Urban Density and the YIMBYs

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Today Kevin Drum argues that Matt Yglesias’ proposal to rein in urban sprawl is a pipe dream. Yglesias’ idea, not a new one by any means,  is to change zoning laws that prevent denser housing and offices in most places. Drum claims that developers, local governments, and corporations have long supported this idea and yet little has changed. The real obstacle to the densification of our suburbs are the people who live there. “Suburban residents have them completely overwhelmed,” he writes. “. . .Building a truly walkable neighborhood strikes me as the next best thing to impossible.”

Drum might have been correct 10 or 20 years ago, but he’s less correct today. I’ve been spending the greater part of my time over the past couple of months working on a magazine piece about NIMBY opposition to infill development, and one thing I’ve discovered is that public perceptions of urban density are quickly changing. There are two major demographic trends at play: Generation Y, the “echo boom” that is by far the largest population cohort in American history, is now entering the housing market. They don’t yet have kids, they often grew up in bland subdivisions, and they are itching to escape the suburbs for walkable cities. And at the same time, Baby Boomers have become empty nesters and are looking to downsize into more convenient and fun walkable communities. “Our consumer research shows that all of these consumers want to be in a higher density environment than they currently live in,” Shyam Kannan, a real estate consultant with Robert Charles Less & Co (RCLCO), told me. “There is a huge pent-up demand for walkable environments.”

Creating a more walkable community is not as hard as Drum makes it seem. A classic study produced in 1999 showed that per-capita transportation fuel consumption declined by one-half to two-thirds as urban density rose from four to 12 people per acre. That’s about as dense as many of today’s suburbs. And some of the first suburban redevelopment projects have been mall and strip mall conversions (see video below the jump), where languishing commercial districts with huge parking lots are turned into mid-rise buildings with underground parking, street-level shops, and mid-rise housing. The widest and busiest streets in suburban areas can often be rezoned in the same way. From an engineering and design perspective, these things are fairly easy to carry out.

Drum is right about one thing, though: Changing zoning laws to allow developers to meet this new housing demand will be an uphill fight. To a large degree, the problem is that the people who run city governments and have the time to go to public meetings are older folks and not 20-something Millennials. But there are already indications that zoning laws are changing. Berkeley has rezoned some of its commercial corridors and is in the process of rezoning its downtown to allow denser buildings. New laws, and lawsuits by Attorney General Jerry Brown in California, are forcing suburban cities to build more housing while at the same time reining in their sprawl. And perhaps most encouragingly, there’s a nascent movement of YIMBYs out there with its own pack of outspoken bloggers, among them the Seattle’s excellent Dan Bertolet, who has garnered a big follwing at Publicola.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate