The YIMBY Lexicon

By Mat Wahlstrom

Last week was the second anniversary of the publication of this “satire but not really” piece. As the author, I am struck by how those who self-identify as YIMBY continue to double-down on the Orwellian appropriation of words to mean something different from what they are commonly understood. (Which will be familiar to those who remember the Soviet Union and how their definition of the word “peace” was far different from that of the the rest of the world.)

But at the same time, I am gratified to see so many people have learned not to fall for their bad faith arguments and intentional deception any longer.

Read it yourself and see if you agree that what our electeds and their developer fellow travelers say follows this exact pattern of deliberate misrepresentation. In fact, I created a handy bingo card that you can use the next time you listen to our current mayor or anyone in his regime.

Herewith are the common terms with their insider meanings that every YIMBY must know. They are not just received wisdom, but also rote rhetorical devices to denude meaning and nuance from any debate and appear more knowledgeable than our opponents.

ABUNDANCE, ABUNDANT: A state in human history that has only ever been achieved in short bursts as a result of social cooperation and environmental grace; the promise offered by every developer.

ACCESSORY DWELLING UNIT (ADU): A granny flat, with four stories and seven other units having zero setbacks or parking.

ADAPTIVE REUSE: The ecologically superior repurposing of existing structures that are less suited for their original use than as alternatives, such as converting shopping malls and offices to housing. Not as enriching for every segment of the construction industrial complex as new development, and so never to be recommended beyond boutique renovations of quaint Victorian homes for law offices.

AFFORDABLE: A descriptor for a place wherein those making above median income can live apart from those poorer or otherwise different. Not to be confused with inexpensive or economical.

ALL HOUSING MATTERS: An appropriation of the racist “All lives matter” retort to the Black Lives Matter movement. (Since a lot of people started realizing that, we try not to use it in public much anymore.)

BICYCLING, BIKING: The most virtuous form of transportation, far more honored in breach than in practice; only used by YIMBYs in the context of performative or physical exercise. The Ivermectin offered to solve every lack of actually affordable housing.

BIKESD: A wholly owned subsidiary of YIMBY Inc.; our allies in astroturf warfare.

BUILDING CODES: Unnecessary engineering and safety standards that needlessly decrease the possible profit from selling and renting properties; a leading cause of the housing shortage.

CARS: The greatest evil in the world, made worse when the unhoused are allowed to live in them. Owning one is only forgivable for YIMBYs who denounce them. Remember to chant: “Cars are not more important than people,” as it’s the best way to obscure that cars exist only because people need them.

CHARACTER: An irreplaceable quality or attribute which makes something interesting or placemaking; something dismissible as racist.

CIRCULATE SAN DIEGO: The Word according to the Gospel of Colin. The only things more important than what we believe are the fervor with which we proselytize it for income and demonize those who oppose us.

CLIMATE ACTION: A reliance on speculative real estate development to build our way out of the global warming catastrophe that construction-related activities and processes intensify; promoting endless growth.

COMMUNITY: A set of people in a place ripe for external commercial exploitation; opportunity rich.

DENSITY: More people forced into less livable space; an unqualified good.

DEVELOPERS: “Housing providers,” the main source of Circulate’s funding and reason for being. Our only concern is their concern; and their concerns are ours. Defend them with others’ lives.

ECON 101: To be used interchangeably with “supply and demand.” Neither is that simple or even applicable to a market as complex as real estate, but nobody else needs to know that.

ENGAGEMENT: Going through the motions of getting public input before proceeding as originally planned.

EQUITY: Term of art for appropriating from those who have to give to those who want while ignoring those who need. Not to be confused with economic justice.

FILTERING: To be used instead of “trickle-down,” as too many people realize that has never worked.

FREE MARKET: An economic system wherein only those with means get their way; the sole resource for housing in the United States. Allowing government to build housing — like they do in Austria, Canada, Chile, Belgium, Finland, Mexico, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, the Netherlands, etc. — is communist and it wouldn’t work here, anyway.

GENTRIFICATION: An imaginary term for the end result of YIMBY efforts; fake news.

GREENHOUSE GASES (GHGs): The byproduct of human activities that are the source of climate change. Because processes and products associated with the construction industry are a greater source of emissions than personal automobiles (even before electric vehicles hit the road), this truth undermines our financial sponsors and thus necessitates the scapegoating of cars.

