How the YIMBYs won

Summary

Today, Explained: How the YIMBYs Won

Host: Sean Rameswaram and Noel King
Guest: Marina Balatnikova, Staff Writer at Slate
Release Date: July 17, 2025

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Introduction to NIMBYs and YIMBYs

The episode begins with Sean Rameswaram and Noel King reminiscing about their initial encounters with the terms "NIMBY" (Not In My Backyard) and "YIMBY" (Yes In My Backyard).

• Sean Rameswaram (00:00): "I can still remember the first time I heard about NIMBYs. You know, not in my backyard types."
• Noel King (00:12): "Ah, cool apartments. Yeah, apartments are good for society, but don't put them behind my backyard and block my view."

This playful exchange sets the stage for a deeper exploration of housing development debates, highlighting the tension between community desires and societal needs.

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The California Housing Crisis and CEQA

Marina Balatnikova delves into the historical context of California's housing crisis, focusing on the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

• Marina Balatnikova (02:06): "Well, I think if you're interested in housing politics, as I am, California looms pretty large for the rest of the country..."

She explains that CEQA, enacted in 1970 and signed by Ronald Reagan, was initially a bipartisan effort aimed at protecting the environment by regulating projects like interstate highways and nuclear power plants. However, its broad application ended up significantly hindering housing development.

• Sean Rameswaram (03:00): "And it's my assumption that to talk about the reforms, we first have to talk about the act."

• Marina Balatnikova (03:19): "CEQA is passed, signed by Ronald Reagan in 1970... forcing the government to reckon with its own actions in terms of the types of projects that it takes on."

A pivotal 1972 California Supreme Court decision extended CEQA’s reach to virtually all government-involved projects, including housing. This unexpected outcome led to cities like San Francisco halting new building permits, causing a significant slowdown in housing development.

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Impacts of CEQA on Housing and Environment

The hosts discuss the mixed legacy of CEQA, acknowledging its role in environmental preservation while critiquing its unintended consequences on housing availability.

• Marina Balatnikova (05:40): "Environmentalists in California think of this as part of what they consider the state's really agenda setting on environmental issues..."

However, the stringent regulations contributed to a severe housing shortage, exacerbating affordability issues and increasing homelessness.

• Noel King (06:36): "More people are moving out of California than any other state in the country. According to a new study by PODS."

• Marina Balatnikova (06:42): "Only 16% of Californians can afford to buy a home."

The episode highlights the personal and societal toll of these policies, emphasizing how they have made housing increasingly unaffordable and unsustainable.

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The Push for Reform: YIMBY Movement

The conversation shifts to the emergence and impact of the YIMBY movement, which has been advocating for reforms to CEQA and other housing policies for over a decade.

• Marina Balatnikova (07:23): "It's been going on for at least a decade... YIMBY affiliated legislators have chipped away at the California housing problem with all of these little bills..."

Despite previous efforts by leaders like Governor Jerry Brown failing to address CEQA's constraints, his successor Gavin Newsom made significant strides by introducing comprehensive reforms aimed at making housing development more feasible.

• Marina Balatnikova (07:57): "But CEQA has remained the kind of elephant in the room that no one was willing to take on until now."

Newsom's administration, supported by pro-housing legislators, successfully navigated the complex landscape to implement changes that reduce the regulatory burdens imposed by CEQA.

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Balancing Environment and Housing: A New Paradigm

A significant portion of the discussion revolves around how the recent reforms reconcile environmental objectives with the need for increased housing.

• Marina Balatnikova (11:13): "Environmentalism in the 21st century is no longer merely about can we save this tree from being chopped down? But also, are we living sustainable lifestyles in a larger sense."

The reforms advocate for building denser housing close to existing infrastructure, thereby reducing reliance on cars and lowering greenhouse gas emissions. This approach aligns environmental sustainability with urban development.

• Noel King (12:06): "If it's good for the environment for a housing project to get built, then those projects should be exempt from CEQA..."

