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Yes to the City: Millennials and the Fight for Affordable Housing
A fascinating account of the growing "Yes in My Backyard" urban movement
The exorbitant costs of urban housing and the widening gap in income inequality are fueling a combative new movement in cities around the world. A growing number of influential activists aren’t waiting for new public housing to be built. Instead, they’re calling for more construction and denser cities in order to increase affordability. Yes to the City offers an in-depth look at the “Yes in My Backyard” (YIMBY) movement. From its origins in San Francisco to its current cadre of activists pushing for new apartment towers in places like Boulder, Austin, and London, Max Holleran explores how urban density, once maligned for its association with overpopulated slums, has become a rallying cry for millennial activists locked out of housing markets and unable to pay high rents.
Holleran provides a detailed account of YIMBY activists campaigning for construction, new zoning rules, better public transit, and even candidates for local and state office. YIMBY groups draw together an unlikely coalition, from developers and real estate agents to environmentalists, and Holleran looks at the increasingly contentious battles between market-driven pragmatists and rent-control idealists. Arguing that advocates for more housing must carefully weigh their demands for supply with the continuing damage of gentrification, he shows that these individuals see high-density urbanism and walkable urban spaces as progressive statements about the kind of society they would like to create.
Chronicling a major shift in housing activism during the past twenty years, Yes to the City considers how one movement has reframed conversations about urban growth.
The exorbitant costs of urban housing and the widening gap in income inequality are fueling a combative new movement in cities around the world. A growing number of influential activists aren’t waiting for new public housing to be built. Instead, they’re calling for more construction and denser cities in order to increase affordability. Yes to the City offers an in-depth look at the “Yes in My Backyard” (YIMBY) movement. From its origins in San Francisco to its current cadre of activists pushing for new apartment towers in places like Boulder, Austin, and London, Max Holleran explores how urban density, once maligned for its association with overpopulated slums, has become a rallying cry for millennial activists locked out of housing markets and unable to pay high rents.
Holleran provides a detailed account of YIMBY activists campaigning for construction, new zoning rules, better public transit, and even candidates for local and state office. YIMBY groups draw together an unlikely coalition, from developers and real estate agents to environmentalists, and Holleran looks at the increasingly contentious battles between market-driven pragmatists and rent-control idealists. Arguing that advocates for more housing must carefully weigh their demands for supply with the continuing damage of gentrification, he shows that these individuals see high-density urbanism and walkable urban spaces as progressive statements about the kind of society they would like to create.
Chronicling a major shift in housing activism during the past twenty years, Yes to the City considers how one movement has reframed conversations about urban growth.
216 pages, Hardcover
Published July 5, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 22, 2022
I read this book for professional reasons, but I really enjoyed it as well (coming clean, I'm one of many people he thanks in the acknowledgements). Max Holleran has written a relatively 'non academic' introduction to the YIMBY (Yes in my Backyard) movement. The international campaign to counter anti-housing local politics first got that name in San Francisco, which like several of the cities Holleran describes, went from being a hippie 'open city' in the 1960s to an over-priced 'closed city' in the 2010s. YIMBY has a strong generational aspect: boomers who thought themselves progressive in the 1960s and 1970s campaigning for historical preservation downtown, bought houses in central cities when they were cheap, and now find themselves on the wrong side of history opposing intensification near jobs and services. But the YIMBY/NIMBY nexus is complicated: many progressive 'anti-gentrification' activists are rightly concerned about loss of affordable rental housing in traditionally low-income neighbourhoods, and see YIMBY groups as shills for private development. However, in most cities, non-profit housing will never be the only solution for low and moderate income households. YIMBY groups often advocate most loudly for social and supportive housing (usually the most vehemently opposed housing, even by self-styled 'progressives'), and both NIMBY and YIMBY groups are concerned about sprawl. Holleran gets at these complexities with strong case studies from Austin, Boulder, and Melbourne as well as San Francisco, and his interview subjects resonate with my own experiences working with these groups on affordable housing.
