I don't see a conflict between abundance and antitrust. To the contrary, YIMBY policy is intended to help create many small- and medium-scale infill builders who can out-compete big single family developers like Lennar as well as large-scale apartment developers like Greystar. - ThreadSky

maxdubler.com • 12 days ago

I don't see a conflict between abundance and antitrust. To the contrary, YIMBY policy is intended to help create many small- and medium-scale infill builders who can out-compete big single family developers like Lennar as well as large-scale apartment developers like Greystar.

Comments

rivasad.bsky.social•12 days ago

I just wanna turn my moldy 1939 Edwardian on a 3500 sq ft lot into a 4-story apartment building with an elevator and live in the penthouse for my twilight years

mikeebloomberg.bsky.social•12 days ago

There isn’t a conflict between abundance and antitrust, just a conflict between respective posters.

charva42.bsky.social•11 days ago

I think part of this conversation has to be how we decouple wealth from home ownership. The focus on building wealth this way limits a lot of what people are willing to do with their property.

kto1243.bsky.social•11 days ago

Exactly. I am 75% to developing a 5 story kit that will fit on a 50x100 lot. Just waiting on the single core regulations and then we are off to the races!

hamiltwan.bsky.social•12 days ago

It's more of the "regulation is either always good or always bad" smooth brain thinking. Sometimes regulation is good! We still want safety regulations, just not regulations that say your elevator has to fit a midsized sedan. Thinking it's a binary is so lazy

regimecpa.bsky.social•12 days ago

I think Greystar is pretty hard to outcompete in the space they operate in but you can definitely like build a ton of three flats and never have to compete with them at all

alasdairc.bsky.social•12 days ago

zoning is a homeowners cartel it's completely anti trust to be yimby

hvalross.bsky.social•12 days ago

Is this a sub tweet of that stoller goofball

alasdairc.bsky.social•12 days ago

idk what this is in reference to

hvalross.bsky.social•12 days ago

A guy whose entire personality is antitrust, which somehow led him to be anti-YIMBY. If you don't know then don't waste the braincells

alasdairc.bsky.social•12 days ago

im familiar w the "left-nimby" (otherwise known as the conservative nimby with a twist), sounds like hes pro-trust!

upzonenj.bsky.social•12 days ago

The only problem is most of the neo Brandesians are nuts.

dawe.bsky.social•12 days ago

I never actually get the impression that *market competition* is an overriding goal for these people

alonlevy.bsky.social•12 days ago

Not exactly market competition, because in competition a small business can grow and become a large business, and they hate that.

bsamuels72.bsky.social•11 days ago

Agree. Way too much binary thinking in this discourse. A variety of cumulative center/left approaches is required for meaningful impact. E.g Cant build subsidized or social housing w/o zoning reform to free up land. Abundance alone w/o subsidy cant get rents affordable to most rent burdened people.

mclean.bsky.social•12 days ago

YIMBY trust busts landlords

mostyngale.bsky.social•12 days ago

Unnecessary regulations, the arbitrary, capriciousness of planning decisions are a barrier to entry for developers.

These barriers are easiest for large firms to overcome — those with the resources to weather the uncertainty & to hire people with the experience & skills to overcome the bureaucracy.

randyhermanlaw.com•12 days ago

Lowering barriers to entry (such as a long and complex permitting process) should make it easier for smaller builders to compete

maxdubler.com•12 days ago

Like, to the extent that we are "developer shills," it's for a class of small developers that largely went extinct over the past 60 years as strict zoning and complex, risky, politicized permitting processes made it so that only big, well-capitalized firms could build apartments.

vem.bsky.social•12 days ago

it’s weird they pin it on “developers” like carpenters have to get paid for building lol. And they have none of that hostility for a status quo that juices homeowner/landlord wealth

warrenjwells.bsky.social•12 days ago

The building I live in was originally a 2 BR single family home that was lifted by one such small developer (its owner) to make two 1 BR units downstairs.

The building does not conform with the current zoning, which would only permit two units total.

aceckhouse.bsky.social•12 days ago

most of the homes I have lived in during my time in California are in buildings with "excess" housing under the current zoning

warrenjwells.bsky.social•12 days ago

It's almost as if, as a person employed by a nonprofit, there is some sort of correlation there.

maxdubler.com•12 days ago

I just think that the small real estate investors who currently do gut-remodel flips should be replacing junky old houses with small apartment buildings instead of turning them into ugly McMansions. Is that so wrong?

alisahardy.bsky.social•12 days ago

My concern is that small real estate investors who do junky flips would replace junky houses with even junkier small apartment buildings.

catransitnerd.bsky.social•12 days ago

Plenty of the major builders do substandard work as well. Unfortunately it’s all on local inspectors to force them meet code.

alisahardy.bsky.social•12 days ago

So true.

maxdubler.com•12 days ago

That's what the building code is for.

aboutdave.bsky.social•12 days ago

Since junkier in this context effectively means less polished but still safe and habitable, then I'm all for it.

ok-refrigerator.bsky.social•12 days ago

And even the junkiest new build would have 100% less asbestos and lead than what it replaced. Also much better fire protection and insulation.

sambuchwalter.bsky.social•12 days ago

What is the problem with mega-developers? They create lots of apartment with probably lower costs than smaller buildings. YIMBY policies would help small builders by, among other ways, reducing legal costs but I think mega developers would be a net good in a world where they have to actually compete

maxdubler.com•12 days ago

I don't have a problem with big developers.

I have a problem with an opaque, subjective, politicized housing policy regime under which only big, well-capitalized, politically-connected developers can build multifamily housing.

I don't hate the players, I hate the game.

stockyardsports.bsky.social•12 days ago

So many Chicago three flats get turned into gigantic million dollar homes

micahlohr.bsky.social•12 days ago

And downstream of that: There is not a job market for development professionals at small to mid-scale developers, which means the whole field is missing out on talent that isn't independently wealthy. I would LOVE to develop nothing but 20-50 unit buildings but no one's hiring me for that.

maxdubler.com•12 days ago

Also this: zoning eliminates competition in the housing market by making it illegal for new entrants to undercut incumbent property owners by offering a better product at a lower price.
https://bsky.app/profile/alasdairc.bsky.social/post/3lkoak3f6j222

ilmi.bsky.social•12 days ago

I think what you've identified is a need for an explainer for the structure of the developer market to change the discourse on "developers" as a monolith.

mtkonczal.bsky.social•12 days ago

An odd but funny thing is that in both the neo-Brandeisian and Abundance timelines 1970s Ralph Nader is a central antagonist.

maxdubler.com•12 days ago

You hate Ralph Nader for throwing the 2000 presidential election.

I hate Ralph Nader for hollowing out the administrative state in favor of activist lawyers.

We are not the same.

fresnofred.bsky.social•12 days ago

I hate Ralph Nader for all of these things tho.

burnstony.bsky.social•12 days ago

🤯

mtkonczal.bsky.social•12 days ago

Two years before Paul Sabin's PUBLIC CITIZENS there was

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply