At a YIMBY happy hour in D.C. a few weeks ago, I had an interesting chat with a young woman who had been pointed to the YIMBY group by a friend, and decided to show up. It was her first time at one of these things, and she knew basically what a layperson would know about housing: it costs too much.
It was interesting talking to someone who shared the same basic viewpoint, but who wasn’t familiar with, say, the intricacies of zoning. I actually wish more new folks showed up to these things; explaining something to someone who has no prior knowledge of it really helps to sharpen your own understanding.
And this happened to set the table for another conversation I had that evening. One fellow, who seemed to go to a lot of events and meetups, mentioned that right-wing and MAGA events in Washington were a lot more fun: girls, drinks, barbecues, pools, etc. We policy nerds were, by contrast, a little boring.
But maybe it’s not a right-left thing: another guy mentioned that the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) has fun, joyful, enthusiastic activities. Maybe it’s more that both the right and the left know how to have fun, while we YIMBY types are more a collection of train dudes and centrist neoliberal abundance white-paper nerds. How many people aren’t being reached, he wondered, because this pro-housing advocacy movement seems kind of square?
So we got to discussing whether, and how, housing advocacy could be made more fun and engaging. Have musical act show up to meetups? Host them at wilder bars? The first guy didn’t care for an alcohol-free happy hour earlier this year, which I also went to, and liked a lot!
That struck me as interesting, and as a specific example of a larger and broader phenomenon. Trying out an alcohol-free setting—it was at a little neighborhood restaurant instead of a bar—might have brought in some new people who don’t want to drink as a precondition for socializing and being civically involved. The restaurant filled up, and I remember thinking it was kind of nice, a rare little bit of innocence, to be in this tight, cozy setting and not, you know, feeling like I needed a drink.
But this guy was bored, thought the restaurant was tiny and cramped, and left in 10 minutes. So it might be that for every person you gain, you also lose one, and in the long run, these details don’t really matter for engagement. I don’t think that’s quite true—well-executed events absolutely drive engagement and retention—but it is true that attempts to change things up to bring in more people often alienate other people, and it’s also true that there may not be a universally appealing or welcoming environment for the general public. It’s something to think about.
Here’s another thing to think about: the fellow who mentioned the DSA meetings also mentioned that he had a job. I think he rather meant that some of the DSA folks did not, and he definitely meant that he himself couldn’t do so much of that sort of thing anymore. Maybe, the issue isn’t “make these meetups more fun” as much as the fact that precisely the kind of people you want involved are time-constrained and not necessarily looking for fun or to “be involved.”
I don’t mean we’re too good to get involved. I mean that statistically, housing advocacy will probably always struggle to bring in a critical mass of married, employed, comfortably housed 30-somethings, who are also people who give the movement more conventional credibility.
In fact, this phenomenon is one reason NIMBYism is so successful; often the minority of highly involved, intransigent people who show up at 7pm Wednesday evening hearings to oppose things are retired or otherwise have the time. These are people who have the leisure to “do politics” as an activity unto itself. That’s interesting: NIMBY organizing almost resembles college activism, more than either resembles the more serious advocacy work that housing and urbanism groups are doing.
Before I ask for your own thoughts and comments, I have one more thought of my own. I find it strange that so unremarkable a sentiment as “let’s build enough housing so people can afford to live near good jobs and amenities” is viewed as activism at all. Housing advocacy is something extremely normal, relatable, really universal—which separates it from a lot of activist or political causes—yet it’s filtered through something of an activist culture and vocabulary.
So I would pull the question back a bit conceptually, from “How do we get more people involved?” to “How do we break the dynamic where you have to make yourself slightly abnormal in order to advocate for one of the most normal and universal things there is?”
I’m very interested in what you think of this question, or if it’s even the right question. Leave a comment!
Related Reading:
YIMBYs Want Their Problem Solved
We think about this a lot as we think about how to grow and make DC Abundance more useful.
I had been doing nerdy policy deep dives - but when we did a social happy hour, it was packed. A lot of people were interested in just the socializing bit!
One question I’m trying to figure out now is how social movements evolve, succeed, or grow. Great post!
the number one issue is anyone under 30 years of age most likely graduated high school functionally illiterate and innumerate to begin with (see harvard instituting middle-school algebra for incoming freshmen), add to that the overwhelming homeless everywhere which sours the "normies" from the start, and then top it off with a DSA element that holds as a plank "Decommodify personal property" and the whole operation collapses of its own weight. - financial literacy will be the only thing to even start to change minds. Their hearts are already made up, no?