Yglesias and Jerusalem Demsas touched on this in one of their podcasts called "Does the oligarchy exist?" where they essentially argued much of the "oligarchy" is upper middle class professionals & professional organizations. It's the dentists who don't want competition from new dentists, so they make it prohibitively difficult and expensive to become a dentist. Not sure that I'd define that as "oligarchy," but it is certainly an ongoing problem in every industry. Your perspective is from a highly educated college town -- but I suspect the same NIMBY trend holds true for upper middle class non-academics across the country
If we're talking "man in the arena," I feel compelled to point out that Yglesias and most of his YIMBY buddies don't build anything either. If their reforms (which I'm generally supportive of), don't work, he won't face any consequences - just like the academics you criticized here.
I'm a city planner in a small town and I still live/used to work in a municipal planning department in a southern left-wing college town. I saw plenty of obnoxious NIMBYs (the worst were the ones who were employed by the University but opposed housing because students might live in it), but I never saw the kind of specific jealous academic NIMBY villainized here.
More broadly, I think the villain narrative is misplaced here. For every "Bubba" who wanted to build a beautiful, Missing Middle, infill project, there were 10 who couldn't understand why the planners were objecting to poor design, requiring front porches, advocating for better public spaces, and generally getting in the way of the next gas station, fast food, or self-storage deal. I don't say this to redirect the villain finger from NIMBYs to developers. I say it because the whole ecosystem that produces our built environment is broken.
Trust me, it's easy for me to point fingers. Finding fault is like shooting fish in a barrel. But that's why I try to apply the gracious approach from Strong Towns - realizing that there's a certain rationality to this broken system and that most people are operating inside a broken system rather than willfully denying the light of our ideas. We're fighting against ideas and cultural expectations, not individuals or specific groups. The whole ecosystem is broken to the point where it doesn't require any real villains to produce dysfunction. And the YIMBYs are wildly mistaken if they think fixing the housing crisis is just a matter of removing barriers to building any and all housing. (And I say that as someone who is generally supportive of YIMBY reforms)
"... most people are operating inside a broken system rather then willfully denying the light of our ideas." Wow, that's so good. I was just having lunch with one of my city councilmembers who is pushing for a lot of things I want to see (zoning reform, repealing parking minimums), but he spoke so awfully about people who disagreed with him. I told him I didn't understand why conservatives weren't more supportive of these deregulations, and he vilified them as being irrational and not wanting "the poors" and "brown people" in their neighborhoods. It was such a disheartening meeting because I wanted to be allied with him on these policy issues, but his posture towards others was just so repulsive. I wish he would have to sign the Strong Towns "Don't be a jerk" agreement!
We're all blind, at least in part, to the ways that our system shapes us. It takes humility to recognize that in ourselves and have understanding when it clearly surfaces in others.
Reading "Thinking Fast and Slow", I was struck by how Kahneman repeatedly demonstrates how people are not totally rational. Yet, he stated that he would not call people irrational — just not perfectly rational all the time. I think that's partially how people can act in ways that seem logical in the system they are dealing with even if they don't realize the irrationality/contradictory nature of the views they hold over all.
You’re bout 1000% better at punditry than Yglesias. And especially because you’ve actually built things in the real world.
Yglesias and Jerusalem Demsas touched on this in one of their podcasts called "Does the oligarchy exist?" where they essentially argued much of the "oligarchy" is upper middle class professionals & professional organizations. It's the dentists who don't want competition from new dentists, so they make it prohibitively difficult and expensive to become a dentist. Not sure that I'd define that as "oligarchy," but it is certainly an ongoing problem in every industry. Your perspective is from a highly educated college town -- but I suspect the same NIMBY trend holds true for upper middle class non-academics across the country
https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/does-the-oligarchy-exist
agree!
If we're talking "man in the arena," I feel compelled to point out that Yglesias and most of his YIMBY buddies don't build anything either. If their reforms (which I'm generally supportive of), don't work, he won't face any consequences - just like the academics you criticized here.
I'm a city planner in a small town and I still live/used to work in a municipal planning department in a southern left-wing college town. I saw plenty of obnoxious NIMBYs (the worst were the ones who were employed by the University but opposed housing because students might live in it), but I never saw the kind of specific jealous academic NIMBY villainized here.
More broadly, I think the villain narrative is misplaced here. For every "Bubba" who wanted to build a beautiful, Missing Middle, infill project, there were 10 who couldn't understand why the planners were objecting to poor design, requiring front porches, advocating for better public spaces, and generally getting in the way of the next gas station, fast food, or self-storage deal. I don't say this to redirect the villain finger from NIMBYs to developers. I say it because the whole ecosystem that produces our built environment is broken.
Trust me, it's easy for me to point fingers. Finding fault is like shooting fish in a barrel. But that's why I try to apply the gracious approach from Strong Towns - realizing that there's a certain rationality to this broken system and that most people are operating inside a broken system rather than willfully denying the light of our ideas. We're fighting against ideas and cultural expectations, not individuals or specific groups. The whole ecosystem is broken to the point where it doesn't require any real villains to produce dysfunction. And the YIMBYs are wildly mistaken if they think fixing the housing crisis is just a matter of removing barriers to building any and all housing. (And I say that as someone who is generally supportive of YIMBY reforms)
"... most people are operating inside a broken system rather then willfully denying the light of our ideas." Wow, that's so good. I was just having lunch with one of my city councilmembers who is pushing for a lot of things I want to see (zoning reform, repealing parking minimums), but he spoke so awfully about people who disagreed with him. I told him I didn't understand why conservatives weren't more supportive of these deregulations, and he vilified them as being irrational and not wanting "the poors" and "brown people" in their neighborhoods. It was such a disheartening meeting because I wanted to be allied with him on these policy issues, but his posture towards others was just so repulsive. I wish he would have to sign the Strong Towns "Don't be a jerk" agreement!
We're all blind, at least in part, to the ways that our system shapes us. It takes humility to recognize that in ourselves and have understanding when it clearly surfaces in others.
Reading "Thinking Fast and Slow", I was struck by how Kahneman repeatedly demonstrates how people are not totally rational. Yet, he stated that he would not call people irrational — just not perfectly rational all the time. I think that's partially how people can act in ways that seem logical in the system they are dealing with even if they don't realize the irrationality/contradictory nature of the views they hold over all.
For You see, i have drawn you as the soyjack and me as the Chad. Therefore my argument is correct.