A lot of people are ready to dismiss Ezra and Derek not because of their arguments, but out of frankly childish kneejerk desire to distance themselves from nerdy liberals, which should fool no one. Politics is not an avenue to be "cool" and people should get into art or music or fashion.
It is hilarious to me that, as you point out, the end result of the poseur rejection of Ezra and Derek is... conceding to wealthy homeowners at the expense of working-class people who need housing. But hey, as long as you can feel like you're too edgy for whatever khakis those geeks wear.
This is useful. The point about YIMBY abundance politics being all local and all about the details is important. I like a lot of YIMBY ideas, but have seen bad consequences of poorly-implemented YIMBY. All of this makes me less absolutist about slogans and more interested in the sausage making.
In Nashville, building many thousands of new housing units per year, and dramatically increasing density, has raised the cost of housing by 50% in 5 years, and is driving working folks away. This doesn't mean stop building dense housing, but we need policies to directly address affordability too.
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Ezra understands this, but pretends not to