April 17, 2023
I came to this book as someone interested in housing affordability issues in general and also in the growing debate around planning and its impacts and the different 'YIMBY' movements. I expected this book to be a bit of a policy manifesto, exploring and making a case for upzoning and more dense development. In fact, it's more of an ethnography. It's very much an ethnography of YIMBYism, and I feel the author is highly sympathetic, but it doesn't really explore the policy justifications or their truth one way or the other.
That said - I really enjoyed it. I think the author does a good job of situating the movement in its historical context, and using various sources to explain how it came about and the different ideas and discussions that exist within different YIMBY groups. What I found most edifying about this was its examination of the demographic role of YIMBYs, as being pre-dominantly middle-class renters who historically may have been owners. How the author explores this, and the tensions with working-class anti-gentrification forces, is I think a strength.
That said - I really enjoyed it. I think the author does a good job of situating the movement in its historical context, and using various sources to explain how it came about and the different ideas and discussions that exist within different YIMBY groups. What I found most edifying about this was its examination of the demographic role of YIMBYs, as being pre-dominantly middle-class renters who historically may have been owners. How the author explores this, and the tensions with working-class anti-gentrification forces, is I think a strength.
June 30, 2024
In 2016, Max Holleran was intrigued by the increasing use of the term YIMBY (Yes in My Backyard) in housing debates and embarked upon a research project to study its use, spread, and the many meanings attached to it. The resulting book -- Yes to the City: Millennials and the Fight for Affordable Housing -- is a sharp, timely, and accessible study of the rise of the YIMBY movement and the housing politics it has created among urban millennials. The author is clearly sympathetic to the movement, but is also critical of it in important and constructive ways.
The foundations for the book are content analysis of social media data and online conversations about development, ethnographic observation of activist meetings, archival research on municipal history, and sixty-five in-depth interviews with YIMBY activists in sixteen cities across five countries.
The YIMBY movement is different from the traditional movements in the housing space. Anti-gentrification activism (the dominant left-wing housing activism space) centers on low-income communities of color at risk for displacement. The foundational conflict is between such communities (or communities of artists and activists in bohemian neighborhoods) and developers seeking to build “luxury” housing in the neighborhood or predatory landlords. However, the base for YIMBY activism is, in contrast, decidedly middle-class: the middle-class, disproportionately younger (< 40) renters who want the benefits of urban living. They don’t see high-rises going up as the enemy or developers as the enemy: instead, the “villain” of the YIMBY narrative is the change-averse NIMBY (not in my backyard) homeowner whose arguments for “neighborhood character” can often disguise more self-interested reasons of protection of property value. The “luxury apartment” is no longer the anathema; instead, the single-family zoning district.
By focusing on increasing housing supply, YIMBY groups can often bring together ideological strains that don’t always sit easily together: there are YIMBY socialists who want to build more (and especially love to build social housing or public housing) as well as YIMBY libertarian (whose main goal is to get the state out of the way). This catchall quality can lead to tensions both within YIMBY spaces and between them and other housing activists. Fighting to open up privileged, white, affluent neighborhoods in a city or in nearby suburbs to multifamily construction is one thing, but doing so in gentrifying Black and Latino neighborhoods can sow ill will between groups, especially when some view YIMBY groups as astroturfing for developers. There are similarly intra-YIMBY divides about the non-production aspects of housing -- issues like rent control or social / public housing, which attract the ire of more libertarian YIMBYs.
A focus on ending single-family zoning is an important part of the housing picture -- and it benefits from a marketable simplicity, even if the case for zoning reform as a panacea doesn't stack up (it is an essential tool, but one that is necessary but not sufficient). The research shows that increased production will eventually lower rent prices, but not nearly at the rate needed to slow (let alone reverse) displacement. Having affordable rents in five or ten years doesn’t help much if you’ve already moved out. Similarly, the movement doesn’t have a clear answer for growing problems like short-term rentals (Airbnb was, indeed, a sponsor of a recent YIMBY conference) or the increasing number of units being bought up by investors who sit on them: both take units off the market, breaking the functioning of a supply-and-demand that YIMBYs seek to fix.
However, it is true that the state, given the lack of political will, isn’t about to solve the housing crisis through ramping up public housing production or other purely state-directed means. The YIMBY dependence on developers as part of the solution can be painted as a capitulation to the status quo, but it need not be.