Marina emphasizes that sustainable urban living, characterized by higher-density housing and proximity to public transit, is key to addressing both environmental and housing challenges.

• Marina Balatnikova (11:19): "...housing that is close to existing infrastructure that is close to jobs and public transit, results in lower greenhouse gas emissions and is good for the environment because it means people are driving shorter distances..."

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Wider Implications and Future Outlook

The episode explores how California’s reforms could serve as a model for other states grappling with similar housing crises.

• Noel King (23:55): "Major comprehensive reforms to zoning to make it easier to build different types of housing, higher densities of housing."

Cities like Austin, Minneapolis, Montana, and Oregon are highlighted as examples where zoning reforms have successfully increased housing supply and stabilized rents.

• Noel King (25:15): "We've seen a remarkably fast change in consensus on housing policy across cities and states, both blue and red, in the last several years..."

Despite these positive developments, the hosts caution that housing prices remain high, and the gap to affordability is still substantial. However, the momentum of recent years provides reason for optimism.

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Conclusion: The YIMBY Victory and Beyond

The episode concludes by affirming that the YIMBY movement has achieved significant victories in reshaping housing policies, not just in California but across the United States.

• Noel King (25:21): "Yes and no. We've seen a remarkably fast change in consensus on housing policy... that's a really promising sign."

Sean Rameswaram reflects on the transformative potential of these changes, suggesting that while the battle is not entirely won, the recent successes mark a pivotal shift towards more sustainable and affordable housing solutions.

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Final Thoughts

"How the YIMBYs Won" offers a comprehensive analysis of the intersection between environmental policy and housing development. By revisiting the historical underpinnings of CEQA and highlighting recent legislative successes, the episode underscores the importance of adaptive policies in addressing complex urban challenges. The collaborative efforts of policymakers, activists, and communities exemplify the dynamic nature of societal progress towards sustainable living.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Sean Rameswaram (00:00): "I can still remember the first time I heard about NIMBYs..."
• Marina Balatnikova (02:06): "If you're interested in housing politics... California looms pretty large for the rest of the country..."
• Marina Balatnikova (03:19): "CEQA is passed, signed by Ronald Reagan in 1970..."
• Noel King (06:36): "More people are moving out of California than any other state in the country..."
• Marina Balatnikova (07:23): "It's been going on for at least a decade..."
• Marina Balatnikova (11:19): "...housing that is close to existing infrastructure..."
• Noel King (25:21): "Yes and no. We've seen a remarkably fast change in consensus..."

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Produced by Devin Schwartz, Fact-Checked by Laura Bullard, and edited by Miranda Kennedy. For more insights and episodes, visit Vox's Today Explained.

Transcript

[Sean Ramisher]

Hello, my name's Sean Ramisher. My host today explained along with Noel King. And I can still remember the first time I heard about NIMBYs. You know, not in my backyard types.

[Noel King]

Ah, cool apartments. Yeah, apartments are good for society, but don't put them behind my backyard and block my view. Put them somewhere else.

[Sean Ramisher]

All right, boys, let's pack it up. And I also remember when I started hearing about YIMBYs. Yes, in my backyard types.

[Noel King]

Oh, cool apartments. Yes, apartments are good for society. Please put them behind my backyard and block my view. You know what? You can build them on top of me.

[Sean Ramisher]

All right, you heard the lady. Put it down right here. And I can even remember when it seemed like the yimbys won because that kind of just happened. The best evidence is out in California, and we're heading there, at least spiritually on the show today.

[Henry Grabar]

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[Noel King]

With the Venmo debit card, you can Venmo everything. Your favorite band's merch. You can Venmo this or their next show.

[Marina Balatnikova]

You can Venmo that.

[Noel King]

Visit Venmo Me Debit to learn more. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp bank and a pursuant to license by MasterCard International, Inc. The card may be used everywhere MasterCard is accepted. Venmo purchase restrictions apply.

