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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.[/quote]

Haven’t all those places gotten MORE expensive?[/quote]

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. [/quote]

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

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.[/quote]

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