The Surprising Left-Right Alliance That Wants More Apartments in Suburbs

The YIMBY movement isn’t just for liberals anymore. Legislators from both sides of the political divide are working to add duplexes and apartments to single-family neighborhoods. By Conor Dougherty Conor Dougherty has been covering Yimbytown since 2016 and is one of perhaps a half-dozen people to have attended every conference. For years, the Yimbytown conference was an ideologically safe space where liberal young professionals could talk to other liberal young professionals about the particular problems of cities with a lot of liberal young professionals: not enough bike lanes and transit, too many restrictive zoning laws. The event began in 2016 in Boulder, Colo., and has ever since revolved around a coalition of left and center Democrats who want to make America’s neighborhoods less exclusive and its housing more dense. (YIMBY, a pro-housing movement that is increasingly an identity, stands for “Yes in my backyard.”) But the vibes and crowd were surprisingly different at this year’s

The YIMBY movement isn’t just for liberals anymore. Legislators from both sides of the political divide are working to add duplexes and apartments to single-family neighborhoods. By Conor Dougherty Conor Dougherty has been covering Yimbytown since 2016 and is one of perhaps a half-dozen people to have attended every conference. For years, the Yimbytown conference was an ideologically safe space where liberal young professionals could talk to other liberal young professionals about the particular problems of cities with a lot of liberal young professionals: not enough bike lanes and transit, to