Secretary Ben Carson is joining the ranks of the YIMBYs, whether they want him or not

[C.]

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/p...ant-him-or-not

Ben Carson is aiming to become the nation’s highest-ranking YIMBY.

HUD Secretary Ben Carson argued that cities with the most restrictive land use regulations are the ones that suffer the worst unaffordability and homelessness, citing Los Angeles and San Francisco.
(Graeme Jennings/Washington Examiner)

That is, he’s aiming to encourage people to say “Yes in My Back Yard,” instead of “Not in My Back Yard,” or NIMBYism, as its known.

In recent weeks, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development has embraced YIMBYism and called for the federal government to promote it, surprising agency watchers and urbanists and pleasing the bipartisan coalition of reformers who believe that restrictive zoning and land-use regulations are to blame for the rental crisis afflicting the nation and closing off coastal cities to the middle class.

“What we’re trying to do, obviously, is create more affordable housing,” Carson told the Washington Examiner. “And we can’t do it if we continue to have all of these zoning restrictions and other regulatory restrictions. It just drives the price up incredibly.”

Carson argued that cities with the most restrictive land use regulations are the ones that suffer the worst unaffordability and homelessness, citing Los Angeles and San Francisco.

[C.]

Very interesting...

The 2015 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule prompted cities and counties to identify and remedy, through a variety of means, housing segregation. Failure to comply put local officials at risk of losing out on HUD community development block grants.

The rule could be reworked, though, to focus on narrowly incentivizing local governments to reduce land-use regulations and encourage housing growth.

Free-market groups have encouraged Carson to do just that.

“At a minimum, the federal government should not subsidize exclusionary policy,” analysts Salim Furth and Emily Hamilton of the libertarian Mercatus Center wrote in a comment submitted to HUD. “Why should national taxpayers foot the bill for rent subsidies where the rent is artificially high as a result of unreasonable limitations of private property rights?”

YIMBYism is a free-market stance in the sense that it promotes fewer government restrictions on home building and apartment construction.

Exclusionary housing policies, though, aren’t necessarily favored by Republicans or Democrats. Rather, they are promoted by established owners of all ideological stripes who have a vested interest in maintaining property values in their neighborhoods.

Democratic Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have both recently put forward YIMBYish legislation to require cities and counties to ease housing regulations in order to be eligible for federal grants. In Warren’s bill, that provision would be paired with huge increases in federal funding for affordable housing projects.

[mhays]

Some of that could be used to argue for sprawl, with all of the problems and financial costs that entails.

[C.]

Originally Posted by mhays

Some of that could be used to argue for sprawl, with all of the problems and financial costs that entails.

How so? Sprawl is the ultimate in government subsidization.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by mhays

Some of that could be used to argue for sprawl, with all of the problems and financial costs that entails.

Right so suburban communities will have less ability to turn away denser developments andpotential commerical enterprises etc.

In phoenix this is a big thing, some people in the Phoenix Country club just killed a 15 story condo highrise as being out of cahrecter despite a ~20 story condo building exsisting literally on the other side of the golf course and 20-30 story office towers being less than a 1/2 mile away.

[jtown,man]

Urbanism is the one subject I find myself being way more liberal than my liberal friends.

[pdxtex]

classist urban liberals and classist conservative suburbanites hate the same thing, poor people! at least suburbanites are more transparent about their disdain, they just moved away. carson is right, over regulation begets expensive and exclusive markets....

[dave8721]

I also see this as a tool that could help promote sprawl. Here is Florida many counties have regulations preventing sprawl outside of development boundaries. Those boundaries could be seen as "NIMBY" and preventing more housing. Without a doubt Miami-Dade's boundary squeezes supply and jacks up prices but its largely supported down here as we would rather not pave the Everglades and sprawl to Naples.

[C.]

Originally Posted by dave8721

I also see this as a tool that could help promote sprawl. Here is Florida many counties have regulations preventing sprawl outside of development boundaries. Those boundaries could be seen as "NIMBY" and preventing more housing. Without a doubt Miami-Dade's boundary squeezes supply and jacks up prices but its largely supported down here as we would rather not pave the Everglades and sprawl to Naples.

Florida has to be the most sprawled state in the nation. Whatever methods the state thinks it has to prevent sprawl has severely failed in the eyes of the rest of the country.

But let's assume you are correct. YIMBYism has got to be a net benefit. People have to live somewhere. Right now if they can't live within a city because of highly restrictive zoning, they're going to end up in the suburbs anyway.

