Here Today, Gone Tomorrow, Here the Day After That

Have NIMBYs and YIMBYs arguing in your neighborhood? Scott Doyon talks residential development.

1 minute read

July 20, 2017, 10:00 AM PDT

By Hazel Borys


"Today’s new, market rate housing is tomorrow’s more affordable second tier housing. And that’s something we don’t want to acknowledge because, if we do, we have to also acknowledge that today’s efforts to stop the construction of new housing might in effect be stealing housing from tomorrow’s workforce."

"That’s a tension currently playing out in high cost markets around the country (something explored last week by my colleague, Ben Brown) where factions on one side advocate for significant new investments in housing to meet exploding demand and ultimately cool costs (YIMBYs) while those on the other side push for neighborhood preservation to keep new development, which is seen to usher in higher costs for all, at bay (NIMBYs), both adamant that they represent the solution to rapidly escalating costs."

Doyon uses comic strips to discuss this tension, and points us back to indigenous wisdom that calls for 50-year plans.

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