[Sean Ramisher]

Yeah, Patty, back it up.

[Noel King]

Back it up.

[Marina Balatnikova]

It's today.

[Noel King]

Explain.

[Marina Balatnikova]

My name is Henry Grabar and I'm a staff writer at Slate.

[Sean Ramisher]

And though you live in Boston, we're here to talk to you about California. Why you?

[Marina Balatnikova]

Well, I think if you're interested in housing politics, as I am, California looms pretty large for the rest of the country, both as a cautionary tale about what not to do and then from time to time, like in this instance, as an example of how reform is possible.

[Sean Ramisher]

Ooh, which reform are you talking about? Specifically, for those not in the know.

[Marina Balatnikova]

I am talking about the latest round of California housing reforms, which were reforms to the California Environmental Quality act in such a way that that reformers hope will be a Very big deal in terms of permitting the state to build more homes.

[Sean Ramisher]

Okay. And it's my assumption that to talk about the reforms, we first have to talk about the act. So let's talk about the California Environmental Quality Act. What's its story?

[Marina Balatnikova]

So the California Environmental Quality act, which, by the way, everybody in California calls it CEQA. So I think we should do that.

[Sean Ramisher]

Okay. CEQA.

[Marina Balatnikova]

So CEQA is passed, signed by Ronald Reagan in 1970. Richard Nixon creates the Environmental Protection Agency. We can make 1972 the best year ever for environmental progress. The time has come for man to make his peace with nature. It is part of a bipartisan push in the United States to protect the environment in a systemic way that goes beyond just, you know, the creation of national parks. I mean, here we're talking about cleaning the air, cleaning the water, regulating industrial pollution. And in the context of California, there's a particular focus on forcing the government to reckon with its own actions in terms of the types of projects that it takes on. So we're talking about interstate highways, dams, nuclear power plants. All those kinds of things are in the crosshairs when CEQA is passed in 1970.

[Sean Ramisher]

Just a couple of heavyweight Republicans passing land, landmark environmental legislation.

[Marina Balatnikova]

Politics used to be pretty different, huh?

[Sean Ramisher]

How big a deal is this law once it's signed?

[Marina Balatnikova]

Well, I think there's some ambiguity right at the start about what exactly this law is going to apply to. And then there's a big court case that happens in 1972 in the California Supreme Court, where the court decides that this law applies to basically any project that requires any kind of government oversight. So basically, anything that you want to do, and in particular this case concerns housing. And so when the Supreme Court decides, from now on, all housing in California is subject to environmental review under ceqa. And this is just a bombshell. I mean, nobody's really prepared for this. In San Francisco, the city decides to halt new building permits until they can figure out what this means. And Los Angeles has these disclaimers saying that they can't be liable if these building permits are later found to be unconstitutional. So it is a big surprise for the development industry and city planners in California.

[Sean Ramisher]

And over the years, does it come to be regarded as a good thing or a bad thing or both or what?

[Marina Balatnikova]

I think that depends on whom you're speaking to. Environmentalists in California think of this as part of what they consider the state's really agenda setting on environmental issues for the entire nation. Right. And it's true that CEQA has helped the state preserve a number of its natural treasures. But the flip side of this is that housing production in California has slowed to a crawl. And the consequences of that have become very apparent to anybody who lives in or visits California. It's apparent in the number of people who leave the state every year, citing affordability issues and sort of fan out across the mountain west and the Sun Belt.

[Noel King]

More people are moving out of California than any other state in the country. According to a new study by PODS.

[Sean Ramisher]

Your Governor Newsom this year was nominated as the number one real estate agent for the state of Florida.

[Henry Grabar]

Only 16% of Californians can afford to buy a home.

[Marina Balatnikova]

It is apparent in the large numbers of homeless people who live on the streets and in their cars in California cities because they can't find a place to live. And so CEQA has also begun to be seen in as part of the problem and part of the reason that it's so difficult to build new housing in the state.

