Housing Conference Main Takeaways, Path to Cheaper Housing

Showing up to anything at 9 am on a Sunday is a tall order, at least for me. Paying hundreds of dollars for the privilege is another matter entirely.

But that’s exactly what scores of attendees at the biggest pro-housing conference in America did last weekend in New Haven, Connecticut.

About 1,000 so-called YIMBYs — a label that stands for the pro-housing “yes in my backyard” movement — gathered from Sunday to Tuesday in crowded, windowless conference rooms in a downtown hotel to talk about how to build more housing and livable neighborhoods.

While there were plenty of professional researchers and advocates there, I was struck by how many were everyday people who took time off their day jobs and traveled hundreds of miles to attend YIMBYtown. They were there to learn how to push for more affordable housing in their communities and connect with others from across the country doing the same thing.

Brandon Stanaway, a 28-year-old statistician from Boston, was one of them. About a year ago, Stanaway started his own all-volunteer pro-housing group, Allston-Brighton Housing Action, that organizes local YIMBYs to do what NIMBYs — “not in my backyard” proponents — have done for far longer: speak at public meetings, call their local elected officials, and convince other neighbors to join them.

“The NIMBYs do it on their own dime, too,” Stanaway said. “Own dime, own time — they just have a lot more of it.”

Stanaway argued that countering the disproportionately older, wealthier homeowners who have the time and resources to fight against denser, affordable housing in their communities requires lots of volunteers.

At the conference, Stanaway met lots of other volunteers and part-time advocates, or people who started out that way before becoming professional YIMBYs. “I think everyone here is kind of doing it on their own time, in some way, shape, or form,” he said.

While the pro-housing cause has grown substantially and has claimed a slew of significant wins since YIMBYtown was first held in 2016, it’s still powered by volunteers. One California housing activist told me he estimated a plurality of conference attendees were there on their own time.

Michael Larkin, a 40-year-old intellectual property specialist from the Washington, DC, suburbs, attended YIMBYtown on his own dime. He helps lead a pro-housing group in Montgomery County, Maryland, and said he felt buoyed by all the like-minded people he’d met in New Haven.

“It’s a very powerful thing to feel that, one way or another, everyone’s pulling for each other,” Larkin said.

The ‘silent majority’

The YIMBY cause has been on a winning streak in recent years, from legalizing backyard cottages in states across the US to ending minimum lot size requirements and exclusionary single-family zoning, regulations that have historically prohibited denser housing.

The success is in large part because the movement is such a big tent.

Self-described YIMBYs are a diverse group — and notably bipartisan. At YIMBYtown, American Enterprise Institute staffers rubbed shoulders with members of the New York chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.

While progressive YIMBYs frame their mission around racial, economic, and environmental justice, conservatives focus on deregulation, free markets, and unshackling property owners. They’re all facing the same key problem: a shortage of housing, and have the same goal: more affordable homes.

On Monday morning, North Dakota Gov. Kelly Armstrong, a Republican, told a packed auditorium that building more housing, bringing down rents and home prices, and making cities and neighborhoods more livable are overwhelmingly popular. But a small minority of passionate NIMBYs are drowning out the “silent majority.”

That’s because most regular people don’t have the time to testify at their local community board meeting, or even read up on the latest fight over a proposed apartment building or bike lane.

“Their life doesn’t revolve around political messaging on a random Wednesday at 1 o’clock,” Armstrong said.

When I chatted with Armstrong after his speech, he told me he considers it his responsibility to convince local and state lawmakers that, despite the loud critics, they won’t be punished for supporting new housing and infrastructure projects, from data centers in rural areas to homeless shelters in cities.

YIMBYtown attracted some of that previously silent majority.

Douglas Coffin, a 71-year-old New Haven resident, came to the conference because, as a retiree, he finally has time to learn more about the city he’s called home for more than 50 years. He was curious about how to build more affordable housing and wanted to understand why his city is changing the way it is.

“I think most people would consider themselves a YIMBY until they see something that they don’t like,” he said. “So far, I haven’t seen that.”

Though he said he loves driving, and certain bike lanes and traffic calming measures frustrate him.

“But I’m adjusting,” he added.