is going to be done because it can be converted to a higher use, so yes, the thing you build is going to be more expensive than the thing it replaces. It would be hard to get people to put money up otherwise. The idea is that by building more housing you increase the supply and prices across the market don't rise as much as they would have otherwise.

It's hard to prove whether it works or not because you can't run controlled experiments. Who knows what prices in DC would be if Cathedral Commons hadn't been built? It's just too speculative.

In other words, YIMBY does not actually produce the benefits that it's proponents tout

You're sort of conflating different things by using YIMBY as a term to cover a whole set of policies. There isn't really such a thing as "YIMBY policy" — unless it's just the opposite of NIMBY policy, i.e., not letting neighbors block development, allowing uses that might otherwise be prohibited, etc. The idea of "YIMBY" is that people who already live somewhere shouldn't get to veto other proposed developments. But it doesn't in and of itself mean different zoning, denser development, broad deregulation, etc.

I, for instance, would support construction of low-income housing in my primarily wealthy, SFH neighborhood, and I would also support construction of small market-rate apartment buildings on lots that are now single-family homes. I also think building height limits on major commercial corridors near Metro stations are silly. But that doesn't mean I support unrestricted construction of luxury high-rise condos wherever developers might think they can make the most money out of them. I'd call myself a YIMBY, for sure, but I do also believe in aggressive government regulation of the housing market in ways that most real estate developers would probably complain about.

Do I think that particular mix of views is super common? No (which is one reason that my preferred policies won't ever be implemented). But I do think rolling all the things people talk about here as "the GGW agenda" or whatever into one package winds up rendering it into a bit of a straw man.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of "downtown" Arlington; Cathedral Commons, the Wharf, Navy Yard, 14th Street, H Street, U Street, Bethesda Row, Pentagon Row, I could go on, just in the DC area.

Haven’t all those places gotten MORE expensive?

You're missing the point. Development of a particular piece of land is going to be done because it can be converted to a higher use, so yes, the thing you build is going to be more expensive than the thing it replaces. It would be hard to get people to put money up otherwise. The idea is that by building more housing you increase the supply and prices across the market don't rise as much as they would have otherwise.

It's hard to prove whether it works or not because you can't run controlled experiments. Who knows what prices in DC would be if Cathedral Commons hadn't been built? It's just too speculative.

In other words, YIMBY does not actually produce the benefits that it's proponents tout

On of the benefits they touted was putting bike lanes on Seminary Road and narrowing it from four lanes to two lanes. The result is traffic jams every morning and afternoon and rarely used bike lanes.

That;s not YIMBY that's the militant bicycle lobby and no area should kowtow to 5% of the populations over the 95%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of "downtown" Arlington; Cathedral Commons, the Wharf, Navy Yard, 14th Street, H Street, U Street, Bethesda Row, Pentagon Row, I could go on, just in the DC area.

Haven’t all those places gotten MORE expensive?

When I was in grad school at Georgetown, I rented a studio in Arlington near Ft. Myer at $270 a month. The building was torn down about 10 years ago and now rents are about $2,500 a month for a one bedroom. Laughs on the building owner because Arlington County is about to put several affordable housing buildings across the street. They talk about neighborhoods changing -- from bad to good and now back to bad thanks to YIMBY

So you think the property owner should still be providing a $270/mo rent in an area with million dollar + condos? I thought we lived in a capitalist society and you want communism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of "downtown" Arlington; Cathedral Commons, the Wharf, Navy Yard, 14th Street, H Street, U Street, Bethesda Row, Pentagon Row, I could go on, just in the DC area.

Haven’t all those places gotten MORE expensive?

You're missing the point. Development of a particular piece of land is going to be done because it can be converted to a higher use, so yes, the thing you build is going to be more expensive than the thing it replaces. It would be hard to get people to put money up otherwise. The idea is that by building more housing you increase the supply and prices across the market don't rise as much as they would have otherwise.

It's hard to prove whether it works or not because you can't run controlled experiments. Who knows what prices in DC would be if Cathedral Commons hadn't been built? It's just too speculative.

In other words, YIMBY does not actually produce the benefits that it's proponents tout

On of the benefits they touted was putting bike lanes on Seminary Road and narrowing it from four lanes to two lanes. The result is traffic jams every morning and afternoon and rarely used bike lanes.

