Nobody likes a NIMBY. The “Not In My Backyard” resident is the one who objects to the building of a homeless shelter or methadone clinic in their neighborhood, because it will negatively affect their property values and possibly bring them into contact with the poor. When you think of the villainous NIMBY, you might imagine someone like billionaire Bill Koch, who waged a 12-year campaign to stop a wind farm being built near his house on the Nantucket Sound that he thought would spoil his view. Examples of these people abound: consider the Los Angeles residents complaining that a city councilman is “putting their neighborhood at risk” by putting a series of pitiful “tiny home” cabins for unhoused people in a nearby parking lot.) To those of us who believe that poor people need more houses, and the planet needs more windmills, there is no one more exasperating than the wealthy person who moans about their Quality of Life, which they are unwilling to compromise one iota no matter how large the benefit to others might be. They are also frequently racist, attempting to stall projects that might result in more Black and brown people living in wealthy white areas.
Enter the YIMBYs. They define themselves as taking the opposite approach: instead of saying “not in my backyard,” they say “yes in my backyard.” The YIMBYs’ number one demand is to build more housing.
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