YIMBY Dems go to the San Francisco Planning Commission!

Steve M. BoyleExecutive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America

Hey, everybody! Welcome to Radio Abundance. This is our second episode. I'm Steve Boyle. and I'm here with Armada Domalewski and Nia Johnson.

You know, we had a pretty amazing debut with our first episode with Governor Wet Moore, Secretary of Housing for Maryland Jake Day, and Congressman Jake Auchincloss. We are rising up the charts, and hearing amazing things about getting to hear from three great leaders, veterans, and Abundance-minded young YIMBY Democrats in their late 30s and mid-40s paving a new path forward for the Democratic Party. So, we're off to a great start and excited to welcome you to this episode!

Beyond the podcast,, we're getting mobilizing, too!

Armand and I went to San Francisco this week. There is a new approach to zoning – and upzoning specifically —- that is on the table right now. So, Armand and I went to City Hall to chat about it a little bit, share some comments, and tell the city and the Planning Commission and everyone in the audience why San Francisco needs to build.

Armand. I'm wondering if you can tell folks a little bit about our San Francisco adventure this week?

Armand DomalewskiYIMBY Democrats for AmericaYeah! Well, I live in San Francisco. I've lived here for 10 years, and as long as I've lived here, I've been going to the San Francisco Planning Commission. There was a certain moment when I was there where I said to somebody next to me – I was like, “oh my God, I can't believe I've been doing the same thing here, on the same stuff, in the same room for 10 years of my life,” because I started with YIMBY when it first really started!

The context for this is that every city in California has to do what's called its Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA). San Francisco is doing the upzoning so you can build more housing and more density in the city. That's required by the state housing plan, and this was one of the steps required to pass it. It needed to pass through the Planning Commission, which it did, and now it’ll go on to the Board of Supervisors who has to approve it, and then the mayor has to sign it.

Steve M. BoyleExecutive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America

Getting to the heart of what we were there to talk about: San Francisco does have a new plan on the table that is a sea change from decades past, right?

San Francisco is required by the state now to build 82,000 new units. Mayor Lurie has introduced a plan that would upzone areas like the Marina, Cow Hollow, and Geary Street. The plan also has something called “density decontrol” all across San Francisco's west side. The entire western half of San Francisco – which was built to be a new New York; it has the same grid as New York; it has Golden Gate Park, which was built by the same folks and is about the same size as Central Park; it’s by the beach to the west, and you've got Golden Gate views to the north – that whole area is suburbs.

What the new plan says is that – even if you don't necessarily change heights in certain areas – in the same building, on the same plot, and at the same heights that are already in law, you can have a higher density of the amount of people who live there.

So, it is a massive change – potentially – in the trajectory of San Francisco building housing.

Armand DomalewskiYIMBY Democrats for AmericaThat's the thing, I think, that a lot of people don't realize: even if an area is zoned a certain way, where it's totally legal to build up to this many stories, if you have density control, they'll say, “well, but only so many people can live here.” So, really,the only stuff that works is maybe a very tall mansion, right? Because, legally speaking, you can't really build an apartment no matter how much zoning capacity you have if there are controls on the amount of density of units.

Steve M. BoyleExecutive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America

And this is one of the things going on in New York politics right now, and something that's holding that city back!

It’s the reason why, if you want to build in Manhattan: yeah, okay, you can build taller than most other places. But the majority of the buildings – especially the most iconic buildings in Manhattan today – would be illegal to build if we built them today! A lot of times, it’s for that reason: even if you're allowed to build that height, there's a limit to the amount of people that can come, and that's where you get a housing crisis.

Nia JohnsonYIMBY Democrats for America

I think that's kind of like, when people complain about Billionaires Row and, “oh, there's all these high-rises for rich people.” It's like, “well, the laws are making it so that there's only high rises for rich people!”

Because, if you build a high-rise and you're limiting the amount of people who can live in that high-rise legally, then somebody has to offset that difference in cost!

Steve M. BoyleExecutive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America

Something that I would love NIMBYs – left-NIMBYs and degrowthers – and folks to know is just how much the current system benefits massive corporations, billionaire apartments, and oligarchy!