[C.]

We can't loosen restrictive zoning regulations to allow for more multi-family housing to be built because that will lead to more sprawl...

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by CIA

Florida has to be the most sprawled state in the nation. Whatever methods the state thinks it has to prevent sprawl has severely failed in the eyes of the rest of the country.

I disagree. Every state sprawls. Florida allows for dense high rise development along their shores and many of the metros are physically constrained. It is a state of 20 million that is rapidly growing. When you look at the urban area map of Florida there are huge metros, separated by huge areas that are basically uninhabitable, which is quite different from other states that can sprawl all across their boundaries.

I would think that Georgia and N.C. are bigger offenders. Certainly anything east of KCMO is characterized by metros separated by low density settlements all across the land. This is not possible in a place like Florida [swamps, wetlands] and western states [mountains, federal lands, Indian reservations].

[L41A]

I do not agree that Florida is a sprawled out state when you are talking specifically to its metros. The topography of the state help to dictate that its metros are somewhat compact - you have the ocean, bays, lakes, swamps, rivers, national forests, etc that helps to control its metros from sprawling.

Florida is a state however that has sizable metros throughout its total area unlike many states with a large land mass.

[C.]

Let's look at population density of Florida metro areas and compare to other cities in the rest of the country. They're lower than the average. Having a few beachfront condos doesn't equate to density. For one it's bad planning in the age of sea level rise and I bet a lot of them are vacation homes.

[SIGSEGV]

It doesn't help that many of the beachfront properties are seasonal homes or timeshares.

[sopas ej]

I didn't even read the article, but being that this is Ben Carson, I'm going to assume that this is some kind of free market ploy that still keeps things status quo for the wealthy, like maybe along the lines of getting rid of zoning for middle and lower income neighborhoods to allow anything and everything to be built there, but not changing the zoning of wealthy mansion-on-3-or-more-acres neighborhoods.

[dave8721]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

I disagree. Every state sprawls. Florida allows for dense high rise development along their shores and many of the metros are physically constrained. It is a state of 20 million that is rapidly growing. When you look at the urban area map of Florida there are huge metros, separated by huge areas that are basically uninhabitable, which is quite different from other states that can sprawl all across their boundaries.

I would think that Georgia and N.C. are bigger offenders. Certainly anything east of KCMO is characterized by metros separated by low density settlements all across the land. This is not possible in a place like Florida [swamps, wetlands] and western states [mountains, federal lands, Indian reservations].

Those empty areas aren't uninhabitable, they are uninhabited. All the areas that are inhabited used to look just like those uninhabited areas. They are uninhabited due to government restrictions (draining a swamp isn't that hard, 95% of South Florida is drained swampland). I am using sprawl as a verb by the way as in to spread out. Florida metros are full of sprawl (the noun) in that they are car centric but they are constrained and do not sprawl (the verb) out to infinity like metros in the rest of the U.S, at least the ones on the East coast are. Keeping those limits is a daily fight against developers who want to spread subdivisions forever.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

classist urban liberals and classist conservative suburbanites hate the same thing, poor people! at least suburbanites are more transparent about their disdain, they just moved away. carson is right, over regulation begets expensive and exclusive markets....

Good, let's start with eliminating zoning laws and parking requirements.

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by CIA

Let's look at population density of Florida metro areas and compare to other cities in the rest of the country. They're lower than the average. Having a few beachfront condos doesn't equate to density. For one it's bad planning in the age of sea level rise and I bet a lot of them are vacation homes.

Miami is one of the most dense urban areas in the U.S. - Only LA, SF, San Jose, NY, Honolulu, Vegas rank higher than Miami.


Florida has crammed 20 million and growing into a state that is physically restricted by wetlands.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

classist urban liberals and classist conservative suburbanites hate the same thing, poor people! at least suburbanites are more transparent about their disdain, they just moved away. carson is right, over regulation begets expensive and exclusive markets....

I think the basic reason is that while national politics are polarized and tribalized, for the most part local politics are not. Social issues barely even enter into things, and economic issues - for the most part - are "do we cut spending on government services or raise taxes?"

On issues like land use, except for maybe affordable housing, nothing fits into the existing left-right paradigm. So people are free to just favor their own narrow interests over everything else.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by The North One

Good, let's start with eliminating zoning laws and parking requirements.

Parking requirements is a big one.