Giving everyone a say doesn't work; Bad arguments from housing NIMBYs
Last year saw some very encouraging housing legislation get enacted in California, which I wrote about at the time. Now, it is hopefully New York’s turn. The governor, Kathy Hochul, has proposed far reaching legislation that could substantially expand the housing supply in the state. Whether it will pass is unknown right now, but its odds are probably decent. It is vital that it gets enacted because New York, like California and some other blue states, has a major housing shortage. The result has been sky high housing costs and a bleeding of people into lower cost states.
The proposed legislation has many details to it, but arguably the most important part is that it would allow the state to override local governments in approving building projects if they don’t meet certain targets. As has been the case in California and other states, local control of housing has led to very little of it getting built. The only way to ever make any progress on the housing front is to take away the ability of local governments to have a veto over it.
What is funny about the housing effort is that the biggest opposition to it is coming from Republicans. That is not because every single Republican opposes it. It is because Long Island is the epicenter of NIMBYism in New York. Last year, Long Island was a bloodbath for Democrats, who lost multiple House and state legislative seats there. Ironically, losing those seats actually makes the legislation’s prospect of passing more likely. When Democrats had the Long Island seats, they could stop housing legislation from passing because they were in the majority. With Republicans now having those seats, but being in the minority, Democrats elsewhere in the state don’t have to pay attention to them.
Our misplaced love of local control and community input
We in the US have a very romanticized view of local control and community input. It is ingrained in our history and evokes images of ordinary people having a say in how their communities are run. In the idealized version, every individual can make their voice heard and have a say in government. Local governments and community input are what stand in the way of big wigs steamrolling over everyone else.
The reality is markedly different. In practice, local control and trying to give everyone a say are extremely unrepresentative. Very few people show up to local government meetings of any sort. The few who do are almost always wealthier, older and homeowners, regardless of the demographics of the locality or neighborhood as a whole. Their primary interest is often stopping things from happening. What happens when everyone gets a say is that a handful of people get to have a say on behalf of a community they are seldom representative of.
Housing has been the most consequential area affected by it, but it is hardly the only area that is affected. Everything from transmission lines to windmills to pipelines and railways are impacted. There are many reasons why infrastructure costs are so high in the US and undoubtedly a major reason for that is the many local jurisdictions that have to be placated for a given project to go forward. That is also why so many projects take years or even decades longer to complete than originally planned.
For more housing, and most other things for that matter, to get built, we have to move away from local control and giving everyone a say. The only way to succeed on that front is to go to state governments and the federal government. For housing, the former will likely be used the most, but the latter will be needed when it comes to reining in those who take advantage of federal laws to suit their own interests.
Many federal laws, such as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), are rooted in the idea of giving everyone a say. Such laws give broad leeway to citizens or groups to file lawsuits against a project that involves the federal government. Many of these laws were passed decades ago when there was widespread concern about development getting priority over environmental concerns. The goal was to give regular people a voice and promote accountability in government. Laws like NEPA were not meant to be used by those who just don’t want anything to be built near them. In practice, that is what environmental reviews and impact statements have largely become.
Isn’t there a way to make it so local governments are more responsive to their constituents? Can’t changes be made to federal laws so that ordinary people really do get a say in things and true community input is given? I highly doubt it. That is not because most people are lazy, stupid or don’t care. It is because most people have lives. They have families, friends, jobs and hobbies. Very few people have the time to show up to every single local government meeting. To make matters worse, laws like NEPA allow for any individual to delay or kill a project even if the rest of the community favors it.[i] The combination of local government control and allowing any individual or group to sue to stop anything is a guaranteed way to make building anything extremely difficult.
When it comes to local elections, very few people vote. Local officials are supposed to be accountable to everyone in their jurisdiction, but in reality only have to worry about a few of them. Local elections not only have the problem of low voter turnout, but also the problem of passion asymmetry. By passion asymmetry, I mean NIMBYs who oppose building anything are likely to feel very strongly about it and will vote and organize based on that whereas most others may think building is good, but are not nearly as passionate or organized. An organized minority, no matter how small, will beat a disorganized majority almost every time.
The good news is that many more people vote in statewide elections, which usually coincide with federal elections. Because statewide officials are accountable to a much greater number of people, they have to worry about more than just local NIMBYs. One benefit statewide officials have is that they can approve a project in one part of their state that some people there don’t like, but because most people in their state don’t live there they are not electorally doomed by it. The same is true for state legislators. For example, a state legislator in Queens could vote to approve housing on Long Island even though some people there don’t want it and they would not have to worry about losing their next election since Long Islanders can’t vote against them.
In the case of federal elected officials, it is even better. A senator from Oregon can vote to allow a transmission line to get built from the midwest through the northeast and regardless of how many people in those states oppose it none can vote against them. Conversely, a senator from Michigan can vote to approve a pipeline going from Washington through California and nobody there can vote them out.
NIMBY arguments against building more housing
Those opposed to building more housing make many different arguments against it. Often, those arguments apply to just a particular housing proposal. Other times, however, they are bigger than just one project and can be applied to housing in general and many other areas, too. In light of the proposed legislation in New York, some of those arguments have resurfaced again. The following arguments are hardly the only ones made, but they are the ones that tend to come up the most and/or get the most attention. I don’t find any of them persuasive and I hope nobody reading this will either.