If the barriers to building a home are so high that you have to be a big corporation to have the funding and the patience to do it – if building anything means negotiating with the city and having government connections and greasing the wheel – then only big and corrupt companies can accomplish that, and it's small developers, community oriented developers, and new entrants into the field who are locked out.

And then, scarcity-wise, if you're only building enough for 10% of the population, well, guess what? The richest 10% are going to get those apartments. Build for 30%, and the richest 30% will. Build for 100% of the population, and everyone can compete for an apartment.

Nia JohnsonYIMBY Democrats for America

Yeah, exactly! That's what gets me. I think a lot about the left-NIMBY anti-housing argument because, at the end of the day, if you're concerned about gentrification, you're never going to beat money. At the end of the day, if you're going to restrict the amount of people who live in a certain place, it's going to be the most marginalized people who are going to get pushed out! Because they don't have money. Because it’s systemically harder for them to make money.

So it's like, yeah, if you build less apartments, then like, then you're not going to get less people gentrifying – you're just throwing oil on the fire!

Steve M. BoyleExecutive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America

Yeah, wealth finds a way. The rich will continue to have options. It'll be the rest of us who don't. We have to broaden opportunity by broadening the options for everybody.

You know, it's funny: as I was leaving the meeting, somebody chased after me who was anti-YIMBY and wanted to have a reasonably good faith mini-argument about it. And I asked them some questions. I asked them why they thought the rent was so high and they started talking about the need to build more public housing and criticizing the state government going back to Jerry Brown for not doing that. So I said, “well, you know, this is an area where we agree!”

I want the market to build housing because it can, and that will reduce everybody's rates, but it also takes a hot second, right? And, as was pointed out in the meeting, existing housing is always usually going to be cheaper than new housing. It's just that you can only get existing housing by building it anew and then building even newer housing – and then that formerly-new housing becomes existing housing! And guess what? It's cheaper!

So, I'm bringing this up, and I'm saying, “well, let's find this common ground. Let's agree on this.” And I started talking about public housing, and she said, “well, yes, but did you know about these two Section 8 apartments and that there was gang violence?” And suddenly it becomes clear: you don't want anything! You are actually not saying, “don't build market rate housing and only build government housing.” You don't want anything to change! I think both of those things have to change.

This reminds me, Armand, of what you talked about. I wonder if you could share a little bit because you were making the point that, “hey, there's people there saying don't let the market build; the government needs to build this.” And, well, if we need to build 82,000 units and it costs $1,000,000 right now to build a public housing unit in San Francisco (which is its own problem we need to fix!), that's going to be – I'm going to do fast math here – I think that's about six times the budget of the San Francisco city government, which is already a much higher budget than larger cities like Denver!

Armand DomalewskiYIMBY Democrats for AmericaThere was actually a RAND study recently, where what you see with that study is that it costs multiple times as much to build housing in California – the same housing – than it does in Texas, whether it's public or private.

But then, the gap between public and private is also much higher in California than it is in Texas!

So, not only do we in California just make it hard to build housing, period – we make it harder to build publicly-funded and supported and subsidized housing!


Nia JohnsonYIMBY Democrats for AmericaYeah! And I think there's a way to look at this that’s reframing, “oh, private developers taking over more.” Like, let the market – let the corporations – do the dirty work for you.

It may not work for everybody, but it's going to work for a decent amount of people. And then, it's easier for the government to pick up the slack.

Steve M. BoyleYIMBY Democrats for America

You know, Armand, you also made a point that I really loved: that building more housing – letting the market build housing and the government build more housing – is the Progressive position!

We had Senator Elizabeth Warren join us on YIMBYs for Harris and tell us that YIMBYism is Econ 101!

AOC is a Yimby! I'm staring at a quote right now. She says, “for decades, thanks to restrictive zoning laws, we simply haven't built enough housing.”

I'm staring at another message from AOC where she talks about why we need to build multifamily mixed income buildings – the kind that Zellnor Myrie is about to talk about in our interview with him.