HIGHEST AND BEST USE: A concept originated in the early 1900s, most notably by American economist, eugenics aficionado and stock market prognosticator extraordinaire, Irving Fisher, that a property’s sole value lies in its potential capital production. It is the reductive basis of all real estate appraisal today. In essence, one can strip away any historical, aesthetic or other considerations that appear to give land worth, as the only thing that matters is its maximum potential productivity. Exploitive utility of course being the only way throughout history that anyone has ever valued anything, this term is to be deployed to counter every appeal beyond naked self interest.

HISTORIC PRESERVATION: Legacy properties and neighborhoods qualifying under Department of the Interior criteria for consideration and protection; an impediment to landfill growth.

HOUSING: Investment vehicles that can be occupied — such as short-term rentals, second homes and foreign tax shelters — which may incidentally be used to extract income from a captive population.

HOUSING AT ALL LEVELS: A slogan ostensibly promoting the kinds of housing a community needs to actually incentivize the continued production of high-end luxury development.

INFRASTRUCTURE: Somebody else’s problem.

McMANSION: Disparaging term for the humble, single-family homes with servants quarters and stables north of the 8 where Circulate donors live. Never to be mentioned in polite company.

MOBILITY: Synonym for “bicycling.” Intended to be confused with accessibility, accommodation, functional or practical means of getting anywhere, especially when used with “multi-modal.”

NEIGHBORS: People who live in the vicinity of where you just moved; bad if they were there already, good if they’re also new.

NIMBY: A nonsense but simplistic pejorative to dismiss any critic of YIMBY dogma; anyone who has been living anywhere for more than five years.

PARKING: Onsite of new projects, it is space that is wasted on residents rather than inflating return on investment; on streets, it is space provided by the government for the public good that can be marketed and profited from as an amenity.

PARKS: Land set aside for passive enjoyment and to provide for those without yards; golden prospects for greenfield development.

PROGRESSIVE: Supportive of free-market and private economic activity against any and all government intervention that does not involve subsidies or sweetheart deals; neo-feudalism.

RECREATION: Possibilities for relaxation and enjoyment unrelated to work for which one should have to pay.

REDLINING: A government practice of restricting federal home loan access based on race and geography that was outlawed in 1968, but which has continued to be practiced by private lending institutions and developers and landlords ever since. Nevertheless, existing inequality is strictly the knock-on effect of what happened over fifty years ago, which can only be solved by eliminating zoning (q.v.). Protest against private sector discrimination is counterproductive market interference; a red herring.

SHILL: Term for a person who praises a group or activity for reasons of self-interest and financial reward, usually deployed against YIMBYs; an accurate characterization and therefore a slur.

SINGLE-FAMILY HOMES (SFHs): The second greatest evil after cars and a main cause of the housing shortage; the foremost goal of YIMBYs with children.

SPRAWL: Originally used to denounce exurbs, it now means any place with a yard; single-family home neighborhoods.

SUSTAINABLE: As the Earth is an open thermodynamic system, we can conflate that to pretend its finite material resources and inhabitable space are outmatched by an endless influx of investment capital; the limit does not exist. (See INFRASTRUCTURE.)

URBANISM: Religion that promotes cities as ideal constructs untethered to the complexity of actual locations or inhabitants.

URBAN PLANNING: The queen of the sciences by which all other disciplines are judged inferior and irrelevant; a non-linear massively multiplayer video game.

VIBRANT: Descriptor for replacing quality naturally occuring affordable housing and the people who live in it with ticky-tacky boxes commanding extortive rents from mobile young professionals; a state of being indistinguishable from Seattle or Austin or Brooklyn.

VISION ZERO: The policy imperative that scarce public funds need to be spent on road safety projects so that the unhoused die from disease, exposure or starvation rather than vehicular incidents.

YIMBY: Acronym for “Yes in my backyard,” an antithesis adopted to mask an actual identity as boosters for Wall Street speculation and appropriation of others’ full use of their property; a carpetbagger (obsolete).

ZONING: A racist concept that posits a false conflict between what is permissible from what is possible; the third major cause of the housing shortage. Allegedly intended to cease industrial and waste disposal uses in residential areas, today one can confidently rely instead on the goodwill and common sense of developers to avoid any repeat of these problems.

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