Affordable housing activism has so far been a powerful force influencing the world-wide affordable housing crisis. One of the most surprising (and in some ways dispiriting) exhibitions of successful activism takes place at the neighbourhood level, where small groups of activists have manned the ramparts and fought long, hard, and often successfully to prevent zoning changes designed to ease the affordable housing crisis. Fighting to retain their neighbourhood character, NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) organized protests have had a disproportionate influence on municipalities attempting to create more affordable housing.
But activism to promote, rather than inhibit, affordable housing action has also been successful over the past year. These forms of activism tend to play out at the community level rather than the neighbourhood level. For an intriguing and thought provoking summary of some of America’s more recent and successful grassroots campaigns in favour of affordable housing, read more in Next City: Community Organizing Pushed Cities to Make Progress on Housing in 2018
