Left-Wing NIMBYism Strikes Out - Again - Legal Planet

One of the most pernicious aspects of the land use and housing debate over the last few years has been the rise of what we mean might call “left-wing NIMBYs.” It is essentially traditional NIMBYism but on allegedly progressive grounds. The principal argument of this group is that building more market-rate units will do nothing to reduce housing costs. Market-rate housing, they argue, is just “luxury” housing, and so it won’t make anything more affordable. It essentially says that when it comes to housing the law of supply and demand is irrelevant. (Smarter ones say that induced demand will wipe out the gains: more housing will lead to greater demand so no price benefit will result). This is why scholars such as Vicki Been, Ingrid Gould Ellen, and Katherine M. O’Regan refer to them as “supply skeptics,” which is a nicer term than mine but I don’t think any more accurate. Fortunately enough, Been, Ellen, and O’Regan have exhaustively examined the literature on this NIMBY argument and hav

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• Megan Luong