There were already traffic jams on Seminary Road.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of "downtown" Arlington; Cathedral Commons, the Wharf, Navy Yard, 14th Street, H Street, U Street, Bethesda Row, Pentagon Row, I could go on, just in the DC area.

Haven’t all those places gotten MORE expensive?

You're missing the point. Development of a particular piece of land is going to be done because it can be converted to a higher use, so yes, the thing you build is going to be more expensive than the thing it replaces. It would be hard to get people to put money up otherwise. The idea is that by building more housing you increase the supply and prices across the market don't rise as much as they would have otherwise.

It's hard to prove whether it works or not because you can't run controlled experiments. Who knows what prices in DC would be if Cathedral Commons hadn't been built? It's just too speculative.

In other words, YIMBY does not actually produce the benefits that it's proponents tout

On of the benefits they touted was putting bike lanes on Seminary Road and narrowing it from four lanes to two lanes. The result is traffic jams every morning and afternoon and rarely used bike lanes.

That;s not YIMBY that's the militant bicycle lobby and no area should kowtow to 5% of the populations over the 95%

As opposed to the militant auto lobby that afford subsidized gas, subsizied rubber, subsidized environmental impact, total demand on public space to operate and store their cars, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of "downtown" Arlington; Cathedral Commons, the Wharf, Navy Yard, 14th Street, H Street, U Street, Bethesda Row, Pentagon Row, I could go on, just in the DC area.

Haven’t all those places gotten MORE expensive?

You're missing the point. Development of a particular piece of land is going to be done because it can be converted to a higher use, so yes, the thing you build is going to be more expensive than the thing it replaces. It would be hard to get people to put money up otherwise. The idea is that by building more housing you increase the supply and prices across the market don't rise as much as they would have otherwise.

It's hard to prove whether it works or not because you can't run controlled experiments. Who knows what prices in DC would be if Cathedral Commons hadn't been built? It's just too speculative.

In other words, YIMBY does not actually produce the benefits that it's proponents tout

On of the benefits they touted was putting bike lanes on Seminary Road and narrowing it from four lanes to two lanes. The result is traffic jams every morning and afternoon and rarely used bike lanes.

That;s not YIMBY that's the militant bicycle lobby and no area should kowtow to 5% of the populations over the 95%

Wait, you think 95% of people drive or own cars? How quaint and entitled.

[Anonymous]

Look at any general area with growth

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of "downtown" Arlington; Cathedral Commons, the Wharf, Navy Yard, 14th Street, H Street, U Street, Bethesda Row, Pentagon Row, I could go on, just in the DC area.

Haven’t all those places gotten MORE expensive?

You're missing the point. Development of a particular piece of land is going to be done because it can be converted to a higher use, so yes, the thing you build is going to be more expensive than the thing it replaces. It would be hard to get people to put money up otherwise. The idea is that by building more housing you increase the supply and prices across the market don't rise as much as they would have otherwise.

It's hard to prove whether it works or not because you can't run controlled experiments. Who knows what prices in DC would be if Cathedral Commons hadn't been built? It's just too speculative.

In other words, YIMBY does not actually produce the benefits that it's proponents tout

No, in other words nobody really knows.

The proponents tout benefits that never actually occur, I think that counts as knowing.

But that's simply not true. The PP a few posts ago is mistaken: we actually do know full well that building more housing alleviates demand pressure on existing housing.

Here are some papers that examine this issue:

https://research.upjohn.org/up_workingpapers/307/
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3867764
https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/7fc2bf_ee1737c3c9d4468881bf1434814a6f8f.pdf
https://research.upjohn.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1334&context=up_workingpapers

+1 to all of this. The recent research on this topic is very well done and very persuasive. If you're serious about answering the question, which of course a lot of people are not.

If you want to live in a two bedroom apartment with two kids, it does make housing affordable for you.

Let's set aside for a moment the fact that plenty of people in DC do raise two kids in a two-bedroom apartment. The greater availability of two bedroom apartments lets people who would otherwise have to live with roommates in rowhomes live in those two bedroom apartments, freeing up those rowhomes for the two-kid families you're feigning concern for.

You know, you could try reading some of those papers linked above. They're pretty interesting, and I bet they could answer additional hypotheticals you raise when you try to move the goalposts.