“What is a community if not a group of people who have some right or power to determine who is and isn’t a member?”
Have you read Appelbaum’s Stuck ? He has a couple chapters on this exact tension and how it’s played out in various parts of American history. I find myself roughly in the middle but it’s worth thinking about
Yes I have, I thought it was very good and I found that bit about communities as private clubs interesting. I didn’t actually know it used to be like that (other than stuff like racial covenants)
To answer the (rhetorical?) question on why the country can limit movement, but not random communities: the Constitution. Specifically the Privileges and Immunities Clause.
I haven’t given this much thought, but to (rhetorically?) ask the flip side of what this piece covers: is the growing anti-constitutional movement downstream of the “don’t California my wherever” crowd?
Some interesting thoughts here. But I think there's a disconnect in the argument that a low-wage, even precarious, workforce is needed to build housing at a cheaper cost and the kind of YIMBY legalization of mass immigration. Can you have a kind of black-market workforce of legally unprotected builders that you can underpay to keep housing cheaper, but also keep those same workers on the books who are due costly worker protection rights?
The economic subsidy of immigrant builders is that they are paid cheaply under the table and are too scared of being deported to complain. Wouldn't the YIMBY mass legalization of this workforce undercut that subsidy?
Really good piece, Addison. When an issue gets polarized (particularly in this political environment), it brings a whole host of problems. Advocates for the issue phrase their arguments in ways that appeal to people on their political side, which alienates the other side. People who might be willing to side with you on your issue say, "Well, if believing this also means believing in these other things, forget it." And over time, this becomes a self-reinforcing cycle, and the idea of crossing the aisle to work together on a particular issue becomes less and less likely.
I appreciate the work you're doing to try to prevent housing and urbanism from becoming a strictly left-coded issue. I hope that we can do the same for other issues. The long-term health of our democracy depends on (among other things) our ability to have cross-partisan issue collaboration.
Yes, that is what I try to do! I understand the incentives and how ideas get “bundled,” I think we need right-leaning voices to give a different perspective and I try. Thank you!
Keep up the good work! I agree that we need more people like you. We need more people who can give right-leaning perspectives in favor of traditionally left-coded issues, and vice versa. And we need issue-advocacy organizations to be able to speak to appeal effectively to both left-leaning and right-leaning people. (I think the ACLU, for instance, has been a lot less effective since it became an all-purpose progressive advocacy group instead of focusing on civil liberties in a bipartisan way.)
"It’s the unstated premise that the absolute bottom-level idea behind housing advocacy is not building housing per se, but rather freedom of movement."
First, the objective of land use, building code and residency rules reform goes beyond "housing." Optimizing commercial real estate also contributes to higher real incomes.
But allowing housing supply to meet demand is just good for builders, residents, and city revenues quite apart from "freedom" of movement.
The deep relation of YIMBY-ism and immigration reform (which does not imply "open borders") is that both are growth enhancing policies' they raise real incomes.
Interesting framing! I'd never heard YIMBY's making this comp to open borders before. As a left-YIMBY who believes we overshot on immigration, I like the idea of comparing norms of national exclusion and norms of local exclusion. It's illuminating, but I think parts of this particular comparison go just a bit too quickly.
Nations and localities both can legitimately exercise powers of exclusion. I think you'll find even the most full-throated urbanist, cosmopolitan, open-borders type forced to admit that given hard edge cases. So then it just becomes entirely a question of levels — and everyone also agrees that legitimate levels may vary over time according to internal and external conditions. The real normative disputes are about the levels, and the legitimacy of the processes that enable nations/localities to maintain those levels. So far so good.
Where the parity ends is in the relative powers of the locality and the nation state of which its a member. The interests of the nation just clearly trump the interests of its member states/localities. As soon as you introduce that premise you can easily escape putative conclusion that opposition to NIMBYism should also extend to opposition to border control. Accepting that premise also helps YIMBYs stop the moral demonizing of local exclusion. We shouldn't be taking issue with their exercises of local exclusionary authority. These exercises are legitimate, even if we disagree with the outcomes. What we should be taking issue with are the processes that enable these exercises to produce outcomes, in aggregate, that are against the state/national interest. If we encounter resistance to correcting those processes so we can properly uphold the state and national interests over the interests of the locality, THAT is where the moralizing should be focused — not on the exercise of the authority itself.
This is wrong, because 1) construction is also largely done by immigrants, so reducing immigration, especially low-wage, “low-skill” immigration, cuts into the workforce that builds housing; and 2) this wouldn’t be an issue even in theory if the zoning laws permitted housing to grow with demand
"
Funny how everyone invokes demand and supply until that supply or demand doesn't favor their pet ideological issue.
As admitted to in 2, the supply is not able to increase to meet the change in demand. Without an increase in supply, an increase in demand basically AWAYS leads to an increase in price. Denying this reality is akin to denying the curvature of the Earth.
As for the industry, 3 of 4 of construction workers are not immigrants. Like trucking immigrants are overrepresented in the industry. Also like trucking the industry wouldn't have a "need" for those immigrants if it didn't create such a horse stuff working environment.
Even if these immigrants weren't replicable, 90% of work in other industries that by in large do not have an obvious labor shortage. I am all for immigration. But we shouldn't be so glib as to dismiss supply and demand without even a shallow look at the numbers - numbers that don't favor the original claim - involved.
To me the biggest thing is that ability to exclude. The reason why restricting housing supply is so toxic is that it simply doesn't work. The US can and does restrict the ability of people to move to the US, but SF cannot restrict people from moving to SF. The end result of this is cities displacing their own residents in an ultimately doomed attempt to protect them from change.
“What is a community if not a group of people who have some right or power to determine who is and isn’t a member?”