[Sean Ramisher]

So when does a movement to reform this landmark piece of legislation get underway?

[Marina Balatnikova]

It's been going on for at least a decade. Governor Jerry Brown, who was Newsom's predecessor, talked about it. Couldn't get it done. But it's certainly been one of those issues that's always discussed in Sacramento as well. If we really want to make it easier to build housing, we could remove this very strict and powerful law that governs the creation of any type of new housing that anybody would want to build.

[Sean Ramisher]

But Moonbeam Jerry Brown doesn't get it done. It's his successor, Gavin Newsom, and it wasn't easy.

[Marina Balatnikova]

I mean, Newsom's been in office for almost a decade, and he and a number of sort of YIMBY affiliated legislators have chipped away at the California housing problem with all of these little bills that they've done, several that are focused on ADUs, or accessory dwelling units, right? Like backyard cottages or granny flats. They've done bills focused on Transit Oriented Development, on affordable housing, and on student housing. But CEQA has remained the kind of elephant in the room that no one was willing to take on until now.

[Sean Ramisher]

Huh.

[Marina Balatnikova]

And then also I would say that there's been a kind of changing sense within the environmental movement and within the labor movement about. About what CEQA does and the extent to which it might be curtailing the creation of new housing in the state.

[Sean Ramisher]

And who's mad about changes to ceqa?

[Marina Balatnikova]

Who's mad? Well, obviously a number of environmental groups are upset, but the other group that's been upset, and I think this will come as a Surprise to people who are not versed in California politics is labor unions. The State Building and Construction Trades Council was ultimately neutral on this bill. They say that if you allow projects to go forward without CEQA review, you get rid of this moment of negotiation that compels these builders to employ union labor and to create these safer, highly paid jobs in construction in California cities.

[Sean Ramisher]

Hmm. It occurs to me that Gavin Newsom has maybe grand ambitions beyond running one of the biggest economies in the world, the most populous state in the country. Does this have anything to do with his ambitions for maybe holding national office? I don't know. The White House.

[Marina Balatnikova]

I think what he can say and what he will say as he talks about this achievement is that California has recognized the severity of their housing crisis and they are willing to take steps previously considered unthinkable to fix it. Right. He thinks of this as part of his track record as a problem solver who is willing to negotiate and get things done. It was too urgent, too important to allow the process to unfold as it.

[Sean Ramisher]

Has for the last generation. But deregulating, freeing up development, letting industry do industry, these are things that you hear Republicans saying. This is Gavin Newsom tacking to the middle. Because these problems that they're having in California around housing are not just California problems.

[Marina Balatnikova]

Yes, I hear you on that. And I've seen the framing of this reform as being a kind of setback for the environmental movement. And I think in this case, there's a plausible case to be made. And many pro housing groups have made this case that it reflects a different understanding of environmentalism.

[Sean Ramisher]

What we have done here is made absolutely needed housing easier to build, at.

[Marina Balatnikova]

The same time advancing, not derailing our environmental goals.

[Noel King]

It's a very straightforward and intuitive bill. If it's good for the environment for a housing project to get built, then those projects should be exempt from ceqa, the California Environmental Quality act, and that.

[Marina Balatnikova]

Environmentalism in the 21st century is no longer merely about can we save this tree from being chopped down? But also, are we living sustainable lifestyles in a larger sense? And, you know, the largest contributor to emissions in this country is transportation. And so if you block housing from being built in, in an urban neighborhood in a large city, that those people still need houses. Right. And so they might go and they might live 40 miles inland and drive 40 miles every day to go to work, or they might leave California altogether and move to a place like Dallas or Orlando where they'll drive 40 miles pretty much wherever they live. And so maybe this sequel reform reflects a new understanding about environmentalism and one that suggests that California actually is a pretty sustainable place to live.

