alt Hacker NewsAbundance YIMBYism has many shortcomings. It doesn't address the risk of gentrification and displacement, the slow and unproven trickle-down effect of market-rate housing, or the critical need for direct public housing to serve low-income communities. Journalistic ideologues deserve little praise for dismantling the weakest counterarguments of their opponents while ignoring core criticisms.
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These are ironically the weakest counterarguments to abundance housing. Rich people don't move to a city because of their love of 5 over 1 buildings. Otherwise, developers could just build them in rural Kansas and everyone would be happy. They move the jobs and culture, which doesn't change regardless of any new housing built. Making it easier to build privately owned housing also makes it easier to build publicly owned housing. Public housing projects are also delayed by permitting and environmental reviews and have to pay for inflated land prices and parking spaces.
> It doesn't address the risk of gentrification and displacement
This is a puzzling critique because it seems very much in the wheelhouse of "abundance YIMBYism" to advocate for cheaper housing--an argued byproduct of which is that fewer people are displaced. It probably changes the problem statement of gentrification since, if housing is abundant and displacement is low, there's not much to distinguish "gentrification" from just "investing in the neighborhood".
>the critical need for direct public housing to serve low-income communities
This isn't a problem caused by YIMBYism, nor one whose solutions are obstructed by it. We could by that reason malign it for not solving heart palpitations or cancer too.
Market rate housing doesn't need to trickle down. Most NIMBY regulations focus on the prevention of building low-value housing. Let developers flood the market with small, high density units, and they'll be cheap right away.
> the slow and unproven trickle-down effect of market-rate housing
Slow and unproven? Supply and demand is the most reliable law of economics. Cities like Austin that are building market rate housing are actively seeing affordability improve.
Furthermore, even if it wasn't sufficient, abundance YIMBYism would still be helpful and necessary.
> gentrification
Gentrification isn't actually a problem if it doesn't force lower income residents to leave. They wouldn't be forced to leave if their housing wasn't some of the only options for higher income people to inhabit
> gentrification displacement is not a thing
Studies show the same percent of people move out of neighborhoods regardless of whether or not the neighborhood is gentrified. They also show that those low-income people who stay in a gentrified neighborhood see their incomes rise. Those low-income people who are in a neighborhood that is not gentrified see their income go down.
Your intuitions are wrong following them is making the problems worse.
Your arguments are not backed up by anything.
> gentrification and displacement
These are not actual issues with regards to housing being too expensive. These are pet issues divorced from economics.
> the slow and unproven trickle-down effect of market-rate housing
This is absolutely proven in the data, and even a basic thought experiment using the pigeon hole principle will show that more houses means the prices drop of existing stock.
> critical need for direct public housing to serve low-income communities
Why is this a critical need? More housing being built could also mean more public housing, but removing zoning and land use regulations doesn't hurt this.
It seems you are more disappointed that your personal pet political issues are being ignored in favor of a market solution to house prices.
What it doesn’t address is the role of finance and the financial sector in explaining why things are the way they are.
It’s not just a missing detail it’s fatal to their entire argument.
Which isn’t an accident, since the goal of the “abundance movement” is to stop the actual progressive movements that want to take on concentrated financial power.
> slow and unproven trickle-down effect of market-rate housing, or the critical need for direct public housing to serve low-income communities
Your claims are unsubstantiated. I've only ever seen vague critiques by anti-abundance commentators. If you think YIMBY is wrong, then be specific in your criticisms. There is nothing special about direct public housing. It is housing built by the govt. The govt gets caught between regulations, is slower, wasteful & pays higher wages to workers. It's market rate housing but worse in every way. Chicago [1] is contemporary proof that Govt. can't build housing.
On the other hand, YIMBY Austin [2] has seen slower rent growth despite rapid migration over the last decade.
> gentrification and displacement
You realize this is a home ownership problem right ?
YIMBY doesn't cause gentrification. It is a balm to reduce the pain of inevitable gentrification. A neighborhood gentrifies because increased economic opportunity draws new transplants in. If housing supply is limited, then existing residents are going to get priced out one way or another. As a neighborhood starts to gentrify, YIMBY redevelopment projects roll in & existing landowners see large windfalls. It's great if you own. Gentrification is only bad if you rent. Even then, YIMBY redevelopment projects increase housing supply, giving locals an option to move to home ownership and reduce the magnitude of rent spikes. It curbs the supply crunch.
Anti-abundance people don't have a coherent alternative other than rent control. Rent control has an unbeaten track record of failure in the western world. Either, prices diverge [3] and create a rental class system between new tenants and old residents. Or, they turn dilapidated like America's famous inner-city 'projects'.
There are 2 ways to look at it: the empathetic lens vs the pragmatic lens.
We've looked through the empathetic lens for the existing residents. But, from a pragmatic lens, why do they deserve to live exactly where they want to ? Yes, A city should provide sufficient housing to earning families within its boundaries. But, why should a person deserve to live on a specific block over another ? The existing renter had a choice to lock a spot down by buying it, and they didn't. Now, the renter is owed no such right. The newcomer and the old renter both have a valid claim to reside on the land, and rent control takes an unequal stance by favoring the older renter over the newcomer. Even in its best rendition, rent control is discriminatory. And rent control's best rendition lives in the same realm as Santa Claus or True Communism, called 'things that never happen'. At least YIMBYism buys time and opportunity for the older renter to figure out their next move.(opportunity to buy new housing, time because rents creep up slower)
[1] https://citythatworks.substack.com/p/construction-costs-for-...
[2] https://constructioncoverage.com/research/cities-with-the-la...
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/30/rents-...
Abundance YIMBYism in housing decreases gentrification. Gentrification happens when the only housing that is affordable is in low-income neighborhoods. If there is plenty of housing supply throughout a city, the demand for those low-income neighborhoods is lower.
Nothing in the Abundance agenda states that direct public housing is bad, per se. The argument is that what we need is more housing, and the only realistic way for that to happen is to make housing easier and cheaper to build, typically by easing zoning restrictions and other things like parking minimums that drive up costs.