Have you read Appelbaum’s Stuck ? He has a couple chapters on this exact tension and how it’s played out in various parts of American history. I find myself roughly in the middle but it’s worth thinking about
Yes I have, I thought it was very good and I found that bit about communities as private clubs interesting. I didn’t actually know it used to be like that (other than stuff like racial covenants)
Same! I learned a lot from those chapters
To answer the (rhetorical?) question on why the country can limit movement, but not random communities: the Constitution. Specifically the Privileges and Immunities Clause.
I haven’t given this much thought, but to (rhetorically?) ask the flip side of what this piece covers: is the growing anti-constitutional movement downstream of the “don’t California my wherever” crowd?
Interesting
Some interesting thoughts here. But I think there's a disconnect in the argument that a low-wage, even precarious, workforce is needed to build housing at a cheaper cost and the kind of YIMBY legalization of mass immigration. Can you have a kind of black-market workforce of legally unprotected builders that you can underpay to keep housing cheaper, but also keep those same workers on the books who are due costly worker protection rights?
The economic subsidy of immigrant builders is that they are paid cheaply under the table and are too scared of being deported to complain. Wouldn't the YIMBY mass legalization of this workforce undercut that subsidy?
Really good piece, Addison. When an issue gets polarized (particularly in this political environment), it brings a whole host of problems. Advocates for the issue phrase their arguments in ways that appeal to people on their political side, which alienates the other side. People who might be willing to side with you on your issue say, "Well, if believing this also means believing in these other things, forget it." And over time, this becomes a self-reinforcing cycle, and the idea of crossing the aisle to work together on a particular issue becomes less and less likely.
I appreciate the work you're doing to try to prevent housing and urbanism from becoming a strictly left-coded issue. I hope that we can do the same for other issues. The long-term health of our democracy depends on (among other things) our ability to have cross-partisan issue collaboration.
Yes, that is what I try to do! I understand the incentives and how ideas get “bundled,” I think we need right-leaning voices to give a different perspective and I try. Thank you!
Keep up the good work! I agree that we need more people like you. We need more people who can give right-leaning perspectives in favor of traditionally left-coded issues, and vice versa. And we need issue-advocacy organizations to be able to speak to appeal effectively to both left-leaning and right-leaning people. (I think the ACLU, for instance, has been a lot less effective since it became an all-purpose progressive advocacy group instead of focusing on civil liberties in a bipartisan way.)
This is an excellent piece.
Thank you!
"It’s the unstated premise that the absolute bottom-level idea behind housing advocacy is not building housing per se, but rather freedom of movement."
First, the objective of land use, building code and residency rules reform goes beyond "housing." Optimizing commercial real estate also contributes to higher real incomes.
But allowing housing supply to meet demand is just good for builders, residents, and city revenues quite apart from "freedom" of movement.
The deep relation of YIMBY-ism and immigration reform (which does not imply "open borders") is that both are growth enhancing policies' they raise real incomes.
Interesting framing! I'd never heard YIMBY's making this comp to open borders before. As a left-YIMBY who believes we overshot on immigration, I like the idea of comparing norms of national exclusion and norms of local exclusion. It's illuminating, but I think parts of this particular comparison go just a bit too quickly.
Nations and localities both can legitimately exercise powers of exclusion. I think you'll find even the most full-throated urbanist, cosmopolitan, open-borders type forced to admit that given hard edge cases. So then it just becomes entirely a question of levels — and everyone also agrees that legitimate levels may vary over time according to internal and external conditions. The real normative disputes are about the levels, and the legitimacy of the processes that enable nations/localities to maintain those levels. So far so good.
Where the parity ends is in the relative powers of the locality and the nation state of which its a member. The interests of the nation just clearly trump the interests of its member states/localities. As soon as you introduce that premise you can easily escape putative conclusion that opposition to NIMBYism should also extend to opposition to border control. Accepting that premise also helps YIMBYs stop the moral demonizing of local exclusion. We shouldn't be taking issue with their exercises of local exclusionary authority. These exercises are legitimate, even if we disagree with the outcomes. What we should be taking issue with are the processes that enable these exercises to produce outcomes, in aggregate, that are against the state/national interest. If we encounter resistance to correcting those processes so we can properly uphold the state and national interests over the interests of the locality, THAT is where the moralizing should be focused — not on the exercise of the authority itself.
"
This is wrong, because 1) construction is also largely done by immigrants, so reducing immigration, especially low-wage, “low-skill” immigration, cuts into the workforce that builds housing; and 2) this wouldn’t be an issue even in theory if the zoning laws permitted housing to grow with demand
"
Funny how everyone invokes demand and supply until that supply or demand doesn't favor their pet ideological issue.
As admitted to in 2, the supply is not able to increase to meet the change in demand. Without an increase in supply, an increase in demand basically AWAYS leads to an increase in price. Denying this reality is akin to denying the curvature of the Earth.
As for the industry, 3 of 4 of construction workers are not immigrants. Like trucking immigrants are overrepresented in the industry. Also like trucking the industry wouldn't have a "need" for those immigrants if it didn't create such a horse stuff working environment.
Even if these immigrants weren't replicable, 90% of work in other industries that by in large do not have an obvious labor shortage. I am all for immigration. But we shouldn't be so glib as to dismiss supply and demand without even a shallow look at the numbers - numbers that don't favor the original claim - involved.
To me the biggest thing is that ability to exclude. The reason why restricting housing supply is so toxic is that it simply doesn't work. The US can and does restrict the ability of people to move to the US, but SF cannot restrict people from moving to SF. The end result of this is cities displacing their own residents in an ultimately doomed attempt to protect them from change.