The reason I bring this up is because housing affordability is filled with stories of conflicting interests. When you become a homeowner, your financial future is tied to housing prices going up. Rising costs are great when you’re trying to build equity, but terrible if you’re hoping to buy your first home, afford your rapidly increasing property tax bill, or even rent in the area.
How is this possible?
Zoning and land use regulations. See, the federal government delegates land use control to state governments, which in turn delegate that power to local governments (for the most part). Local governments have the power to approve or disapprove local projects – from new bike trails to housing developments. And because local governments are accountable to voters, elected officials make decisions based on what their constituents want.
This is a huge oversimplification, but I want to paint a broader picture here.
Homeowners’ property taxes fund local public services like schools. And higher home values equal higher property tax valuations (these are evaluated annually) plus greater equity for homeowners. Home values depend greatly on what the rest of the neighborhood looks like; America has
proven over and over that racial disparities are very real in the appraisal industry, with homes in Black neighborhoods appraised at much lower values than similar homes in white neighborhoods – as
much as 23%!
So for NIMBYs – short for not in my backyard, usually refers to homeowners who oppose development projects in their neighborhood but are okay with those projects happening elsewhere – anything that could negatively impact their home values, perceived quality of life, traffic congestion, etcetera is a hard no.
Or
as one author puts it, “NIMBYism is often driven, more or less openly,
by racism and classism. But the concerns more commonly voiced are about increased crime, traffic congestion, strain on sewers, overcrowded schools, and lowered property values and ‘quality of life.’”
Opposition seems particularly strong when it comes to multifamily buildings and the fear that they will lower home values (this has been
largely debunked). Exclusionary zoning laws (ones that restrict anything but single family homes from being built) have pretty
explicitly racist origins.
In practice, NIMBYs can bring lawsuits, disrupt community meetings, and otherwise slow down projects such that developers forgo the project altogether. This is particularly problematic for affordable housing developers that are operating on thinner profit margins.
So how do we convince NIMBYs that we need to build more housing? A
Data for Progress/Vox poll suggests that an
economic argument wins more favor than a racial justice argument. It argues that by showing how housing developments strengthen community economies, we can win over the skeptics more easily.
NIMBYism in effect means less housing gets built where we need it. And that in turn exacerbates the housing crisis we find ourselves in right now. Whew!
This is a doozy of a topic that I’m sure we will come back to. But I hope that today’s newsletter helps provide some important context. If you learned something new or if there’s something you’d like to know more about, go ahead and tap “reply!”
Until next week,
Dominique 🧡
