I feel that your post makes great points, and details well how policy and politics have become so disconnected and great communication is needed to reconnect them. It’s frustrating that people (myself included) often settle on policies that have strong narratives even when they are proven to not solve issues. I think this is the biggest hurdle for the Abundance movement. We are having to retell the story of issues and popularize our account over ingrained ones. Sometimes the facts alone convince people, but most of the time a simple, relevant, and engaging plot is what wins over people.
I think the Abundance movement has a lot of potential, but one asset in YIMBY world that I think is necessary to adopt is it isn't effective to be process-focused in your rhetoric. The goal has to feel salient and tangible. And as of yet, Abundance world hasn't gotten unified and concrete on goals. So far there's a lot of agreement on the general concept of having goals (yay) but hesitancy to get explicit and mobilize on those goals. Hopefully that comes next.
I agree, the Abundance movement needs to detail what outcomes it wants in order for people to buy into it as an outcome-focused policy approach. I think an example of what this might look like is shooting for a certain amount of new housing development to close the gap on what the level of housing and what it would have been if development rates didn’t become what they are now. That’s a pretty easy one to define, I imagine for others it may be harder to quantify or define a specific goal. I feel like it’s a cliche to say but there should be a Project 2025 for Abundance/The Left, we need a playbook to organize around and be able to check off accomplishments for constituents.
This is great. I have been tracking a zoning reform in the Pittsburgh region and seeing that advocates have been making gains when they show the exact changes (as in, measuring existing vs proposed setbacks) and taking pictures of the difference. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, especially when it comes to complex policies.
I feel this as a planning commissioner and a journalist, where I'm working the issue on several fronts. I tried to get parking reform through by just ending mandates (easy!) but this was way too radical and scary so we went into this ridiculously complicated half measure. One county councilor was like, "This is ridiculously complicated!" and I just dropped my head into my hands. You do have to work through the complicated bits with the elected leaders, because only they can really fix it. And they are so overwhelmed by, as you said, how deliberately arcane these rules were made over time. The consultants we hire seem terrified of being seen as "taking sides" they don't explain the options clearly at all, which is a problem. I haven't figured out a playbook yet. (It would be nice if I didn't live in a small town where I often feel like I'm doing this all by myself—e.g., my fellow commissioners would not support my motion to recommend council end parking mandates, zero it out, simple and clean.)
In Canada, we do a lot of policymaking through copying other jurisdictions. It's a lot easier to make a policy change when you can point to other places that have done it successfully. https://morehousing.ca/copying
Yes this makes a lot of sense and would work on reasonable people. I have tried this and every time, I'm told Our Town Is Too Special and we can't possibly apply lessons from anywhere else. Only a town that J. Robert Oppenheimer picked in the middle of the high desert specifically for building the world's first nuclear weapon will do. Are there any others? No? Then nobody else can teach us anything.
Pre-empting local control is going to be very unpopular outside of close in urban areas.
Most exurban and rural areas don’t have NIMBY issues constraining development and they’ve been creating a disproportionate share of new housing.
They do have various needs that the average urban planner does not really get, such as the need for minimum lot size when houses are on well and septic (groundwater issue, not NIMBY), issues around preserving agricultural land to avoid issues like attractive nuisance and problems with moving farm equipment, issues with other limited infrastructure that generally targets housing development towards places that already have adequate roads, issues about keeping especially smelly and noisy activities buffered from other uses, efforts to encourage industrial development in the limited areas where there are good roads and public utilities, etc.
The average planning commission issue out here has very little resemblance to the typical issue in an urban center. The odds of a state or federal administrator handling them well is around zero.
In my experience the best way to get new housing built is to have developers bribe local politicians.
I don't think any politician ever won an election because housing was 3% cheaper five years later then it might theoretically have been in some alternative scenario.
They do win elections with developer funds though. You just gotta tune out the general public and buy off constituencies.
