1/OK, so. Let's talk about Left-NIMBYism.

We all know about Right-NIMBYs, rabidly protecting their white-flight suburbs from Those People. And there are plenty of liberal NIMBYs too.

But NIMBYs of the Left are also a force to be reckoned

2/Left-NIMBYs have developed a canon of interlocking, mutually reinforcing beliefs about housing and urbanism.

These beliefs are mostly false, but they form a powerful "canon" that quickly ossifies into a hardened worldview.

It looks something like this:
3/Fortunately, Nathan J. Robinson of Current Affairs has written an article that perfectly encapsulates the Left-NIMBY worldview (and quotes me in it!).

So this is a teachable moment.

https://t.co/nvFJryQZGi
4/Robinson selectively quotes a Bloomberg article of mine (https://t.co/iamRrW6oei).

Look at the part he quoted, vs. what I actually wrote!

Pretty different, eh? 😉
5/In fact, as I wrote in the article that Robinson failed to read more than one line of, it's theoretically possible that Left-NIMBYs COULD be right that allowing market-rate housing drives up local rents.

I take that possibility very seriously, as do YIMBYs.
6/But as always in economics, we need to look at the EVIDENCE, not just theory!

And although there isn't a mountain of evidence on market-rate housing yet, some evidence is starting to pile up.

And it doesn't look great for the Left-NIMBY theory.
7/For example, here's a 2016 paper by Xiaodi Li about what happens to nearby rents when you build market-rate housing.

https://t.co/AwrJTJK2lY
8/And here's a brand-new paper by Kate Pennington about what happens to rents and to gentrification when you build market-rate housing in San Francisco:

https://t.co/8GCbE1jNOC
9/And here's a 2019 paper by Brian Asquith, Evan Mast, and David Reed, about what happens to rents and to gentrification when you build market-rate housing:

https://t.co/6YPHc38NDF
10/There are others (https://t.co/Hp3ecU9Ly0, https://t.co/AjipSyRSOy), but the general result here is starting to become clear.

Market-rate housing lowers nearby rents while drawing high-income people away from low-income neighborhoods.
11/In fact, reality looks very much like my "Yuppie Fishtank Theory" (which is really just a segmented markets model).

It's an explanation of why YIMBYism doesn't need Econ 101 or Supply-and-Demand:

https://t.co/8o6V0L4Wbv
12/But Robinson gets things even more wrong when he claims that YIMBYs are Randian shills who hate public housing and demand that market-rate housing be the only solution.

Here's what he writes:
13/Robinson singles out three YIMBY organizations for his accusations:
California YIMBY
YIMBY Action
Open New York

Let's see what each one has to say about public housing, shall we?

Here's Brian Hanlon, co-founder of California YIMBY.

https://t.co/hU4hWQh1Px
14/Here's Laura Foote, executive director of YIMBY Action:

https://t.co/M52O8R67St
15/Here's Ben Carlos Thypin, founder of Open New York:

https://t.co/OxII8YxxKh
16/Robinson simply failed (or refused) to do his homework. His characterization of these YIMBYs is utterly wrong. In reality, they're just a bunch of lefties who want to build ALL types of housing instead of insisting on just one.
17/In fact, I think the conflict between YIMBYs and Left-NIMBYs is not fundamentally about evidence, or about public housing.

It's about preservationism vs. growth and change. Left-NIMBYs want to stand athwart urban history, yelling Stop.
18/Whereas YIMBYs recognizes that cities will always grow and change, and we can't preserve them in amber. Instead, we have to shape their growth into something equitable and inclusive.
19/Left-NIMBYism is not confined to the West Coast; you see it popping up in cities across the nation. It's wrongheaded, but it's something we're going to have to deal with as we fight to make American cities livable for everyone.

(end)

https://t.co/05c6IMSc4y
Anyway, if you like this sort of thing, you can sign up for my free email list, and have my posts delivered directly to your inbox!

https://t.co/FGppA1M8W6

More from Noahtogolpe 🐇

Bloomberg Ideas conference now starting! I will be live-tweeting it. You can watch on our Facebook or Twitter pages (links below)!


Our first panel is about cryptocurrency! We have @matt_levine, @tylercowen, @eiaine, @nirkaissar, and Camilla

Ou: Crypto will be useful for the unbanked.

Cowen: Crypto has to compete against a bunch of other emerging payments technologies. Bitcoin is too inflexible.

Cowen: I'll bet on the payments companies over crypto.
1/I'm thinking about the end of Apu in the context of the national debates on immigration and diversity.


2/Apu's presence in Springfield represented a basic reality of America in the late 20th and early 21st century: the presence of nonwhite immigrants.

3/As Tomas Jimenez writes in "The Other Side of Assimilation", for my generation, immigrants from India, China, Mexico, and many other countries aren't strange or foreign. On the contrary, they're a

4/But that America I grew up with is fundamentally ephemeral. The kids of immigrants don't retain their parents' culture. They merge into the local culture (and, as Jimenez documents, the local culture changes to reflect their influence).

5/Simpsons character don't change. But real people, and real communities, do. So a character who once represented the diversity that immigrants brought to American towns now represents a stereotype of Indian-Americans as "permanent foreigners".

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🌿𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝒂 𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒓 : 𝑫𝒉𝒓𝒖𝒗𝒂 & 𝑽𝒊𝒔𝒉𝒏𝒖

Once upon a time there was a Raja named Uttānapāda born of Svayambhuva Manu,1st man on earth.He had 2 beautiful wives - Suniti & Suruchi & two sons were born of them Dhruva & Uttama respectively.
#talesofkrishna https://t.co/E85MTPkF9W


Now Suniti was the daughter of a tribal chief while Suruchi was the daughter of a rich king. Hence Suruchi was always favored the most by Raja while Suniti was ignored. But while Suniti was gentle & kind hearted by nature Suruchi was venomous inside.
#KrishnaLeela


The story is of a time when ideally the eldest son of the king becomes the heir to the throne. Hence the sinhasan of the Raja belonged to Dhruva.This is why Suruchi who was the 2nd wife nourished poison in her heart for Dhruva as she knew her son will never get the throne.


One day when Dhruva was just 5 years old he went on to sit on his father's lap. Suruchi, the jealous queen, got enraged and shoved him away from Raja as she never wanted Raja to shower Dhruva with his fatherly affection.


Dhruva protested questioning his step mother "why can't i sit on my own father's lap?" A furious Suruchi berated him saying "only God can allow him that privilege. Go ask him"