Back in 2020, Marc Andreessen wrote an excellent critique of NIMBYism entitled “It’s Time To Build“. Here’s an excerpt:
You don’t just see this smug complacency, this satisfaction with the status quo and the unwillingness to build, in the pandemic, or in healthcare generally. You see it throughout Western life, and specifically throughout American life.
You see it in housing and the physical footprint of our cities. We can’t build nearly enough housing in our cities with surging economic potential — which results in crazily skyrocketing housing prices in places like San Francisco, making it nearly impossible for regular people to move in and take the jobs of the future. We also can’t build the cities themselves anymore. When the producers of HBO’s “Westworld” wanted to portray the American city of the future, they didn’t film in Seattle or Los Angeles or Austin — they went to Singapore. We should have gleaming skyscrapers and spectacular living environments in all our best cities at levels way beyond what we have now; where are they?
I’m not sure where those gleaming skyscrapers are, but they certainly are not in Atherton, an affluent Silicon Valley suburb with “surging economic potential”. Here’s The Atlantic:
The town of Atherton, California, is America’s most expensive zip code and is primarily reserved for very large homes (the minimum lot size ranges from one-third of an acre to 1 acre). The planning department proposed to modestly increase the zoned capacity of Atherton, legalizing the construction of smaller, multifamily properties in a few places—just a little more than 130 units total by 2031.
Andreessen and his wife, Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, a philanthropist, apparently submitted this public comment via email to the mayor and city council expressing their opposition, a portion of which reads:
Subject line: IMMENSELY AGAINST multifamily development!
I am writing this letter to communicate our IMMENSE objection to the creation of multifamily overlay zones in Atherton … Please IMMEDIATELY REMOVE all multifamily overlay zoning projects from the Housing Element which will be submitted to the state in July. They will MASSIVELY decrease our home values, the quality of life of ourselves and our neighbors and IMMENSELY increase the noise pollution and traffic.
I’ll reserve judgment until I hear the other side of the story. But one thing is clear; the following hypothetical statement would not constitute a satisfactory explanation:
In general we need to loosen zoning and build much more housing, but Atherton is not a good place for the new housing.
The richer the area, the greater the benefit from building more housing. America would benefit if Atherton had more gleaming skyscrapers. I suspect that even Atherton would benefit.
PS. Keep in mind that the actual proposal was to build 130 housing units in the entire city over an entire decade. We aren’t talking about Manhattan or Singapore. Atherton would still be Atherton.
READER COMMENTS
TMC
Aug 8 2022 at 3:38pm
The truly confusing part is why all the YIYBYs (Yes in YOUR backyard, because it’s never someone who is already living there that wants the change) feel a need to shoehorn 10 million people into a few square miles. We’re not Singapore, the US is huge.
There is no right for every single person to be accommodated where and how he’d like to live, and there is no shortage of places to build.
David Henderson
Aug 8 2022 at 5:07pm
You write:
That’s false. I live in such a place and I want people to be able to build.
Moreover, it’s a matter of property rights. People should be able to use their property to build apartments on, if they want to. Laura and Marc aren’t objecting to how they would use their own property; they’re objecting to how others would use their property.
robc
Aug 8 2022 at 5:17pm
As I say about NIMBYs, I totally support them saying NO to construction in their own backyard. But their neighbors’ backyard is not their own backyard. As Henderson said, it is about property rights.
As I have also said, I oppose zoning because I want a pub on my street.
Scott Sumner
Aug 8 2022 at 5:42pm
I agree with David. I favor allowing my next door neighbor to put up a 100 story tall skyscraper. So your claim is false.
If zoning had been around in 1900 many of America’s great cities would never have been built.
There’s only one big city in America where voters were given the right to vote on the adoption of zoning. And it was rejected all three times it was put on the ballot in Houston.
TMC
Aug 9 2022 at 2:17pm
Gentlemen, I am also for looser controls, but we have a method to change them in place already. You bought your property under the current restrictions (part of your property rights), and they have a mechanism to change those. Those whose property will be effected can vote on it.
David, your property rights are not unconditional, see if you can request planes to no longer fly over your house.
Scott, where does this end? Are you in favor of a pig farm next to your house? An oil well loudly clanking 24×7? I’m sure there is a line you will not step over. Today the line is where it is, and you agreed to it by making your purchase. At least, as I mentioned above, there is a mechanism to change it. Andreessen is entitled to his vote and opinion. You are correct, however, in pointing out his hypocrisy.
Spencer Bradley Hall
Aug 8 2022 at 4:09pm
Zoning? All the 11 boom/busts in the residential housing market since WWII have been due to the Federal Reserve’s errors. It’s a colossal mistake. The NBFIs are not in competition with the DFIs. Savings flowing through the nonbanks never leaves the commercial banking system.
