How do we have a national conversation about zoning reform?

After arriving in DC aspiring to become a policy wonk at the end of the Cold War, an internship at The Washington Monthly introduced me to a revealing anecdote about former Congressperson Stephen Solarz (D-NY), then making a name for himself as a foreign affairs guru. The story went that he gave a speech about Middle East politics at a retirement home in Brooklyn, where a feisty senior posed the first question, Hey Solarz, where’s our bus shelter? Thus confirming that all politics is indeed local – and that accessibility remains a perennial transit concern!

I was reminded of that anecdote departing Austin this February after the sixth YIMBYTown confab. The conference itself served up such a cornucopia of interesting sessions that it proved difficult to attach a single meaning to the whole event. We shouldn’t be surprised, then, that much of the formal media coverage focused on overarching political topics of bipartisanship and the novelty of a supposedly progressive movement finding traction among some red state leaders, including in host Texas.

Whatever the global themes, my biggest takeaway from YIMBYTown was the exceptional variance in local contexts, and the diversity of institutional movement responses. It suggests that having a single, national conversation about housing reform is easier said than done.

Consider the incumbent environments within which pro-housing movement organizations swim, from Anchorage to Palm Beach: political contexts, government structures (like strong executives, weak councils, and vice-versa), and built environments; different levels of sophistication in their planning organizations, zoning and building codes, and population densities; and different demographics. And then layer on top the varied histories and growth of local YIMBY organizations: their founding stories, funding sources, legal structures, allies, and the scope of their work.

As someone who’s made a career out of analyzing and applying universal trends, the seemingly ad-hoc nature of movement work on the ground left me puzzled. It was a little jolting to learn – inverting Tolstoy here – that while all NIMBY groups seem alike in their unhappiness, every YIMBY organization wins in its own, almost unique way.

Some national dilemmas

For sure the wins do keep racking up. Yet any national conversation about the movement has to acknowledge some critical dilemmas that make it hard to offer a universal “solution” to how to run or win a pro-housing campaign.

States matter, until they don’t: Success at the state level in California (and to a lesser extent, Montana) looms large over the movement. We can celebrate those successes and also understand that the nature and depth of what California has accomplished will not prove readily replicable in other states, including other populous coastal states with major housing shortages, like New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Virginia. Same for DC, which always offers its own unique context. My home state of Maryland is seeing some progress out of Annapolis, but it will still play out differently than in California.

We need a movement that can win even when the state government cannot show up as a major player.

Legislation matters, but details are decisive: Amid the many well-deserved congratulations about legislative victories, quieter conversations at YIMBYTown hinted at some different stories of missed opportunities, including bills with limited enforcement, sizable loopholes, and unclear paths to greater housing supply. If a legislative body doesn’t have a tradition of regularly revisiting laws to improve them, then getting all the details right at key opportunities becomes critical.

Inserting the right language requires subject matter expertise and deep relationships at various levels of government. For a movement whose animating impulse revolves around fairness and transparency, this can seem like back-room dealing. Yet it’s an essential skill to cultivate, and the nature of the surgical inputs required will vary from locale to locale.

Coalitions are great, but at what cost?: For the most part YIMBYTown 2024 celebrated coalitions, including some informative panels on homelessness, transit, and climate, where the political and social intersections are obvious. The conference also saw a lively debate around maintaining organizational focus and the value of “no-alitions.” If coalition-building means diluting your impact, or requires more work than the benefits it yields, is it really worth it?

Intuitively, I lean more toward coalition-building as part of a menu of capacity-building work that drives any movement maturation. But YIMBYTown taught me the potential limits and trade-offs of coalition-building, and the essential distinction between means and ends here.

Bipartisanship is welcome, but values matter more: The focus on getting stuff done also extended to politics at YIMBYTown. Politics can make strange bedfellows, and in some states or regions you need a bipartisan majority to drive change, while in other cases red-state governors proved perhaps unlikely champions.

Seeking allies of any stripe can feel especially important given the mountainous levels of local opposition to change. As one emerging YIMBY leader noted to much applause, “I realized I liked to win.” So do I! So did Vince Lombardi! But if you are going to be true to your mission, motivate a diverse staff, and keep your focus on the long run, how you win still matters…a lot. It strikes me as a net loss to celebrate the upzoning chops of a governor whose other policies around basic human dignity are brutally exclusionary. Which brings me to the next topic…

We’re winning, but is it mostly white men jumping? As a white guy who works in tech, I really found my people at YIMBYTown: other wonkish folks overflowing with energy and opinions, speaking in staccato bursts and verbal shorthands that must resemble secret handshakes to the uninitiated. What I did not see is the kind of diverse community I would recognize in my hometown of Silver Spring.

The problem runs deeper than representation. I had expected the topic of how to better engage Black and Brown communities to pervade conference conversations, but instead came up almost exclusively at panels dedicated to the topic. Innovations like San Antonio’s Displacement Impact Assessment tool demoed at YIMBYtown are impressive, but don’t replace essential listening in vulnerable communities. I sense we dance around a major shortcoming that YIMBYs tend to tell communities of color that upzoning and other improvements “will be good for you.” We risk quietly dismissing resistance as NIMBYism rather than a legitimate response to past negative experiences.

To be sure, I did see enthusiasm for undertaking this work, though not a lot of structured conversations for sharing, yet, the best ways to do so. It seems unfair to put this burden primarily on people of color in the movement itself, and that has me pondering how we can work better in Montgomery County.

We’re different, but we have much to discuss

Above all YIMBYTown offered a unique opportunity to learn from others, especially for folks like me newer to the movement. Many movement people feel isolated by the intensity of local opposition they face, and the ability to share, vent, and laugh has value on its own. Hearing about tactics that would not work in Montgomery County still helped broaden my perspective.

The pre-conference networking day hosted by Welcoming Neighbors Network was particularly helpful in this regard. Likewise, the last day of YIMBYTown “unconference” sessions really worked as more interactive settings to share ideas.

It was great to meet people and learn, and I’m particularly grateful to the YIMBYTown organizers at AURA and Farm&City. We do need to celebrate others’ successes, and learn techniques where they make sense – but then measure ourselves by local yardsticks. Transit may prove best tackled at a regional level, but transit-oriented development is going to require a lot of localized work. Funders seeking national impact can drive significant change, yet need to remain sensitive to the difficult art of progress-making in each county and municipality. Surely one thing all YIMBY organizations can center more is a commitment to diversity.

And what of a national political project? It’s exciting to think about what a Biden administration might do further to advance the housing agenda. Just not at the expense of successfully advocating for things like more bus shelters in our own communities.