Holleran’s book traces the emergence of YIMBY politics in San Francisco (as well as the roots of the problem it seeks to fix), analyzes the tactics and rhetoric organizers used (especially the reframing of the housing issue along a *generational* divide between older homeowners and younger renters, as opposed to a mainly *economic* divide), discusses case case studies of Boulder and Austin, and explores how the YIMBY movement has spread to other countries.
What’s new about this housing activism -- beyond the reflection of lifestyle changes among millennials, a different class composition (most YIMBYs are college graduates, if not with postgraduate degrees), and central conflict? There are also different activist tools. As Holleran explains: "Yet it also points to two growing trends: activism that engages in deep education on complex processes (climate change, supply chains, water supply, etc.) and the meme-ification of issues into bite-sized digital morsels that can be shared...Sometimes it seemed that there was a hoped-for target audience of people who wanted to become experts in transportation planning, sustainable design, or zoning; other times there seemed to be an admission that contemporary activism depends on online provocation" (p. 172). This seems very much a phenomenon of the past decade, and I’ve seen it across issues, with the housing/transit space most salient.
Holleran believes that the future of YIMBY activism will need to more clearly grapple with the *climate* reasons for its necessity. A decarbonized planet simply requires more density in our urban areas and more transit-oriented development. The single family home and the suburb are climate disasters. As Holelran notes, “teaching people how to live together -- efficiently, compromising between self-interest and community well-being, and striving to create realistic urban policy -- is more important than ever" -- although, as he also points out, the climate crisis will challenge a YIMBY libertarian worldview. We do need more state action for the changes necessary for housing and for our economy writ large. Innovative models like social housing, co-ops, and community land trusts will need state support to flourish, and mandating density is state action, not the lack of it.
Central to YIMBY activism is a reframing of what we see housing for. NIMBY homeowners (and politicians who listen to them) see housing as an asset for building wealth. As long as we link home ownership with wealth building, many of the necessary solutions to our housing crisis will not be politically viable. This delinking is more radical than many YIMBYs even believe when you take it to its natural conclusion, which would be a decommodification of housing. Whether taken that far or not, it is still important for focusing our vision of housing as meeting a basic need and cultivating the art of living together -- there’s really no other way.
The foundations for the book are content analysis of social media data and online conversations about development, ethnographic observation of activist meetings, archival research on municipal history, and sixty-five in-depth interviews with YIMBY activists in sixteen cities across five countries.
The YIMBY movement is different from the traditional movements in the housing space. Anti-gentrification activism (the dominant left-wing housing activism space) centers on low-income communities of color at risk for displacement. The foundational conflict is between such communities (or communities of artists and activists in bohemian neighborhoods) and developers seeking to build “luxury” housing in the neighborhood or predatory landlords. However, the base for YIMBY activism is, in contrast, decidedly middle-class: the middle-class, disproportionately younger (< 40) renters who want the benefits of urban living. They don’t see high-rises going up as the enemy or developers as the enemy: instead, the “villain” of the YIMBY narrative is the change-averse NIMBY (not in my backyard) homeowner whose arguments for “neighborhood character” can often disguise more self-interested reasons of protection of property value. The “luxury apartment” is no longer the anathema; instead, the single-family zoning district.
By focusing on increasing housing supply, YIMBY groups can often bring together ideological strains that don’t always sit easily together: there are YIMBY socialists who want to build more (and especially love to build social housing or public housing) as well as YIMBY libertarian (whose main goal is to get the state out of the way). This catchall quality can lead to tensions both within YIMBY spaces and between them and other housing activists. Fighting to open up privileged, white, affluent neighborhoods in a city or in nearby suburbs to multifamily construction is one thing, but doing so in gentrifying Black and Latino neighborhoods can sow ill will between groups, especially when some view YIMBY groups as astroturfing for developers. There are similarly intra-YIMBY divides about the non-production aspects of housing -- issues like rent control or social / public housing, which attract the ire of more libertarian YIMBYs.