See: Gilbert, Alton. “Requiem for Regulation Q: What It Did and Why It Passed Away”
Dr. Gilbert asked the wrong question. His implicit and false premise was that savings are a source of loan-funds to the banking system. Gilbert assumed that any potential primary deposit for an individual bank were newfound funds to the banking system as a whole (instead of derivative deposits, funds acquired from other DFIs within the system),
Thereby in his analysis, Gilbert also assumes that every dollar placed with a non-bank deprives some commercial bank of a corresponding volume of loanable funds.
David S
Aug 8 2022 at 5:15pm
Those towers are in Singapore, incidentally. They have more sophisticated and sensible land use policies than anywhere in the United States. Andreeson, along with most of the residents of Newton, San Francisco, Corona del Mar, are consistent in their hypocrisy. The Ben Cole law of zoning support is solid.
A nationwide ban on exclusive single-family zoning would in many respects be more consistent with long term traditions of private property use. And, in theory, double the potential housing stock of many metro suburbs.
Scott Sumner
Aug 8 2022 at 5:44pm
I agree. Towns don’t have the right to prevent me from exercising free speech. They don’t have the right to prevent me from buying a gun. They don’t have the right to ban me from engaging in interstate commerce. Why give then the right to prevent me from building an apartment building on my property?
MarkW
Aug 10 2022 at 7:13am
What about HOA-governed subdivisions? Private cities? Should people be able to contractually limit their ability to build on their own land, with the assurance that their neighbors have agreed to the same? How about historic districts that impose tight restrictions? Or should the federal government ban all those too along with zoning? What about condos (including detached condos) where the homeowner owns their structure but not the land (and so couldn’t possibly sell to someone wanting to put in an apartment building)? What about homeowners in a neighborhood mutually agreeing to establish a new HOA in response to loss of single-family zoning?
What I’m getting at, I guess, is the desire to live in a single-family neighborhood fundamentally illegitimate? Or is it just that zoning is an illegitimate way to achieve it (whereas some or all of the other arrangements I listed above are OK)?
Mark Brophy
Aug 10 2022 at 10:39am
Those are private restrictions not imposed by government but are voluntary. Government zoning is an involuntary deprivation of property rights and should be ruled unconstitutional. Euclid v. Amber was decided wrongly.
robc
Aug 10 2022 at 11:00am
I think HOA limitations are totally ok. They are voluntary contractual agreements.
However, I do think deed restrictions (which would include HOA membership) for unshared property (shared walls like condos need a different rule set obviously) should be limited to 25 years.
Agreeing to a deed restriction shouldnt bind that property forever. I think a single generation is long enough.
Florida used to have a law something like this (I think it was 20 years), but I think it was the building industry lobbyists who got it removed.
MikeP
Aug 8 2022 at 6:35pm
I live somewhat near Atherton in an almost top-10 zip code, so I have some experience with this.
There’s a property in the neighborhood that had housed a school but has since been bought for development. They’re something like three plans in to try to put houses and condos into a canyon where no one would see them. Each has been rejected following neighborhood pushback.
I got a call from a pollster asking questions about potential loosening of building allowances in the town. I answered every question I could with a “build more” answer. One question was something like, “If multi-unit housing was built, would you prefer to see it as one-story, two-story, or four-story.” My answer was, “Any and all.”
Fun fact: I was in the same jury pool as Marc Andreessen. He was the first one excused from the jury, by the prosecutor, because he was Marc Andreessen. I took his chair and was excused because I refused to agree to follow the judge’s instructions as to the law and how it should be applied to the case.
Scott Sumner
Aug 9 2022 at 2:10pm
“I took his chair and was excused because I refused to agree to follow the judge’s instructions as to the law and how it should be applied to the case.”
Good for you.
Mark Brophy
Aug 10 2022 at 10:41am
He should’ve lied and said that he’d be the government’s toady.
David Henderson
Aug 9 2022 at 7:53pm
Great story! Actually, great 2 stories.
Michael Rulle
Aug 9 2022 at 9:36am
I think it is true that the Federal Government does have the right to determine zoning laws anywhere. The next level of government with such power are the States themselves—-followed by localities of course.
From my experience out here in density New Jersey (we are the densest state in the Union, yet one would find that hard to believe once one goes 12 miles west of the Hudson River) it is not the guy prevented from building a hundred story building next door to people like Scott and David who are the problem (because no one wants to), but the people on the planning boards who want to limit how much hard scape you should be allowed to have ——, or want to prevent someone who owns a 140 acres to create a riding stable business—-covering maybe 20 acres of the property———-only to later change the “zoning” law when someone else wants to—-maybe 5 years later—but still…….the corruption’s odor lasts.
The whole country need not be either Houston or SanFrancisco (YIMBY land and NIMBY land). A medium size town next door to mine——which absurdly prevented millenialization——until this past year——is making itself into a mini-city (in NJ terms)——and most everyone likes it.
But some people want to live in rural style towns——why prevent them from doing so? One thing I know I do not want is the Fed’s making these kind of decisions.
robc
Aug 9 2022 at 12:18pm
The more people that live in cities, the more land available for people to live in rural towns or in the middle of nowhere.
Michael Rulle
Aug 9 2022 at 2:10pm
True
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