So this is the Progressive position.

You know, in San Francisco, we talk a lot about the ‘mods’ versus the ‘progs,’ but I don't concede for a second that folks who are calling themselves Progressive in San Francisco are Progressive for two big reasons.

One is: if you want your neighborhood to stay the same – to freeze in amber – if you are anti-change of all kinds, that is not Progressive!. That is the core of Conservatism.!

If you favor a system where only the big corporations and the well-connected, can build things, that is an oligarchical system!

And, by the way, the origins of Progressivism – going back over a century now to the origins of the Progressive movement, Progressives are the original YIMBYs and the original data nerds! Progressivism was folks saying, much as we are now, “hey, there's elements of populism we love. We love the call to fix things. But we also believe that by understanding data and taking a rational and scientific approach to the world that we live in – by learning more about it and leaning into problem-solving – you can unleash and actually realize the kinds of goals that a more populist mind sets, but isn't successful at accomplishing.

Progressives are the original data nerds. That is where the movement began. I care a lot about recapturing that, but I also care a lot about saying, “hey, you can't outflank us on Progressivism while begging for a system that doesn't change and where everything stays the same!”

Amand, can you tell us a little bit more about what you wanted to tell people when you called YIMBYism the Progressive position and the message that you wanted to share with the San Francisco Planning Commission?

Armand DomalewskiYIMBY Democrats for America

Well, I really wanted the planning commission to understand that building more housing was the Progressive position because it's the policy that helps working class people, right?

There's an enormous amount of studies that have been done on this and the overwhelming consensus – even the studies that are somewhat critical of YIMBYism – they may nitpick, but none of them, as far as I know, dispute the basic idea that, overall, building more housing reduces rent!

I've seen studies that are wielded by people who are like, “I hate YIMBYs! This study proves YIMBYs are wrong!” And the study usually says things like, “oh well if you upzone, that doesn't mean prices don't come down.” And then what you find is the study says, “well, this upzoning was small, and so it didn't build a lot of housing, which is a YIMBY argument!

Or, you see studies that say, “well, what we found is that, while it reduces rents in a larger area, it might not reduce rents right next door.”

Even those studies – which again, lots of people come out and say, “oh, that prove YIMBYs are wrong – still agree that building more housing reduces rents overall!

Nia JohnsonYIMBY Democrats for America

I think it shows a lack of data literacy. I think it's concerning because I think it coincides with an overall decline of intellectualism in American society. We spend so much time explaining basic data and basic economics to people who are educated!

Steve M. BoyleExecutive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America

Well, speaking of data and numbers, that was one of the subjects of my message to the planning commission, which was about a couple numbers in particular, namely numbers like 2030 and 270 –

Armand DomalewskiYIMBY Democrats for America

For the listening audience, you'll quickly learn this is Steve's favorite obsession. It's a very good, important obsession, but it's very funny. He drops us in every conversation! I could be like, “what should we get for lunch?” Steve will be like, “in 2030, we might not be able to have lunch! We don't have the electoral college votes!”

Steve M. BoyleExecutive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America

We might not be able to! We might not be able to have coffee and bananas or any tropical fruits that we tariff!

Nia JohnsonYIMBY Democrats for America

Actually, I think I brought up 2030 first!

Armand DomalewskiYIMBY Democrats for America

Oh, and he just, like, ran with it?

Nia JohnsonYIMBY Democrats for America

Yeah! I saw the look on his face and he just turned on. I think that was like a canon event for him!

Armand DomalewskiYIMBY Democrats for America

You incepted him!

Steve M. BoyleExecutive Director of YIMBY Democrats for AmericaYeah. she put it right on a tee! Alley oop from Nia to Steve!

We do have to drive this message. The stakes are as enormous as it gets.

Again, when the 2030 census hits, the electoral vote count for each state will change. So, once you hit 2030 – when you get to the 2032 election, the 2036 election, and the 2040 election before any chance of a reprieve from the 2040 census – Democrats, as Armand pointed out, will be able to win every state that Biden won, sweep the Blue Wall, and lose every election that decade.