One of the most common arguments from NIMBYs is that housing is being forced on them. Those claiming that are saying that cutting back on housing restrictions is somehow forcing people to build housing they don’t want. I can never tell if someone arguing that is clueless or dishonest. Right now, in places like New York, it is the NIMBYs who are using force. For example, in Westchester County in New York, all new homes must be built on at least two acres. In one city on Long Island, all new homes must be at least 2000 square feet. Anything else is illegal.
What advocates of building more housing, myself included, are proposing is that people be allowed to build things other than that. If someone wishes to build a house on two acres, that is fine. If someone wishes to build another kind of dwelling, such as a triplex, that is also fine. What allowing more building means is that nobody is limited by law to just one kind of dwelling. Nobody is forced to build anything.
The argument about housing being forced on people is a matter of fact question, but another argument is purely philosophical and emotional. That is the claim that allowing any kind of housing besides single-family homes on big lots to be built will “destroy the suburbs.” While those on the left are not immune to arguing that, it is those on the right, including Trump and Tucker Carlson, who have been more likely to argue it. It really depends on how suburbs are defined. NIMBYs define suburbs as if they own every bit of it and can decide who gets to live there, at least the honest ones do.
Last year, I explained my philosophy when it comes to housing. Whether someone lives in an urban, suburban or rural area, they should have broad leeway to build on their property what they wish to. Allowing different kinds of housing to be built in areas currently zoned for single-family homes might change their appearance a good bit over time. By the NIMBY definition, that would “destroy” them, but I don’t think the people who would then be able to live there would feel that way. I don’t think businesses who benefit from new customers and employees would feel that way either.
The “destroy the suburbs” argument is not just hyperbolic, it is at its core selfish. Those making that argument are saying they get to decide what the suburbs are. In their eyes, they got there first and so they get to tell everyone else to go away. They have what they want and think nobody else should get to enjoy it. The mindset behind that argument is zero sum. The only way some people can enjoy the suburbs is for others to be deprived of it.
A third argument used by NIMBYs is the need to “preserve neighborhood character.” That, too, is mostly philosophical and at its core selfish. Otherwise, it is a cover for less noble motives. Neighborhood character can mean just about anything. However it is defined, I don’t see much of a point in preserving it if it makes the area unaffordable for anyone not already there. Consciously or not, when someone makes that argument, they are saying they want to keep things the way they are by keeping out everyone else. They get to enjoy whatever they define as neighborhood character, but nobody else gets to. Like the “destroy the suburbs” argument, the “preserve neighborhood character” argument is zero sum.
This story here is a great example of how ridiculous definitions of neighborhood character can be. In Manhattan, there was a proposal to build a 26-story mixed use building on what is currently a parking lot. The developer scaled down the proposal, but NIMBYs sued under local preservation laws and won in court. I may be out of touch, but I find the idea that it is more important to preserve a parking lot than to provide housing for hundreds or thousands of people to be insane. I am hard pressed to think there is anything special about any parking lot. Unless, of course, you don’t actually care about parking lots, you just don’t want anything built near where you live. Then it starts to make sense.
Another argument from NIMBYs, which comes from the most extreme ones, is that people are just bad. This kind of argument is mostly, though not entirely, found on the left. Much of it traces its origins back to the 1960s when fears of overpopulation and global famine were common in some circles. One of the main proponents of this view is Paul Ehrlich, a scientist who has been wrong for more than 50 years in predicting that the world would look like Soylent Green. Still, that mindset retains some footing in NIMBY circles, particularly on the west coast. It is worse than sheer selfishness. It is cruel, misanthropic and Malthusian.
The idea is that there are just too many people. Economic growth is bad because it causes pollution. The only way to save the planet is to have no growth and a lot fewer people. An example of someone who believes that is the head of a group called Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods. I wrote about him and his group almost a year ago when writing about why a scarcity/zero sum mindset is bad. He has said that if Berkeley allows more housing to be built that it will become a slum. He has also argued that the only way to fight climate change is to lower living standards although he does not seem to include himself in making that sacrifice.
The worldview of that crowd was best summed up by Agent Smith in The Matrix. People are a disease. Allowing more housing to be built means allowing in more people, which means allowing in more of the disease. The disease has to be kept out at all costs. If that means housing costs shoot through the roof, that is a feature, not a bug (no pun intended).
This group consists of a small number of people. I would wager that a large majority of those who are NIMBYs are not doing it to deliberately cause harm. It is much more likely to be greed (keeping property values high) and obliviousness to the unintended consequences of making housing hard to build.
Although they are small in number, groups like Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods punch well above their weight. Because local governments have so much sway over housing rules, those groups exert a disproportionate amount of influence. Their supporters will always show up at city council, zoning board or any kind of local government meetings.
While it is possible for NIMBY groups to exert power on the state and federal level, it is much harder because so many other people and groups participate. That is why authority to make housing laws needs to be taken away from local governments. It is there where those groups are the most effective. Since it is highly unlikely that the problem with local governments being so unrepresentative can be fixed, they have to be cut out of the picture for any progress to be made.
[i] An example of this is congestion pricing in New York City. It was enacted there in 2019 with widespread support. Despite that and its obvious environmental benefits, it has had to undergo an environmental review under NEPA. It will still likely take effect, but not until 2024.