A focus on ending single-family zoning is an important part of the housing picture -- and it benefits from a marketable simplicity, even if the case for zoning reform as a panacea doesn't stack up (it is an essential tool, but one that is necessary but not sufficient). The research shows that increased production will eventually lower rent prices, but not nearly at the rate needed to slow (let alone reverse) displacement. Having affordable rents in five or ten years doesn’t help much if you’ve already moved out. Similarly, the movement doesn’t have a clear answer for growing problems like short-term rentals (Airbnb was, indeed, a sponsor of a recent YIMBY conference) or the increasing number of units being bought up by investors who sit on them: both take units off the market, breaking the functioning of a supply-and-demand that YIMBYs seek to fix.
However, it is true that the state, given the lack of political will, isn’t about to solve the housing crisis through ramping up public housing production or other purely state-directed means. The YIMBY dependence on developers as part of the solution can be painted as a capitulation to the status quo, but it need not be.
Holleran’s book traces the emergence of YIMBY politics in San Francisco (as well as the roots of the problem it seeks to fix), analyzes the tactics and rhetoric organizers used (especially the reframing of the housing issue along a *generational* divide between older homeowners and younger renters, as opposed to a mainly *economic* divide), discusses case case studies of Boulder and Austin, and explores how the YIMBY movement has spread to other countries.
What’s new about this housing activism -- beyond the reflection of lifestyle changes among millennials, a different class composition (most YIMBYs are college graduates, if not with postgraduate degrees), and central conflict? There are also different activist tools. As Holleran explains: "Yet it also points to two growing trends: activism that engages in deep education on complex processes (climate change, supply chains, water supply, etc.) and the meme-ification of issues into bite-sized digital morsels that can be shared...Sometimes it seemed that there was a hoped-for target audience of people who wanted to become experts in transportation planning, sustainable design, or zoning; other times there seemed to be an admission that contemporary activism depends on online provocation" (p. 172). This seems very much a phenomenon of the past decade, and I’ve seen it across issues, with the housing/transit space most salient.
Holleran believes that the future of YIMBY activism will need to more clearly grapple with the *climate* reasons for its necessity. A decarbonized planet simply requires more density in our urban areas and more transit-oriented development. The single family home and the suburb are climate disasters. As Holelran notes, “teaching people how to live together -- efficiently, compromising between self-interest and community well-being, and striving to create realistic urban policy -- is more important than ever" -- although, as he also points out, the climate crisis will challenge a YIMBY libertarian worldview. We do need more state action for the changes necessary for housing and for our economy writ large. Innovative models like social housing, co-ops, and community land trusts will need state support to flourish, and mandating density is state action, not the lack of it.
Central to YIMBY activism is a reframing of what we see housing for. NIMBY homeowners (and politicians who listen to them) see housing as an asset for building wealth. As long as we link home ownership with wealth building, many of the necessary solutions to our housing crisis will not be politically viable. This delinking is more radical than many YIMBYs even believe when you take it to its natural conclusion, which would be a decommodification of housing. Whether taken that far or not, it is still important for focusing our vision of housing as meeting a basic need and cultivating the art of living together -- there’s really no other way.
March 26, 2023
This book provides a sociological history and perspective on the YIMBY movement - as it originated in San Francisco, and how it grew throughout the US and internationally. It describes the YIMBY movement and its primary constituency (generally, well educated and well employed millennial renters) in response to anti-growth incumbent homeowners, and its routine conflicts with traditional tenants rights/anti-gentrification activists.
I found this an informative perspective and it lines up with a lot of what I've seen locally in Toronto housing activism. I'd highly recommend it to other self-described YIMBYs, particularly those most involved in activism/organizing, as its outlining of YIMBYs as a socio-economic group and how they/we interact with other groups in the space can provide important lessons.
I found this an informative perspective and it lines up with a lot of what I've seen locally in Toronto housing activism. I'd highly recommend it to other self-described YIMBYs, particularly those most involved in activism/organizing, as its outlining of YIMBYs as a socio-economic group and how they/we interact with other groups in the space can provide important lessons.
August 8, 2025
In spite of piercing insights and great erudition, this book falls short of receiving my ringing endorsement for reasons of feel: it is drier than the sprawling American Southwest, with the telltale structure of a cobbled together academic monograph. Because Mr. Holleran has a firm grasp on post-WWII development history and a knack for protein-packed sentences that wrangle several ideas into a coherent theoretical diagnosis, I couldn't help but feel like his skills are misused on the tenure track. Mr. H, we need you in the trenches—no more writing about the movement, let's get you at the council meetings, brother!
