Usually the YIMBY proposal is to take zoning decisions out of local hands, on the theory that at the municipal, regional, or state level addressing housing crisis can outweigh idiosyncratic NIMBY resistance. 1/
https://twitter.com/CityLab/status/1363401737231564802
This proposal by @johnrmyers and @michael_hendrix flips that intuition on its head, arguing that at a sufficiently hyperlocal level, there are plenty of city blocks that would not object, that might for their own idiosyncratic reasons desire, “upzoning” of one form or another. 2/
If we enshrined a hyperlocal *option* to upzone, on terms agreed by immediate neighbors, would enough tiny sovereignties opt for granny flats or fourplexes to put a dent in housing supply bottlenecks? 3/
Market YIMBYs want distant governments to force localities to make owners of individual lots sovereign over land use. The status quo gives effective veto power to objectors within a sizeable catchment surrounding a change. 4/
Narrowing the size of the veto-empowered catchment, without eliminating it, is an interesting compromise. Those most affected by externalities retain their veto, discouraging neighborhood-capital destructive forms of “progress”. 5/
But a smaller population of stakeholders that needs to be won over renders it much more tractable to actually win over incumbents, when a change is not destructive, might even be desirable, from immediate neighbors’ perspective. Interesting. /fin
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