The YIMBY (; or yimby, an acronym for the phrase for "yes in my back yard") movement, or YIMBYism, is a pro-housing social movement that focuses on encouraging new housing, opposing density limits (such as single-family zoning) and other housing supply regulations, and supporting public transportation. It stands in opposition to residents it calls NIMBY ("not in my back yard"), referring to those who generally oppose most forms of urban development in order to maintain the status quo, typically low-density suburban housing.
As an organized movement in the United States, the YIMBY movement began in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 2010s amid a housing affordability crisis and has subsequently become a potent political force in local, state, and national politics in the United States.
The YIMBY position supports increasing the supply of housing within cities where housing costs have escalated to unaffordable levels. They have also supported infrastructure development projects like improving housing development (especially for affordable housing or trailer parks), high-speed rail lines, homeless shelters, day cares, schools, universities and colleges, bike lanes, and pedestrian safety infrastructure. YIMBYs often seek rezoning that would allow more housing units to be produced per area or the repurposing of obsolete buildings, such as shopping malls, into housing. Cities that have adopted YIMBY policies have seen substantial increase in housing supply and reductions in rent. YIMBYism is about more than zoning laws, but to prioritise a developmental rather than stasis oriented property system "against a gentry of incumbent landowners who favor preservation of the built environment and protection of their vested rights in the zoned status quo."
The YIMBY movement has supporters across the political spectrum, including left-leaning adherents who believe housing production is a social justice issue, free-market libertarian proponents who think the supply of housing should not be regulated by the government, and environmentalists who believe land use reform will slow down exurban development into natural areas. Some YIMBYs also support efforts to shape growth in the public interest such as transit-oriented development, green construction, or expanding the role of public housing. YIMBYs argue cities can be made increasingly affordable and accessible by building more infill housing, and that greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced by denser cities.
History The term started being used in the 1980s by nuclear energy advocates in reference to opposition to nuclear plants in the wake of the Three Mile Island accident. By 1991, YIMBY was an established term since the 1980s, understood to mean "Yes-in-many-backyards".
A 1993 essay published in the Journal of the American Planning Association entitled "Planners' Alchemy, Transforming NIMBY to YIMBY: Rethinking NIMBY" used 'YIMBY' in general reference to development, not only housing development.
The pro-housing YIMBY position emerged in regions experiencing unaffordable housing prices. The Guardian and Raidió Teilifís Éireann say this movement began in the San Francisco Bay area in the 2010s due to high housing costs created as a result of the local technology industry adding many more jobs to the region than the number of housing units constructed in the same time span.
California YIMBY, the first political YIMBY group, was founded with the funding of Bay Area tech executives and companies. Dustin Moskovitz (Facebook, Asana) and his wife Cari Tuna donated $500,000 via their Open Philanthropy foundation; Nat Friedman (Xamarin, GitHub) and Zack Rosen (Pantheon Systems) donated another $500,000. Another $1 million donation came from the online payments company Stripe.
Varieties of the YIMBY Movement
The YIMBY movement consists of various factions with differing motivations, the debate over YIMBY policies is not limited to a single political line, with YIMBY activists aligning from across the political spectrum.
Modern liberals' side
Surveys of both the public and elected officials show that Democrats are more likely than Republicans to support dense, multifamily housing. A 2024 study of mayors and city councils shows that "electing a Democrat as mayor leads to increased multifamily housing production. These effects are concentrated in cities where councils have less power over land use changes."
A major part of the political coalition aligned with the movement includes environmentalists and proponents of sustainability who support measures to legalize higher density. Urban development with higher density reduces the population’s need to travel by automobile, and thus, cities’ need to develop car-based infrastructure, which in the United States accounts for 29% of all greenhouse gas emissions.
Libertarians' side Proponents of free market economics back zoning deregulation from a different perspective. They see increased housing density as a way to stimulate economic growth, foster innovation, and improve productivity by encouraging the free flow of people and ideas. In their view, deregulated housing markets enable more efficient land use, reduce housing costs, and enhance individual property rights.
A 2019 study by Chang-Tai Hsieh and Enrico Moretti in the American Economic Journal found that liberalization of land use regulations would lead to enormous productivity gains. The study estimated that strict land use regulations "lowered aggregate US growth by 36 percent from 1964 to 2009."
Similarly, a study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic research also estimated that deregulating land use in the United States would lead to productivity gains, with domestic output projected to increase between 3–6% and economic well-being lifted by 3–9%.
