A Dissenting View of the 'Build Baby Build' Agenda in Boston

Evan Horowitz argues against a "build, baby, build" agenda as the solution to the city of Boston's high costs of housing.

Such a strategy, also sometimes called YIMBY, for "Yes In My Backyard," has its limits, according to Horowitz. "New construction doesn’t just mean more options for people who are already here. It means more people moving in. So at the end of all its building, Boston could end up denser yet just as expensive."

Horowitz begins the argument by acknowledging that the city of Boston is one of the slowest-building cities in the United States, with multiple obstacles to a pro-development agenda.

But that doesn't mean that Horowitz accepts that Boston's reluctance to build new housing in large numbers is what's making the city's real estate market more expensive. To make that point, he calls on analysis of rising housing costs in cities around the country—some of the cities with the fastest rising prices are also fast-building cities. "Some construction-friendly cities — like Dallas and Raleigh, N.C. — have seen fairly substantial price increases, comparable to Boston," writes Horowitz. "Meanwhile, the cities with the most restrained cost growth are Chicago and Pittsburgh, which haven’t been doing much building at all."

Finally, the article concludes with the question of whether Boston should build more or not. In the end, Horowitz does support a more pro-development regulatory environment—but not for the reason of lowering housing prices in the city.