YIMBY stands for “Yes In My Backyard.”

But it really should say “Yes In –Your- Backyard.”

YIMBY is a business, political and social consortium of pro-housing-density advocates who assert that any increasing the supply of housing will make it more affordable.  This is despite the fact that all of the data and peer-reviewed economic research refute the notion that densifying residential neighborhoods makes them more affordable.  The data also refutes the assertion that local zoning and land-use regulations make local residential neighborhoods less affordable.  In fact, the data clearly shows the opposite impact, density engenders unaffordability.

YIMBYs actively campaign against local zoning, such as single-family neighborhoods, and advocate for increased housing density in all neighborhoods, even multi-story apartment/condominium buildings in established single-family or rural neighborhoods.  Among the restrictions their statewide mandates supersede are parking requirements, height restrictions, and setback requirements.  So, projects they support are built upon the assumption that tenants will park their cars on the local neighborhood streets, whether that amount of parking is available or not.  Neighborhoods’ ability to accommodate the increased automobile traffic, water and sewer capacity demands, local school capacities, fire department, paramedic and police department capacity to ensure public safety, are all dismissed as irrelevant constraints, and have been made illegal to consider when placing a high-density residential project.  Paying for these impacts of the increased density is forced upon, and shouldered by the original residents, the established neighbors. The required increase in taxes is one factor driving up local unaffordability as density is increased.

YIMBY organizations are well-funded by concealed and anonymous sources.  However, we might take a clue from the required disclosures of sources of campaign financing for the elected officials who push through the statewide YIMBY initiatives in the form of the hundreds of new laws over the past few years.  These disclosures reveal large residential building companies, real-estate speculators and the building trade unions – those who gain financially by increasing the number of large building project opportunities.

When we talk about YIMBY, we are talking about state control of local zoning. This is about a centralized planning scheme dictated by industry-funded politicians and corporate interests in faraway offices, even overseas investors. These are big corporations, private equity funds, speculators, building trades, materials suppliers, etc.  It is central planning through Sacramento, and it does not work for our streets.

YIMBY is about taking away power of the neighborhood to self-govern. It is the active push to deny that development decisions will be made at the local level, even though the consequences of building a new complex, changing a street, or altering the character of our community are felt by us—the people—directly and immediately.  YIMBY has seized the authority to decide what happens to our homes, our infrastructure, and our quality of life.

So, YIMBY is not just a phrase; it is a funded set of shills, lobbyists, propagandists and their bought-and-paid-for set of legislators in Sacramento.  It’s the treatment of our community as just a piece of undeveloped land waiting to be exploited for profit.  It’s the denial of your right, power, and responsibility to say “yes” or “no” to what happens on your own block, your own street, and your own backyard.  YIMBY demands that your voice is silenced, and enforces, by law, zoning that reflects a distant corporate profit agenda and the profit opportunity of speculators, not the reality of your neighborhood.