This analysis of housing and suburban zoning issues by Alan Mallach deserves careful consideration. It summarizes a lot of critiques of YIMBYism in the progressive imagination. I think there is good and bad stuff in his piece: https://shelterforce.org/2020/06/19/more-housing-could-increase-affordability-but-only-if-you-build-it-in-the-right-places-urban_housing/

The thing I like about Mallach's analysis is that it recognizes that housing costs are a function of supply and demand. Too often, progressives argue that costs are high in some cities for zany reasons, like "interest rates are too low" or "The Chinese bought all the housing"...

Mallach attempts to tackle the question of why coastal cities are expensive, whereas cities like Houston remain affordable. But he gets in a mess with the argument that Houston builds housing for middle-class people because that's what the market there demands...

Is there not also demand for middle-class housing in Seattle and other coastal cities? Yes, of course there is. There is great demand. So why are those markets not building housing for middle-class people??

This argument, for example, is nonsense. The reason why Seattle builds expensive housing isn't because only rich people want to live in Seattle. It's because when the ability to build is restricted, builders will cater to rich customers first.

Mallach argues that Houston does not build more housing than other cities, and in fact is close to the US average. I am very skeptical about this chart. It is limited to 2014-2019. I believe that Houston was build build building for decades while these other cities did nothing...

The idea that there's nowhere to build in coastal cities is also nonsense. Most of these cities are 75% or more low-density single-family suburbia. The land to build is absolutely there, but zoning constraints make it impossible to redevelop these areas.

Mallach is correct that there is a robust debate about whether filtering increases housing affordability. But we don't really need any more studies - we can see that cities that built lots of housing over many decades are affordable, and cities that did not are not affordable.

Mallach argues that redevelopment does not increase affordability, something I have heard over and over again in Princeton. He cites the example of a developer knocking down a $270K single-family-home to build three $440K condos. How is that improving affordability, he asks??

This is a really hard one for YIMBYs to answer imho, because you have to appeal to some nebulous concept of 'overall affordability throughout the market', or even worse an 'invisible hand'. On the face of it, the redevelopment is producing more expensive housing...

In Princeton, people argue that the best way to preserve affordability is to *prevent* redevelopment of all the creaking 1950s ranches and split-levels. These are the most affordable homes in town, even if buyers have to pay $800K for a crap house with loads of problems.

I should know, I live in one!!!

Mallach questions whether reforms to incentivize construction of Accessory Dwelling Units really 'move the needle' on affordability. I think this concern is OK. ADUs alone are not enough! We need ADUs, and lots more zoning reform!!

"Potential damage to neighborhood fabric really does matter" How does it matter? What neighborhood fabric are we preserving? Is it one of overwhelming white privilege?

OK, now we are on to better stuff...

Alan Mallach obviously does not have dozens of sad California YIMBYs in his feed complaining about how RHNA obligations are too low. Nor has he heard of SB50, apparently (h/t @TribTowerViews)...

He's right about a lot of this. Suburbs have historically been set up for exclusion, and many advocates focus on cities. But we don't have to choose between upcoming suburbs and central cities: we should upzone them all!!!

Reminder that Alan Mallach has been working in housing advocacy since before I was born, and was a former housing director in Trenton NJ. He does actually know a lot of stuff. He cites NJ's "Mt Laurel" case law as a successful example of upzoning the suburbs...

Shout-out for @YIMBY_Law! (or should that be @carla_org? I can't keep up with California drama) Mallach seems to belittle YIMBY efforts on legal suits a bit here, they should surely be encouraged!! The key organization for suing suburbs for housing is of course @FairShareNJ!

Overall, I think Mallach is too negative on zoning reform as a tool to increase housing affordability. He is right that we should upzone suburbs but that shouldn't be a reason for cities to shirk their responsibility to add housing. /fin.