The free market faction, unlike liberals, believes that while higher-density housing should be allowed, it shouldn't be forced within existing cities solely for environmental reasons, with figures like libertarians, and free-market advocates like Matt Yglesias opposing urban growth boundaries. They argue that restricting development to urban areas contradicts consumer preferences.
Opposition to YIMBY Conversely, because "NIMBY" is often used as a pejorative,You can't park here: it's my retreat, says ‘Nimby’ Clooney (The Times) self-identified NIMBYs are rare. But opposition to YIMBY policies comes from various sides.
Tension with leftists and tenant advocates
The argument that new "luxury" housing will not help solve the housing shortage is a well-worn refrain of progressive urban politics. 30-40% percent of US voters believe more housing would increase (rather than decrease) prices, and another 30% believe it would have no effect.
Some socialists and renter advocates concerned about resident displacement through gentrification, who reject market-rate housing, disagree with housing economists that displacement is caused by lack of sufficient housing supply. In local elections, opposition to YIMBY policies is particularly pronounced; studies show that voter turnout among landowners nearly doubles when zoning issues are on the ballot.
Support for public housing and/or opposition to market-rate housing has been referred to as "PHIMBY", for "public housing in my backyard". Similarly, requiring a very high inclusionary (i.e., subsidized) percentage for new construction can result in less housing development, as subsidized homes are often more expensive to build than market-rate ones.
The origins of the modern YIMBY movement are separate from existing tenants' rights groups, which are suspicious of their association with young, white technology workers and may be wary of disrupting the status quo, which allows incumbent groups to use discretionary planning processes to negotiate for benefits while slowing development in general. Some have cited high vacancy rates and high rents in high-demand cities as a sign that increasing market-rate housing does not improve affordability. A common misconception is the "supply skepticism", which claims new housing would draw more migration than it houses and this would worsen the housing crisis further.
Populist Republicans and homeowners Right-wing figures such as Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson have historically appealed to preservationists, local power brokers, and homeowners concerned about their property values.
Other opposition Suburban residents often push for new housing developments to be concentrated in other areas with higher proportions of nonwhite populations, rather than in their own neighborhoods. The Bay Area's Regional Housing Needs Allocation process has been found to correlate with cities' white population percentages, resulting in fewer affordable housing allocations in areas with larger white populations. In response, elected officials and planners, seeking to appease these constituents, direct development into downtown areas, where higher and more expensive buildings are constructed, ultimately raising the cost per housing unit.
California Evidence from California suggests that support for development is often higher when the development is less local. For example, a statewide upzoning bill will have more popular support statewide than a new apartment building will have from the immediate neighbors. This can vary by state. While the national Sierra Club is in favor of infill development, local Sierra Club chapters in California oppose making development easier in their own cities. A 2019 poll conducted by Lake Reach Partners for California YIMBY found that support for more infill development is higher among renters, Democrats, and Black people, though it enjoys majority support among all groups in California.
Cases for upzoning or increasing density
Upzoning in the absence of additional housing production appeared to raise prices in Chicago, though the author disputed that this could lead to general conclusions about the affordability effects of upzoning.
In Auckland, New Zealand, the introduction of upzoning led to a stimulation of the housing construction industry and an increase in the city’s supply of housing.
In Portland, Oregon, an analysis of 17 years of land use deregulation policies found that individual land parcels in upzoned areas had significantly higher probabilities of development, density creation, and net additions to the Portland housing supply.
Fair housing Research shows that strict land use regulations contribute to racial housing segregation in the United States. Surveys have shown that white communities are more likely to have strict land use regulations and whites are more likely to support those regulations.
Cases against regulation of housing supply Academic research has yielded some generalizable results on the effects of increasing housing supply.
Housing supply and prices Several studies show that strict land use regulations reduce housing supply and raise the price of houses and land.
Some research into the granular effects of additional housing supply shows that new housing units in hot markets may not raise the rates by which rents increase in nearby market-rate units. This has been observed in outer boroughs of New York City (though not within 3.14 miles of the Empire State Building, where new housing is correlated with a slight rise in the rate of rental growth), in San Francisco (looking at housing units next to burned-out properties which were rebuilt), in Helsinki, and across multiple cities. Additionally, in California, new market-rate housing reduced displacement and slowed rises in rent. These studies do not show overall rent decreases from new housing units; in each study cited above, all housing became less affordable over time.