MORE IN CATEGORY
ADVERTISEMENT
NIMBYism ("not in my back yard") and YIMBYism ("yes in my back yard") both started in California as responses to housing market environmental concerns, zoning laws, and affordability.
“The problem is really a simple one,” says Dowell Myers, an urban planning professor at University of Southern California. “If you don't provide housing for rich people, they will take their housing from somebody else.” According to CityLab, YIMBYism is rising as a result of this problem, and a "radical new housing agenda" is on the way. State Senator Scott Wiener introduced a new package of bills in January 2018 that would potentially ease and speed up new housing production in California.
YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard) groups are focused on increasing the production of all types of housing, fast. San Francisco Bay Area Renters’ Federation (SFBARF) was one of the first such groups. It quickly drew attention to itself with zany tactics including ironic signs saying “Stop Affordable Housing,” and controversial statements, like when the group’s founder, Sonja Trauss, compared resistance against tech workers living in the Mission to racist housing policies historically leveraged against Latinos.
PB Topical Ref
