Beyond YIMBY: Racism and Finance in the Housing Crisis

Upzoning without addressing speculation and finance could exacerbate the housing crisis for the nation’s most vulnerable communities, a professor of urban planning warns.

2 minute read

June 11, 2019, 10:00 AM PDT

By Clare Letmon


Homeless in New York City

Leonard Zhukovsky / Shutterstock

Whether or not blanket upzoning policies, like California’s recently quashed SB 50, would address the state's housing affordability crisis is a question that's hotly contested and a debate that goes beyond the standard YIMBY vs. NIMBY narrative, according to Dr. Ananya Roy, professor of urban planning and founding director of the Institute on Inequality and Democracy at UCLA.

Dr. Roy studies how market forces and public policy combine to drive displacement and housing inequality in cities around the world. In an exclusive interview with The Planning Report, Roy discusses how failing to address the structural causes of housing precarity, including speculation by major financial actors, could exacerbate the housing crisis for the communities who are already most vulnerable to its impacts.

Lost between the YIMBY supply-side rhetoric and the NIMBY "neighborhood character" mantra is a critical look at how predatory financial practices lead to housing insecurity and homelessness in the first place, Roy says:

"At the risk of oversimplification, the story goes a bit like this: What we saw with the foreclosure crisis and the Great Recession was, of course, predatory lending by large banks. That predatory, deregulated lending led to a massive loss of wealth and homeownership for racial and ethnic minorities. There were whole cities and communities devastated by the vast reach of that crisis.

Those neighborhoods, as well as the neighborhoods we traditionally think of as the “inner city,” are now the sites of new forms of predatory financialization. Private equity firms such as Blackstone are buying up quite large amounts of property, including foreclosed single-family homes, and converting them into rental housing—and then, as research by scholars such as Desiree Fields shows, securitizing that housing and turning it into a speculative asset."

Without intentional efforts to curb these practices by regulating massive corporate landlords and enhancing tenant protections, Roy says, supply-side housing solutions like upzoning might ease the housing burden for the upper-middle class while making it far worse for low-income communities of color threatened by houselessness, eviction, and structural racism.

Monday, May 27, 2019 in The Planning Report

portrait of professional woman

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching. Mary G., Urban Planner

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

Mary G., Urban Planner

Get top-rated, practical training

Close-up of "Apartment for rent" sign in red text on black background in front of blurred building

Trump Administration Could Effectively End Housing Voucher Program

Federal officials are eyeing major cuts to the Section 8 program that helps millions of low-income households pay rent.

April 21, 2025 - Housing Wire

Logo for Planetizen Federal Action Tracker with black and white image of U.S. Capitol with water ripple overlay.

Planetizen Federal Action Tracker

A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

April 23, 2025 - Diana Ionescu

Black and white photos of camp made up of small 'earthquake shacks' in Dolores Park in 1906 after the San Francisco earthquake.

The 120 Year Old Tiny Home Villages That Sheltered San Francisco’s Earthquake Refugees

More than a century ago, San Francisco mobilized to house thousands of residents displaced by the 1906 earthquake. Could their strategy offer a model for the present?

April 15, 2025 - Charles F. Bloszies

Millbrae BART station.

HSR Reaches Key Settlement in Northern California City

The state’s high-speed rail authority reached an agreement with Millbrae, a key city on the train’s proposed route to San Francisco.

3 hours ago - San Diego Post

Spiral ramp on exterior of parking garage in downtown Spokane, Washington.

Washington State Legislature Passes Parking Reform Bill

A bill that would limit parking requirements for new developments is headed to the governor’s desk.

5 hours ago - OPB

Missouri state capitol dome in Jefferson City, MO.

Missouri Law Would Ban Protections for Housing Voucher Users

A state law seeks to overturn source-of-income discrimination bans passed by several Missouri cities.

6 hours ago - Missouri Independent