But the core YIMBY thesis that quantitative restrictions on housing production are costly to the economy and harmful to society is true. The upshot of this is that a lot of smart, highly engaged people want to express negative sentiments about YIMBYism that don’t involve directly contradicting the core YIMBY thesis since they are too smart to deny its veracity. The result is a lot of tone-policing and concern-trolling where people express the idea that YIMBYs are doing this or that wrong, ideas that normally amount to “I wish you’d be less focused on your goal” or “I wish you’d do more to align yourself with my camp in the polarization dynamic.”

I’ve experienced this a number of times lately where I’ve seen an online progressive or leftist assert that YIMBYism is left-wing, failing to realize that a huge chunk of progressives are NIMBYs, and a significant chunk of more conservative folks are YIMBYs. Like I myself am progressive (although I wouldn’t call myself a “leftist” economically), but I don’t think YIMBYism can be pigeonholed into one political camp. Nor should it be. Part of its strength as a movement – as the article points out – is the ability to transcend the prevailing political divide in favor of solving problems. And part of the reason it works is because it’s actually a situation where ideologically consistent progressives and ideologically consistent libertarians can be in near-complete agreement.