Comment by bpt3
18 days ago
YIMBYs in my area are almost exclusively terminally online young adults who are bitter that they can't afford to live precisely where they like with their single 20-something income, and basically want to make desirable areas more affordable (aka less desirable) so they can move in. The worst of them are openly hostile to anyone who made the apparent mistake of choosing to live in an upper income area.
I am pretty much in favor of people being able to do what they want with their properties, as long as they are responsible for any externalities the changes create, and I still largely find these groups insufferable (in case you couldn't tell from the paragraph above).
NIMBYs are mostly people who have other things to do with their day than agitate to make their neighborhood worse (where worse is a change from the status quo, which they presumably are at least okay with given they live in the neighborhood), so you don't hear much from them most of the time.
In short, there is no need for advocacy for the status quo unless someone is attempting to modify it, as it just continues on by default.
This is amusing, because the usual NIMBY argument I hear is about "gentrification", i.e. it makes the neighborhood better and that's bad.
terminally online young adults who are bitter that they can't afford to live precisely where they like
More accurately: they would like to live in a particular location, the owner of that location would like to sell or rent it to them, but a third party wants to forcibly prevent that transaction.
> This is amusing, because the usual NIMBY argument I hear is about "gentrification", i.e. it makes the neighborhood better and that's bad.
Change is bad as far as existing residents are concerned, which is why external YIMBYs are particularly annoying. I live in a pretty nice area so gentrification isn't really possible, and the people who want to live there but can't afford to are the ones agitating for change.
> More accurately: they would like to live in a particular location, the owner of that location would like to sell or rent it to them, but a third party wants to forcibly prevent that transaction.
No, the accurate description in CA (and YIMBYs are trying to replicate this elsewhere) is that a group of people collectively decided how land can be used in their area, and people who disagree are going over their head to change the rules.
> This is amusing, because the usual NIMBY argument I hear is about "gentrification", i.e. it makes the neighborhood better and that's bad.
It's just a current argument that flies well in the existing political climate; if that climate were to change they'd have another one.