Trendy YIMBY Affordable Housing Activists Are Sheltered In A House Of Straw

Photo of spinnaker housing development in battersea reach
The Spinnaker housing development recently complete in London, England. The rent will cost the average London wage-earner more than 50% of their income.

YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard) should more appropriately be named a finger-pointing Yes In YOUR Backyard, as YIMBY activists between the lot of them are unlikely to have enough back yards of their own to make much of a dent in the affordable housing crisis.

For more on YIMBY’s activist credentials, read about the recent YIMBY housing conference in Boston in the Bay State Banner: Housing activists clash while city tweaks goals

Regardless of the name, the YIMBY solution to that affordable housing crisis is built upon principles that just happen to mirror those of the construction industry: deregulate zoning to allow dense development, then build, build, build whatever the construction industry fancies. That’s because even luxury high rise condo construction will supposedly trickle down to the benefit of lower income people seeking more affordable housing, thanks to the free market Law of Supply and Demand. 

That incorrectly titled Law of Supply and Demand is the straw house where YIMBY thinking dwells. When Adam Smith in the 18th century proposed his theories (not laws) about the workings of a free market economies, he was well aware that supply and demand were not linked in some kind of mechanical lockstep with each other.

There is a relationship between supply and demand, certainly. At the height of tomato-picking season, the oversupply of tomatoes in the market will tend to depress prices. A glut of tomatoes — luxury heirloom, or bog-standard field tomatoes — will make tomatoes more affordable.

But luxury apartments and condos are not perishable commodities like tomatoes. Owners can, and do, hold them out of the market for years, even decades, counting on prices to eventually rise, not fall. This is where construction industry developers part company with their naive YIMBY supporters.

Free market housing developers simply do not EVER build housing with the intent of driving down prices towards affordability. True, the price of today’s newly built luxury housing unit may one day fall, in many years or decades. But it may not. And it absolutely will not fall soon enough solve the affordable housing crisis that is overwhelming nations at this very moment.

Where’s the evidence? It’s everywhere, worldwide. Read more in Brink: London’s Glut Of Empty Apartments—By The Numbers

. . . or, from Reuters: Millions Of Empty Homes, But Migrants To Indian Cities Cannot Rent Them

For more detail on why building homes at the high end of the market may actually make housing less affordable, not more affordable, read more at Inequality.org: Luxury Development is Making Our Housing Crisis Worse

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.