[Sean Ramisher]

So the bill essentially recognizes housing that is close to existing infrastructure that is close to jobs and public transit, results in lower greenhouse gas emissions and is good for the environment because it means people are driving shorter distances or perhaps not even driving at all. Dense housing is green housing. And I'm happy to say that this is week.

[Noel King]

California finally internalized that truth.

[Marina Balatnikova]

And across the US we are seeing a very hard time building enough housing to accommodate their populations. Right? And so in that context, I think if these places, these other places don't start to reform their development policies now, then they will wind up like California in the years to come in a bad way. In a bad way, like not like palm trees and surf, but like million dollar houses and people living in vans.

[Sean Ramisher]

That was Henry Grabar. The last time he was on the show he was talking about parking because he's the author of Paved How Parking Explains the World when we return on Today Explained How Housing Explains Our World.

[Ezra Klein]

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[Marina Balatnikova]

Support for the.

[Sean Ramisher]

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[Noel King]

Thank you for your abundant mindset.

[Sean Ramisher]

It's a plug to Ezra, who today explained from Vox Marina Balatnikova works at Vox. She's an editor who sometimes writes, and her most recent writing was about housing, a subject we've covered plenty in years past. But we asked her for an update on the crisis.

[Noel King]

So housing is a lot more expensive in the United States today than it was several decades ago. And the average I thought this was kind of stunning. The average monthly mortgage payment is in 2024 was over $2,500, which is far and away above the fourteen hundred dollar payment that was average just just three years earlier.

[Sean Ramisher]

And we heard about this CEQA law in California from 1970 that really slowed development in that state. But from what you're saying, it sounds like there's a host of other factors that are leading to this crisis.

[Noel King]

Yeah, there are. The housing crisis that is at the root of so many of our national problems is it's not just a technical policy failure, but a logical endpoint of our of that cherished American ideal. And What I mean by that is think about, if you think about how the United States builds housing. Since the end of World War II, our housing supply has been built overwhelmingly in the form of suburbs and sprawling single family homes radiating ever outward from city centers. So instead of building cities up with density, which had been the normal pattern before, we largely kind of just built out and out. And the problem with that is you can only sprawl so much before it doesn't work anymore. Either you run out of land because you hit a mountain or an ocean or a literal physical barrier, or you get so far from the city center that people, it doesn't make sense for people to live there anymore. So we've built out suburbs really far in all of the really desirable parts of the country, like the Northeast California and increasingly in the Sun Belt too, which has been prized, celebrated for a long time for being relatively affordable compared to the coasts. These suburbs are getting really expensive. They're also low density, so in theory they ought to have room for plenty more people. That's impossible to do. It's illegal to do in most of the United States because unfortunately, I have to use the Z word, which is zoning. But zoning is just a fancy way of saying local rules on what kinds of things can be built where zoning has made it so that overwhelming majority of residential land in the United States cannot contain anything besides a detached single family home. Apartments are banned, duplexes are banned, triple deckers are banned. There's little capacity to incrementally densify in the communities that already exist. And some listeners might be thinking, well, wait a minute, I see these big fancy apartment buildings, some people know them as gentrification buildings going up all around me. What do you mean it's illegal to build them? And it's just, it's true that we're building them. They're going up on a really small share of residential land. And most Americans live on suburbs. Most of that land you can't intensify beyond a single family home. And so the suburban dream offered Americans this implicit bargain. We'll freeze our communities in amber. They'll never have to change, never have to become more dense. And instead we can accommodate population growth by sprawling out forever. That's been the engine of housing construction. And it is, I think, I think it's fair to say that it's failing us.

[Sean Ramisher]

You mentioned suburbs like in the Northeast in California, which I'm guessing are a little older in some cases at least than those in the Sun Belt did, like Sunbelt suburbs. Learn anything from the mistakes that were maybe made in California or the Northeast. This housing crisis in California keeps getting even worse.

[Marina Balatnikova]

Massachusetts is, has, was, and will continue to do a terrible job of building housing. There's no two ways about it.

