YIMBYism as currently constructed is so obviously a manufactured movement that it may as well just be branded as an advertising campaign for housing developers. If you have to build “market rate,” housing it needs to be in the context of government policies that actually pressure the market at a minimum, which most YIMBY types seem to be 100% in opposition to. They also say “we’re not against public housing!” and will decline to advocate for it, even when it’s got a chance of passing.
This does not align with my lived experience of having been on the Bay Area YIMBY Slack channel for two years.
CA's article 34 and Costa-Hawkins repeal efforts had a lot of individual YIMBYs supporting them, even if the statewide-org endorsement vote did not pass.
I'll say that, from the inside, I ran into one literal developer shill and he was grasping at straws trying to get someone local to support a project that would have displaced existing tenants that the org had refused to push for.
The reason the public housing and rent control bills didn't get org-endorsed is because (shocker) it's not a leftist org and there are a lot of neolibs who don't believe in those. The vote was closer than you think, though. That also doesn't mean there weren't plenty of people who call themselves YIMBY who were calling and organizing for those efforts individually. Broad coalition groups can disagree. See: DSA whenever they have to do candidate endorsements.
YIMBYism as currently constructed is so obviously a manufactured movement that it may as well just be branded as an advertising campaign for housing developers. If you have to build “market rate,” housing it needs to be in the context of government policies that actually pressure the market at a minimum, which most YIMBY types seem to be 100% in opposition to. They also say “we’re not against public housing!” and will decline to advocate for it, even when it’s got a chance of passing.
This does not align with my lived experience of having been on the Bay Area YIMBY Slack channel for two years.
CA's article 34 and Costa-Hawkins repeal efforts had a lot of individual YIMBYs supporting them, even if the statewide-org endorsement vote did not pass.
I'll say that, from the inside, I ran into one literal developer shill and he was grasping at straws trying to get someone local to support a project that would have displaced existing tenants that the org had refused to push for.
The reason the public housing and rent control bills didn't get org-endorsed is because (shocker) it's not a leftist org and there are a lot of neolibs who don't believe in those. The vote was closer than you think, though. That also doesn't mean there weren't plenty of people who call themselves YIMBY who were calling and organizing for those efforts individually. Broad coalition groups can disagree. See: DSA whenever they have to do candidate endorsements.