The YIMBY movement has lost its way becoming just another planning-led and illiberal group that believes its vision, a Young Fogey version of Le Corbusier’s cities in the sky, should be imposed
You make a very good point. There is a lot of urbanism mixed up with YIMBYism.
Have you read Randal O'Toole ?
His blog the anti-planner is really interesting on transport and the massive subsidies that most public transport systems require. He also points out that in car dependent places like LA people can often reach more jobs within, say 30 minutes by car than in places with lots of public transport.
Also, Nolan Gray and his book 'Arbitrary Lines' is good. He writes about how Houston really lives up to the ideal of a YIMBY city. He recently had a poll about Urban Growth Boundaries on his twitter feed that was interesting.
Houston is an interesting example because they do have a lack of zoning but it is a very car centric place.
There are YIMBYs who are also strong on releasing more land for housing. In Australia Peter Tulip writes about the cost of zoning but has also posted about the lack of land release pushing up prices.
Are you all right Dr Cooke: that last sentence containing "just another mostly free market" is awful and I wonder if you have caught a bug. A competition between free market variants would be blooming marvellous, Middleton-in-Teesdale could have the current version and Ilkley could have the other version, and free movement, tolerant locals, and no transaction taxes, wa hey it's great. But in truth, we don't even have a free market currently to then have another one offered unless I missed the last 75 years.
My other problem is that you don't address the main reason for there being a YIMBY movement. I realise that you can't write a thesis in a blog, but for crying out loud Doctor, you must know that it's a counterpoint to NIMBYism, and by heck we need more of that. And devolution and smashing up the nationalised system. And letting local authorities even parishes or streets decide on height restrictions.
Yeah this is why I think of myself as a YIMBY but not an urbanist. They are kind of cultish in a way that is unappealing - what started out as an iconoclastic school of thought has quickly been consumed by groupthink.
You make a very good point. There is a lot of urbanism mixed up with YIMBYism.
Have you read Randal O'Toole ?
His blog the anti-planner is really interesting on transport and the massive subsidies that most public transport systems require. He also points out that in car dependent places like LA people can often reach more jobs within, say 30 minutes by car than in places with lots of public transport.
Also, Nolan Gray and his book 'Arbitrary Lines' is good. He writes about how Houston really lives up to the ideal of a YIMBY city. He recently had a poll about Urban Growth Boundaries on his twitter feed that was interesting.
Houston is an interesting example because they do have a lack of zoning but it is a very car centric place.
There are YIMBYs who are also strong on releasing more land for housing. In Australia Peter Tulip writes about the cost of zoning but has also posted about the lack of land release pushing up prices.
strawman
It really isn’t.
New Urbanists only believe in the market when it does exactly what they want ,and there are many of them among the YIMBYs at this point.
Are you all right Dr Cooke: that last sentence containing "just another mostly free market" is awful and I wonder if you have caught a bug. A competition between free market variants would be blooming marvellous, Middleton-in-Teesdale could have the current version and Ilkley could have the other version, and free movement, tolerant locals, and no transaction taxes, wa hey it's great. But in truth, we don't even have a free market currently to then have another one offered unless I missed the last 75 years.
My other problem is that you don't address the main reason for there being a YIMBY movement. I realise that you can't write a thesis in a blog, but for crying out loud Doctor, you must know that it's a counterpoint to NIMBYism, and by heck we need more of that. And devolution and smashing up the nationalised system. And letting local authorities even parishes or streets decide on height restrictions.
Yeah this is why I think of myself as a YIMBY but not an urbanist. They are kind of cultish in a way that is unappealing - what started out as an iconoclastic school of thought has quickly been consumed by groupthink.