[Sean Ramisher]

It is practically impossible to buy a.

[Peter Balanon]

Home unless you are essentially wealthy these days.

[Noel King]

Yeah, the coastal suburbs in California and the Northeast are much older and belong to, you know, metro areas that built out much earlier than the Sun Belt. You know, Phoenix and Las Vegas. These are places that grew from just desert towns to massive metropolises since World War II. And part of the big spark for this story I wrote was that I encountered the leading urban economists, Ed Glaeser and Joe Giorko. They write about the collapse in housing construction in the Sun Belt over the last few decades that happened on the coasts long ago. And what the researchers find now is that the same pattern is sort of repeating itself in the Sun Belt, where cities like Dallas, Atlanta, Phoenix, Miami had really, really high rates of housing growth in the early 2000s, the 90s, and it has since plummeted to rates almost as low as coastal cities that are barely building anything like Los Angeles. And it really surprised them because the Sun Belt is celebrated for being friendly to building stuff. The fundamentals of housing in that region are not so different from the coasts in the sense that it has been. Population and housing growth in the Sunbelt has been overwhelmingly driven by suburban sprawl since the end of, you know, since the end of World War II.

[Sean Ramisher]

Right. So we talked about reforming CEQA in California, which sounds like a very California solution because most states don't have a ceqa. What do we need to see in other states to really get to the heart of this crisis?

[Noel King]

Yeah. So major comprehensive reforms to zoning to make it easier to build different types of housing, higher densities of housing. So during the pandemic, Austin had a huge run up in rents because so many people were moving there. And pretty quickly, the city responded with changes to make it easier to build housing. It also made it easier to build taller buildings. And the result has been that in the last few years, it permitted new homes faster than almost anywhere else. And rents are down perhaps over 20% since mid 2023. And that's huge. It's the difference between paying $2,000 a month for an apartment versus $1,400 a month. And for a lot of people, that's the difference between being able to stay in Austin and being priced out. Similar things are happening in other places. Minneapolis famously ended all single family exclusive zoning in 2018 Montana has made it a lot easier to build apartments, and ADUs, Oregon has made it a lot easier to build duplexes, triplexes, other multifamily housing. So we're seeing the contours of a major shift in how housing in America gets regulated and built.

[Sean Ramisher]

Does that mean that the yimbys have won and the nimbys have at long last lost?

[Noel King]

Yes and no. We've seen a remarkably fast change in consensus on housing policy across cities and states, both blue and red, in the last several years, and that's a really promising sign. It hasn't yet translated into relief in housing prices because there's such a large gap to make up. I think the momentum of the last several years has been remarkable and more than anyone in the Yimby movement could have expected five years ago or so. And there's reason to be optimistic.

[Sean Ramisher]

Our colleague Marina Balatnikova making her Today Explained debut. Iconic Marina's with Vox's Future Perfect section. They're all about making the world work better. This episode was made in collaboration with them. It was produced by Devin Schwartz, Fact Checked by Laura Bullard, mixed by Patrick Boyd and edited by Miranda Kennedy, who's still in the club. What's that you ask? Who else works here? Well, let's just say Peter Balanon, Rosen, Andrea Christensdotter, Gabrielle Burbay, Denise Guerra, Rebecca Ibarra, Avishai Artsy, Hadi Mwagdi, Miles Bryan and Noel King. From the Apple Store, our supervising editor is Amina Al Saadi and our deputy executive producer is Jolie Myers. We use music by Breakmaster Cylinder and listen to music by Justin Bieber. Swag Today Explained is distributed by wnyc. The show is a part of Vox. You can listen to Today Explained without the ads by signing [e-mail] members now. That means you get less of the ads Noelle and I make just for you, but also none of the other ads, which maybe you don't want to hear anymore. Think about it. Bye. That's a JQ thing. JQ says byee like that. You can hear her on Sundays on Explain it to me in this very feed without the ads. If you go to vox.com members.