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Using a literalist expansion of YIMBY doesn't seem constructive.

Do you demand the same locality standard for people who block building housing and/or upzoning in places that aren't their domicile or directly adjacent to it?

In your view, how close does someone need to live to construction to have a preference about whether it happens or not? It sounds like your metric is "they should be made personally miserable, so that they regret asking for it in the first place.", which is begging the question a bit.




Don't call your movement YIMBY when the YIMBY position is the exact same as the NIMBY one, but you want to feel morally superior. Both support building as long as they don't have to bear the cost. NIMBYs in the Marina support building in The Mission the same way Mission YIMBY supports building in the Sunset and Richmond.

I live in Nob Hill. There's a unit going up across the street from me, but it's not that big and didn't affect me so I don't mind. I went to some of the meetings and had no comment.

I 100% support building in San Francisco. Just as long as it doesn't affect me. And the reality is that's true for everyone. So we should figure out how to actually deal with that reality.


I'm the lead organizer of Mission YIMBY, and we support building everywhere. We have a particular focus on upzoning all of the exclusionary neighborhoods where apartments are illegal. We'd be happy if the entirety of San Francisco had the same zoning rules as the Mission, because it results in a healthy and vibrant neighborhood.

We want both subsidized Affordable and market-rate buildings built everywhere in the city, including the Mission. We don't show up at the Planning Commission to fight for the market-rate buildings in the neighborhood because they get built without our help. Neighbors still regularly fight subsidized Affordable housing, even in the Mission.

I kinda get the feeling you're misrepresenting a movement with which you have an ideological disagreement.


See, it's this kind of garbage right here. You support building everywhere, but with a focus on neighborhoods you don't live in.

The majority people in the Sunset and Richmond don't want that (as the voting shows).


You're clearly not engaging in good faith, but for everyone else: Grow The Richmond, Build the North, Progress Noe Valley, Castro for Housing, East Bay for Everyone, and all of the peninsula groups ALL advocate for building in their neighborhoods. There are some neighborhoods, like the Mission, Bayview, the Tenderloin, and Hunter's Point that have suffered under racist policies for decades. The same solution doesn't fit everywhere.


You'd know a lot about that since nothing you do is in good faith.


It is absolutely not the same position.

A YIMBY person would say "Yes, I support allowing people to sell their house and build an apartment building".

A NIMBY person would say "No, I do not support allowing someone ELSE to sell THEIR house that THEY own, to build an apartment building".

It is about rules that effect other people's property, and rules that ALLOW people to sell their property.

A YIMBY person does not want the rules to exist, and a NIMBY person does want these rule to exist.


Both would say: I support apartments being built on land nowhere near my home.

I think the point being made is that YIMBYs don't have yards, and they're advocating for policies that they have been convinced could get them yards, and NIMBYs are advocating for policies that protect the yards that they have.


No, a YIMBY person would be perfectly in favor of everyone being allowed to do what they want with their own property.

A contradiction would be if a YIMBY person said "I DON'T want this person to be allowed to do what they want with their property."

No YIMBY person is arguing for restrictions. They are arguing for removing restrictions, everywhere, and yes that means for their neighbors.


I like the reframing to pretend like this is about personal property.

You can sell your property to whoever you want. But there person who buys it can't do whatever they want. That's how it works everywhere. This is about zoning, not who you can sell your property to.


It IS about property rights though.

I do not have the right to build whatever I want on my property, and I would like that to change.

I would also like other people to have the rights to build whatever they want things THEIR property.

How does arguing in favor of rights for property owners make YIMBY people hypocrits?

You are saying that YIMBY people are doing something contradictory. There is nothing contradictory of arguing in favor of everyone being allowed to do what they want with their property.

This is absolutely a moral argument, as it is about people being allowed to do what they want with property that they own. Arguments regarding rights are moral arguments.


Then don't buy property in an area where the community has decided that property rights should have certain limits.

If you want the "right to build whatever [you] want" go move out into an unincorporated area. Don't move to San Francisco and then try to force everyone around you to change so that YOU can do whatever YOU want.


Instead of doing that, I am just going to try and get the laws changed.

There are lots of people who care about affordable housing, and we are growing in political power.

The rich people who only care about protecting their property values and increasing their rent prices, are slowing being outnumbered by renters who will vote to increase supply.

We no longer live in a time where you have to be a property owner to vote. New people in an area have just as many political rights as property owners.

So no, I am not going to just shut up and do nothing. I am going to play to win. And that means voting and trying to change the law.

It will take time, but we are gaining in strength, because there are just so many people who are getting screwed by the establishment political interests. So I am confident that the supply problem will be solved eventually.

I am sorry that people participating in a democracy offends you. And a democracy means that everyone has the same political rights, regardless of whether they have just moved to a city or if they have been there for 30 years.




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