And so, the reason I bring it up again and again is to say, “hey, of all these things we talk about – NIMBYism and everything you want to say about shadows and height and density and developers and isn't it better to build public housing – all of that starts to pale in comparison when the future of the Democratic party and the future of democracy and America itself are on the line!”

We're seeing some pretty major threats to our economy right now – the stock market, the value of the dollar, and the bond market. Peril is here, and peril is going to escalate in coming years if we don't surge our population.

And even a transformative new approach to zoning like San Francisco's got right now – one that will reverse decades of decline – isn't big enough or fast enough to meet that moment.

But, you can't meet the moment if you don't know the moment you're in and that the deadline’s looming and we’ve got to get going now!

Nia JohnsonYIMBY Democrats for America

And like, we have an advantage in the sense that blue cities are fun, attractive places to live! We don't have to sell people on living in New York or San Francisco or LA or DC. The name speaks for itself.

Armand Domalewski, YIMBY Democrats for America:

It drives me like nuts when people are like, “who's going to want to live in these cities?”

I'm like, “why do you think they're expensive?”

It's like that Yogi Berra quote – “nobody goes there because it’s too crowded” – right?

Nia JohnsonYIMBY Democrats for America

Yeah, I don't want to ‘pooh pooh’ on other people's preferences – we want people to do what they want and do whatever makes them feel happy!

But personally, for me, what makes me happy is a bunch of cosmopolitan hipster bullshit!

Steve M. BoyleExecutive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America

Look, I am also, in my personal life and for the choices I want to make, totally an elitist cosmopolitan, but I think the thing is that everyone should be able to make that choice for themselves and have the option to realize the neighborhood and the environment that is most conducive to the life they want to live! And also to try other ones and see if maybe that different direction is actually really cool. They should be able to express themselves in that way!

So, I don't think everybody has to live in a big city, but if people who want to can, then guess what? Then, your suburb can be more suburban! Your rural area can be more rural! Because all of those city dwellers that now have been kicked out of the city because they can't afford it aren't trying to turn your suburb or your rural area into a city because that city can be a city.

On this note of blue states and blue cities being really attractive to people. that does give us an important leg up as we think about the electoral stakes. I want to add a little bit of historical context here and go way back because – this idea that there are stakes to population and huge electoral ramifications to who moves where – this has come up before in American history.

The bad news is it was the lead up to the Civil War.

This was the case when America started to expand west and add more states: The competition over whether those would be free states or slave states drove a bit of a population war.

So, you get first something like the Missouri Compromise, which says: every state below this line is a slave state, and every state above this line is a free state. And then, people start moving in order to found new states and essentially compete over whether the electoral college will be ruled by pro-slavery or pro abolition. And then, you add Texas and California as this giant slave state and this giant free state.

And then you get to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 and what's called Bleeding Kansas, where Congress now, after the Kansas-Nebraska Act – left it up to the settlers of states whether they would choose to be free or slave. And so, what you got was people who wanted more slave states to be added moving there so that Kansas and Nebraska would vote to be slave states, and you got folks – especially from New England – folks on the pro-abolition side, moving there to compete to make them free states, and essentially moving places and surging populations to decide whether America would be a country of slavery or a country of freedom. And that led to a lot of violence, which is called Bleeding Kansas.

That is not something that I want to repeat! But I do want to throw down the gauntlet that a kind of a competition for population to determine the electoral future of the United States is something that I overtly think we need and that both parties should compete in – not to kill each other, but as a race to the top!

Blue states and red states should both be competing for population – not to stop people from moving, but to offer more attractive destinations! To say,” how can we build states that have cheaper homes, cheaper energy, better jobs, better amenities, and better quality of life?” Letting the market build those housing and solve those problems, and also, having the government building solutions to those problems and offering more attractions.

This notion hits two things that are really relevant to this podcast.

The first is: Congressman Auchincloss last week talked about how to make construction cheaper to make and modular homes actually a thing. Those industries need a demand signal, right? There's not enough demand right now for them to say, “let's invest in this. Let's double down on this. Let's make this a thing.”

