Unlikely NIMBYs

Housing terms like "dense" and "walkable" scare some people. Even those who need affordable housing the most. They have concerns. We need to listen.

Cities across the country are looking to zoning reform as a tool to tackle the affordable housing crisis. From Atlanta to Boise to Charlottesville to Tacoma, city planners are proposing ways to increase the housing supply to meet rising demand. However, adding more units in a fixed amount of space means increasing density. And that is where the debates over “neighborhood character” get heated.   

Typically, whenever “upzoning” is in the headlines, the  “Not In My Back Yard” (NIMBY) opposition is often caricatured as wealthy homeowners who want suburban living inside the city limits. However, that is not always the case.

There is another constituency that zoning reform advocates need to convince: those who desperately need affordable housing, yet still flinch at the terms “dense” and “walkable.” Let’s call them “unlikely NIMBYs,” and it turns out they’ve got legitimate reasons for their concerns.  

I’ve spent the last 10 years studying gentrifying neighborhoods in Greenville, SC, where the county is also in the process of a zoning code rewrite. So I was surprised the first time I heard skepticism from working class residents about newly proposed affordable apartments incentivized with public funds. Rising rents were clearly displacing the Black community, but getting neighborhood support for multi-story housing was not so easy.  

In many cases, instead of rubber stamping approval for a dense development project, the neighborhood pushed back. Parents with children were worried about increased car traffic. Seniors on fixed incomes were nervous that an influx of newcomers would mean more strangers who did not know the community nor its history. Most of all, taller buildings just seemed out of place. Unsurprisingly, the community had come to prefer the type of housing that real estate agents had been trying to sell them their whole lives: quaint homes on quiet streets.  

Before the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968, this country spent billions of dollars in public funds to subsidize suburban development so that white families could avoid racially diverse urban environments. From these policies, a new American dream was born: spacious and car-friendly housing just off the interstate highway exit ramp. This racially exclusive suburban residential aesthetic of white picket fences and grassy lawns soon became the neighborhood ideal for the nation, even among those for whom it is economically out of reach. 

The impact of these past policies on our current housing preferences is clear. A 2021 study conducted by the Pew Foundation found that a clear majority of Americans across all racial groups prefer single-family housing over apartment complexes, even if it means living farther from schools, stores, and restaurants. And this sentiment has strengthened since 2019. Let’s face it: COVID lockdowns made people think twice about close quarters.  

But the allure of the suburbs and our pandemic hangover do not fully explain the concerns of today’s unlikely NIMBYs. For many older Black and Latino residents across the country, the term “affordable housing” conjures up painful memories of the public housing projects of the 70s and 80s. The notorious Robert Taylor Homes on Chicago’s South Side is just one example. The federal government called it “Urban Renewal,” but it was really just an excuse to warehouse the poor into high-rises of concentrated and segregated poverty.  

America has a clear history of failing the urban core, so how can we gain the trust of those who have never seen the benefits of redevelopment before? The typical “Yes In My Back Yard” (YIMBY) talking points are not enough. Changing minds will require ensuring everyone that adding more housing does not require erecting new sky scrapers that tower over communities. Instead, more units can be achieved by enabling “missing middle” options that bridge the gap between single family housing and large-scale apartment complexes.  

No matter the merits of new zoning proposals today, city leaders should not take for granted the support of those who need affordable housing the most. Persuading people will require more than color coded maps and spreadsheets. Calls for increased housing density need to be framed in terms of what it can provide for their community: safety, stability, and opportunity. 

Everyone should feel safe walking home. Putting commercial retail on street level and residential apartments above them means more eyes on the sidewalk during more hours of the day (and night). People going to work or shopping for groceries don’t have time for loitering and crime.  

Everyone deserves a chance to build a future in the neighborhood where they grew up. Affordable housing can improve the stability of communities by enabling multi-generational families to live geographically close to one another. 

Everyone wants businesses to invest on their side of town. Multi-story, multi-family housing provides the foot traffic and business opportunity that neighborhood start-ups need and the deep pool of job candidates that employers want.  

Not all opposition to new affordable housing developments comes from an obsession over property-values. When opposition comes from unlikely NIMBYs, don’t dismiss their concerns. They did not create this problem, and their viewpoints need to be part of the solution.