Yes to the City is a nice primer for those who want to understand where YIMBYism came from, what types of obstacles it has faced and continues to face, and how it has fared in comparative international offshoots. The last 50 pages start to drag a bit as the visible seams make clear that this work began its life as separate papers / conference presentations. But all in all, Holleran writes lucidly and engagingly enough about a topic that rightfully maintains a reputation for wonkiness; for all their talk of inclusive zoning practices, YIMBYs seem to relish esoteric jargon and technocracy with a(n inadvertently?) high barrier to entry.
The great YIMBY manifesto still eludes us, and it may or may not be a necessary precursor to full political ascendancy. It won't be this book, but if Holleran wants to leave the ivory tower for the barricades, his pen might be put to better purposes with a more prescriptive thrust.
Yes to the City is a nice primer for those who want to understand where YIMBYism came from, what types of obstacles it has faced and continues to face, and how it has fared in comparative international offshoots. The last 50 pages start to drag a bit as the visible seams make clear that this work began its life as separate papers / conference presentations. But all in all, Holleran writes lucidly and engagingly enough about a topic that rightfully maintains a reputation for wonkiness; for all their talk of inclusive zoning practices, YIMBYs seem to relish esoteric jargon and technocracy with a(n inadvertently?) high barrier to entry.
The great YIMBY manifesto still eludes us, and it may or may not be a necessary precursor to full political ascendancy. It won't be this book, but if Holleran wants to leave the ivory tower for the barricades, his pen might be put to better purposes with a more prescriptive thrust.
September 5, 2022
The book is really thoughtful with its case studies and probably good as an "introduction to YIMBY, as a movement" for people curious about what's going on in California. I do think, however, that it could have done a better job being critical of the statements made by YIMBYs and looking critically at their positionality. There was a lot of interesting work on who these individuals were and what brought them to density, but it seemed to miss a bit of "why density in THESE PLACES IN PARTICULAR" and "what does BACKYARD even mean in this context?"
Maybe it's unfair to give 3/5 stars to a book that I mostly think needed an extra 100 pages, but I think it would have been well served by being a bit more inquisitive. Maybe his next book can go into more details about what density advocacy looks like in the uneven social landscape of these cities he looks at. But this book wasn't quite that.
Maybe it's unfair to give 3/5 stars to a book that I mostly think needed an extra 100 pages, but I think it would have been well served by being a bit more inquisitive. Maybe his next book can go into more details about what density advocacy looks like in the uneven social landscape of these cities he looks at. But this book wasn't quite that.
November 23, 2022
They call themselves YIMBYs — Yes In My Backyard — to distinguish from NIMBYs — Not In My Backyard. But it is inaccurate; what they mean is Yes In Your Backyard.
I must say I left the book with mixed feelings about these characters. They don't want to live in actual affordable urban areas; that would be "gentrification," and gentrification is bad because it is against the wishes of the current residents. They want to live in "desirable" (Holleran's word) neighborhoods. The current residents of said neighborhoods don't want the greater density, so the current residents must be fought!
I must say I left the book with mixed feelings about these characters. They don't want to live in actual affordable urban areas; that would be "gentrification," and gentrification is bad because it is against the wishes of the current residents. They want to live in "desirable" (Holleran's word) neighborhoods. The current residents of said neighborhoods don't want the greater density, so the current residents must be fought!
May 22, 2023
Rife with grammatical errors, unfortunately. A good copy editor would have been a worthwhile investment for this book.
July 6, 2023
Kinda fascinating to watch an author stubbornly cling to his priors even as he uncovers evidence that they are fundamentally wrong. I appreciate his attempt to take an academic approach to the topic but he really misses what's so powerful and critical about the YIMBY movement, and why it has succeed where other left-wing affordable housing movements have failed.
Also, there was a blurb on the back of my copy that is jaw-dropping in its ignorance.
Also, there was a blurb on the back of my copy that is jaw-dropping in its ignorance.
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