If governments – in blue states and red states alike, but blue states especially – start to build. and build more at scale, and build more in order to attract more residents – if you start building, at government’s scale, prefab and modular housing, you start to send that demand signal, and now that industry's built. Now, the private market can take advantage of that. And, suddenly, prefab and modular becomes a thing.

But also, something that Zellnor Myrie talked about that I think a lot about is the idea of amenities: how can government build more public amenities by building more housing?

My favorite part of the conversation with Zellnor Myrie is that he has a plan – and, by the way, I mentioned this to Steven Fulop, and he said, “hey, we did this too in Jersey City!” – which is to say: you can build in the same lot as a school or library and in the same building as a school or a library. You can build mixed-use, mixed-income public housing, where you're building affordable housing and public housing to immediately solve the crisis, and you are building market-rate housing because that solves a long-term problem and it subsidizes those affordable units. And, by the way, if developers are so greedy, shouldn't the taxpayer be greedy as well, and start to make a little revenue from building things?

But also, you start to subsidize amenities and stack things on each other and be able to build more features for citizens and for the whole city in the same building. So, schools and libraries are the key example with Zellnor Myrie and Steven Fulop. But I also think: grocery stores, gyms, pools, rooftop parks, places to shower and use the bathroom, food courts, food halls, and coffee shops, right? Retail that you sell to the market. Retail that the government does itself.

Zellnor’s rival in New York wants to build government-run grocery stores. Well, if you're going to do that, these are the buildings for them, right!

The idea to me is: government can not just build affordable housing immediately, and can not just build mixed-income housing for all those benefits; it can actually build public amenities for the whole city that make everyone's lives better in those same spaces, defraying some of those costs with the market-rate housing, but also using that vertical structure to expand opportunities and cool stuff and the social life you can have in a city!

Nia JohnsonYIMBY Democrats for AmericaYeah! So, on TikTok, there's always somebody that talks about, “we need public spaces where people don't have to spend money.” Because, like, there is stuff to do in New York, but a lot of the places where you can just go and hang out randomly require money, especially after an hour, and I think it would be nice to have more public spaces where you can go where you don't have to spend money.

Steve M. BoyleExecutive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America

Everybody wants this! Everybody talks about this idea of the ‘third place,’ right?

But that's hard for the market to build, so government should be building those. It’s public parks and it's public plazas, but those can be indoor spaces, too, and rooftop spaces too! That's something that you can and must make happen if we want to lean into better places to live, better quality of life, and also doing something about the loneliness crisis in this country, which is devastating our culture and our politics.

Nia JohnsonYIMBY Democrats for America

You know what we need? We need government owned clubs!

Armand DomalewskiYIMBY Democrats for America

That's right! Have Charlie xcx open it!

Nia JohnsonYIMBY Democrats for America

The US Department of Getting Down!

Armand DomalewskiYIMBY Democrats for America

The US Department of Jams and Bops!

Steve M. BoyleExecutive Director of YIMBY Democrats for AmericaYou know, you're saying dance clubs, but I also think about private clubs. I don’t know if you've ever been – they're actually very disappointing because I thought they'd be a lot cooler, and they're basically a restaurant and a library! But that idea, actually, of a place –

Armand DomalewskiYIMBY Democrats for America

Oh, you mean private club? Not as in clubbing.

Nia JohnsonYIMBY Democrats for AmericaYeah, like a social club, like Soho House?

Steve M. BoyleExecutive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America

Yeah! There's nothing in that model that government can’t do. They're basically a place where you can work and a place where you can hang out, and there's a restaurant, and sometimes they do events. That is something that should be public. That is something that cities should purposefully build for people because people need places to work, and people need places to hang out, and people need – like you're saying – places where they can meet each other and not buy something and places where you can buy something if you want, but you don't have to. I think that's actually really important for what it means to live in a city and go places, and it will enrich how people feel about that city and whether they like it and whether they think the government works.

Listen to this conversation on Episode II of Radio Abundance: Skyscrapers on the Hudson!