I feel that your post makes great points, and details well how policy and politics have become so disconnected and great communication is needed to reconnect them. It’s frustrating that people (myself included) often settle on policies that have strong narratives even when they are proven to not solve issues. I think this is the biggest hurdle for the Abundance movement. We are having to retell the story of issues and popularize our account over ingrained ones. Sometimes the facts alone convince people, but most of the time a simple, relevant, and engaging plot is what wins over people.
I think the Abundance movement has a lot of potential, but one asset in YIMBY world that I think is necessary to adopt is it isn't effective to be process-focused in your rhetoric. The goal has to feel salient and tangible. And as of yet, Abundance world hasn't gotten unified and concrete on goals. So far there's a lot of agreement on the general concept of having goals (yay) but hesitancy to get explicit and mobilize on those goals. Hopefully that comes next.
I agree, the Abundance movement needs to detail what outcomes it wants in order for people to buy into it as an outcome-focused policy approach. I think an example of what this might look like is shooting for a certain amount of new housing development to close the gap on what the level of housing and what it would have been if development rates didn’t become what they are now. That’s a pretty easy one to define, I imagine for others it may be harder to quantify or define a specific goal. I feel like it’s a cliche to say but there should be a Project 2025 for Abundance/The Left, we need a playbook to organize around and be able to check off accomplishments for constituents.
This is great. I have been tracking a zoning reform in the Pittsburgh region and seeing that advocates have been making gains when they show the exact changes (as in, measuring existing vs proposed setbacks) and taking pictures of the difference. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, especially when it comes to complex policies.
I feel this as a planning commissioner and a journalist, where I'm working the issue on several fronts. I tried to get parking reform through by just ending mandates (easy!) but this was way too radical and scary so we went into this ridiculously complicated half measure. One county councilor was like, "This is ridiculously complicated!" and I just dropped my head into my hands. You do have to work through the complicated bits with the elected leaders, because only they can really fix it. And they are so overwhelmed by, as you said, how deliberately arcane these rules were made over time. The consultants we hire seem terrified of being seen as "taking sides" they don't explain the options clearly at all, which is a problem. I haven't figured out a playbook yet. (It would be nice if I didn't live in a small town where I often feel like I'm doing this all by myself—e.g., my fellow commissioners would not support my motion to recommend council end parking mandates, zero it out, simple and clean.)
In Canada, we do a lot of policymaking through copying other jurisdictions. It's a lot easier to make a policy change when you can point to other places that have done it successfully. https://morehousing.ca/copying
Yes this makes a lot of sense and would work on reasonable people. I have tried this and every time, I'm told Our Town Is Too Special and we can't possibly apply lessons from anywhere else. Only a town that J. Robert Oppenheimer picked in the middle of the high desert specifically for building the world's first nuclear weapon will do. Are there any others? No? Then nobody else can teach us anything.
Thank you so much for this!
Pre-empting local control is going to be very unpopular outside of close in urban areas.
Most exurban and rural areas don’t have NIMBY issues constraining development and they’ve been creating a disproportionate share of new housing.
They do have various needs that the average urban planner does not really get, such as the need for minimum lot size when houses are on well and septic (groundwater issue, not NIMBY), issues around preserving agricultural land to avoid issues like attractive nuisance and problems with moving farm equipment, issues with other limited infrastructure that generally targets housing development towards places that already have adequate roads, issues about keeping especially smelly and noisy activities buffered from other uses, efforts to encourage industrial development in the limited areas where there are good roads and public utilities, etc.
The average planning commission issue out here has very little resemblance to the typical issue in an urban center. The odds of a state or federal administrator handling them well is around zero.
In my experience the best way to get new housing built is to have developers bribe local politicians.
I don't think any politician ever won an election because housing was 3% cheaper five years later then it might theoretically have been in some alternative scenario.
They do win elections with developer funds though. You just gotta tune out the general public and buy off constituencies.