Discussion | YIMBY vs NIMBY: Looking Past Labels To The Real Impacts of Development on Housing, Gentrification, and Sustainability (online)

A seemingly intractable housing affordability crisis has allowed YIMBYism (“Yes In my Backyard”) to emerge as an increasingly loud and politically influential voice in urban redevelopment debates in our neighborhoods, city, and country. Its call for more construction as a primary tool for mitigating housing costs has led to attacks against all opposition to development plans as reflexive “NIMBYs” (i.e., “Not In My Backyard”), a term traditionally reserved for residents who resist the nearby placement of necessary infrastructure so as to avoid its negative impacts.

Preservationists and skeptics of large-scale development projects reject the label, pointing to specific perceived deficiencies that they accuse YIMBYs of casually disregarding in favor of unexamined, inflexible principles and often despite negative potential impacts on housing affordability. Both sides see themselves on the side of social justice and housing equity. Perhaps as a result, they regard each other with suspicion if not contempt, dismissing their counterparts as either reactionaries who zealously exclude on the basis of class or race in order to safeguard their own comfort and privilege, or as self-interested dogmatists who unwittingly operate as shills for the real estate industry.

Moderated by Village Preservation Special Projects Director Juan Rivero, this panel of experts will examine the composition of the so-called YIMBY and NIMBY movements, provide a historical perspective for their emergence, examine the political and development landscape in which their debates have unfolded, and review the empirical evidence that have fueled their arguments. It will then consider the usefulness and limitations of the terms of those debates for reconciling housing needs with a whole range of other valued dimensions of urban life, including the diverse values that we attach to our neighborhoods.