Affordable Housing
Emeryville Went The YIMBY Way: Now It Has The Most Expensive Rent In The East Bay, The Emeryville Tattler
Emeryville swallowed the YIMBY promise whole: let developers loose, and affordability would magically follow. Instead, the city is now jammed with new market-rate apartments while rents have soared to among the highest in the East Bay. City leaders celebrate construction while ignoring the people priced out. Emeryville is not a housing success story, but evidence that “build, build, build” has become an excuse for enriching developers while residents pay the unaffordable price.
Why the Wiener housing bills will never work—and could destroy the coast. A detailed primer, by Michael Barnes, 48 Hills
The Scott Wiener housing bills are a reckless giveaway, masquerading as an affordability plan, and designed to turn public planning into a profit pipeline for real estate interests. Cities are punished for permits developers choose not to pull, while state mandates strip away local planning, environmental review, and public oversight. Loss of protections meant to preserve fragile shoreline ecosystems, public access, and the California coast could be the result.
Social Housing: Challenging YIMBYs and NIMBYs
Joint statement from FTC Manning (SF Community Land Trust—SFCLT), Quintin Mecke (Council of Community Housing Organizations—CCHO), and Shanti Singh (Tenants Together)
What we’re doing on housing isn’t working. We’ve upzoned, streamlined, deregulated. We’ve chased the promise of supply-side solutions. And still, the crisis deepens. Across San Francisco and the state, we’re told that zoning and deregulation will solve the housing crisis. But real solutions require more than zoning maps — they need public investment, tenant protections, and community-led planning that puts people before profit. Deregulation is politically convenient. It makes headlines without asking the wealthy to pay. It shifts blame from capital to planners. It offers the illusion of action—without the substance of redistribution. But it doesn’t build homes for restaurant workers earning $40,000 a year. It doesn’t produce family-sized units. It doesn’t build trust, or coalitions, or equity. Because deregulation isn’t housing policy. It’s land-use policy. And land-use reform without capital isn’t a solution. It’s a stall... There is a movement waiting to be built—beyond the tired binary of YIMBY and NIMBY. One rooted in care, solidarity, and the belief that everyone deserves a place to live.
New study shows that deregulation is not the answer to the affordable housing crisis, by Tim Redmond, 48 Hills
The article writes about an in-depth academic study that concludes that YIMBY deregulation strategies will not solve the housing affordability crisis. “…[It] is it is unrealistic to think that we can deregulate and build our way out of the affordability crisis with market rate housing...in any reasonable time frame." The study argues that the upzoning can make gentrification and displacement worse. This shows the hollowness of the YIMBY claim that they are somehow making amends for past racist redlining practices. As is concluded in the study and by others, the housing affordability crisis is a result of growing economic inequality.
New study makes clear: The Wiener-Lurie plan will NOT bring down housing prices, by Tim Redmond, 48 Hills
This San Francisco economist's report concludes that even if developers are allowed to build all they want everywhere they want, it is unlikely to bring down housing prices, contradicting the central thesis of the Yimby agenda. In the best-case scenario it would lead to reductions of only 2.5 to 4.2 percent, which is not enough to make a dent in affordability.
The dangerous fantasy of upzoning, by Fernando Marti, 48 Hills
Comments from a market rate developer about the real impediments to developing housing (hint: it’s not zoning regulations) and the real motivation behind the YIMBY push for measures like San Francisco’s family zoning plan (and, by extension, Berkeley’s Middle Housing Ordinance).
Build a better Berkeley has an FAQ on the issue of affordability: Does elimination of regulations create affordability?
Emeryville Went The YIMBY Way: Now It Has The Most Expensive Rent In The East Bay, The Emeryville Tattler
Emeryville swallowed the YIMBY promise whole: let developers loose, and affordability would magically follow. Instead, the city is now jammed with new market-rate apartments while rents have soared to among the highest in the East Bay. City leaders celebrate construction while ignoring the people priced out. Emeryville is not a housing success story, but evidence that “build, build, build” has become an excuse for enriching developers while residents pay the unaffordable price.