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Neighborhood Defenders: Participatory Politics and America's Housing Crisis
Since the collapse of the housing market in 2008, demand for housing has consistently outpaced supply in many US communities. The failure to construct sufficient housing - especially affordable housing - in desirable communities and neighborhoods comes with significant social, economic, and environmental costs. This book examines how local participatory land use institutions amplify the power of entrenched interests and privileged homeowners. The book draws on sweeping data to examine the dominance of land use politics by 'neighborhood defenders' - individuals who oppose new housing projects far more strongly than their broader communities and who are likely to be privileged on a variety of dimensions. Neighborhood defenders participate disproportionately and take advantage of land use regulations to restrict the construction of multifamily housing. The result is diminished housing stock and higher housing costs, with participatory institutions perversely reproducing inequality.
228 pages, Paperback
Published December 5, 2019
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December 25, 2024
Although some cities clearly need more housing, many people would prefer that housing to be in someone else's neighborhood- and the people most virulently opposed to new housing often have the biggest voice in land use decisions. These "neighborhood defenders" (as the authors call them) or NIMBYs (as pro-housing activists call them, an acronym for "Not In My Back Yard") are able to exclude housing because of the public meeting process surrounding zoning. Because zoning laws are so complicated, new building often requires a zoning change, which under current law nearly always requires a public hearing. Neighborhood defenders the neighborhood flock to these hearings and fight the project.
This book didn't tell me much that it was surprising, but adds data supporting what I already suspected to be the case. Based on a survey of dozens of towns in metropolitan Boston, the authors point out that:
1. The sheer volume of regulations is correlated with low levels of housing production, especially low levels of multifamily housing production. Suburbs with many different types of regulation have fewer new apartments or condos, and the buildings that are developed in these suburbs have fewer units. This correlation is not limited to regulations directly limited to housing supply (such as density limits); even innocuous regulations can be used to delay housing.
2. Conventional economic wisdom suggests that neighborhood defenders seek to protect their property values by limiting new housing. On the other hand, some new urbanists would like to believe that prettier projects would be more popular. However, neighborhood defenders are more likely to raise concerns about traffic and environmental concerns than aesthetic or economic concerns. Less than 10 percent of commenters in the authors' sample directly mentioned home values.
3. The traditional justification for public meetings about zoning is that commenters represent the public. The authors disprove this idea: commenters at zoning meetings are much more likely to be homeowners as opposed to renters, and are whiter, older and more male. (However, it is unclear to what extent this affects commenters' positions; nonwhites are more likely to support new housing, but because Massachusetts is so white, the authors have a limited sample size of comments to draw from). While the overwhelming majority of comments are against new housing projects, results from a 2010 Massachusetts referendum on affordable housing show that most people want more housing, not less.
This book didn't tell me much that it was surprising, but adds data supporting what I already suspected to be the case. Based on a survey of dozens of towns in metropolitan Boston, the authors point out that:
1. The sheer volume of regulations is correlated with low levels of housing production, especially low levels of multifamily housing production. Suburbs with many different types of regulation have fewer new apartments or condos, and the buildings that are developed in these suburbs have fewer units. This correlation is not limited to regulations directly limited to housing supply (such as density limits); even innocuous regulations can be used to delay housing.
2. Conventional economic wisdom suggests that neighborhood defenders seek to protect their property values by limiting new housing. On the other hand, some new urbanists would like to believe that prettier projects would be more popular. However, neighborhood defenders are more likely to raise concerns about traffic and environmental concerns than aesthetic or economic concerns. Less than 10 percent of commenters in the authors' sample directly mentioned home values.
3. The traditional justification for public meetings about zoning is that commenters represent the public. The authors disprove this idea: commenters at zoning meetings are much more likely to be homeowners as opposed to renters, and are whiter, older and more male. (However, it is unclear to what extent this affects commenters' positions; nonwhites are more likely to support new housing, but because Massachusetts is so white, the authors have a limited sample size of comments to draw from). While the overwhelming majority of comments are against new housing projects, results from a 2010 Massachusetts referendum on affordable housing show that most people want more housing, not less.
July 18, 2020
Neighborhood Defenders is an academic, yet approachable, book that discusses the dynamics around how people stop housing development that can increase affordability in the name of defending the neighborhoods. The book is and exploration of how current zoning (and review) processes , which were set up to give everyone a voice, have served to give certain advantaged groups an outsize say in what can be built. The result is often that larger housing projects which might include a range of market rate affordable, as well as subsidized affordable units often end up getting scaled back or stopped.
“Neighborhood Defenders” refers to the groups of residents that often rally around stopping projects by expressing opposition in terms of rationales along the lines of “this will change the character of the neighborhood.” In the book we learn that even while some of the Defenders may be well intentioned (but perhaps not all) the end result is that housing that has the potential to diversify make a community more diverse and affordable is less likely to be built.
The theme that most caught my attention is the role of the public meeting process that many cities and towns follow around zoning has in this. The public meeting process has its roots in giving people voice, but in some contexts the voices that participate are limited to certain groups, and often not the ones who might benefit from certain housing projects. It’s easy enough to introduce delays -- which add costs to projects. -- either projects don’t happen, or developers abandon the idea of larger projects with Affordable housing and build smaller market rate housing. For example commenters at meetings often raise issues that are tangential to the original project, leading to the need for new studies and delays.
While there are many books that opine about housing this one is different in that it is backed by data. The authors have read meeting transcripts and reviewed zoning regulations in cities and towns and used that data to support their conclusions. As such, the book is detailed and not a very light read, but it is very approachable, and worth a read if you are interested in understanding the dynamics of housing and zoning meetings.
Anyone who is a resident of a community that has a zoning board -- whether you are an activist or not -- could find this a useful and enlightening read, that will help you understand the obstacles involved in community development and paths around them.
“Neighborhood Defenders” refers to the groups of residents that often rally around stopping projects by expressing opposition in terms of rationales along the lines of “this will change the character of the neighborhood.” In the book we learn that even while some of the Defenders may be well intentioned (but perhaps not all) the end result is that housing that has the potential to diversify make a community more diverse and affordable is less likely to be built.
The theme that most caught my attention is the role of the public meeting process that many cities and towns follow around zoning has in this. The public meeting process has its roots in giving people voice, but in some contexts the voices that participate are limited to certain groups, and often not the ones who might benefit from certain housing projects. It’s easy enough to introduce delays -- which add costs to projects. -- either projects don’t happen, or developers abandon the idea of larger projects with Affordable housing and build smaller market rate housing. For example commenters at meetings often raise issues that are tangential to the original project, leading to the need for new studies and delays.
While there are many books that opine about housing this one is different in that it is backed by data. The authors have read meeting transcripts and reviewed zoning regulations in cities and towns and used that data to support their conclusions. As such, the book is detailed and not a very light read, but it is very approachable, and worth a read if you are interested in understanding the dynamics of housing and zoning meetings.
Anyone who is a resident of a community that has a zoning board -- whether you are an activist or not -- could find this a useful and enlightening read, that will help you understand the obstacles involved in community development and paths around them.
October 7, 2020
Informative read for anyone interested in land use politics, affordable housing, or really anything to do with public hearings. The authors show the power that people can wield at local zoning hearings, while also objectively showing the skewed demographics (wealthier, whiter, more likely own than rent) of those who attend most often and the prevailing objective (resistance to additional housing units). They use quantitative analysis of coded public hearing comments to demonstrate correlation between outcomes and various regulatory regimes/public input frameworks. Though limited to eastern Massachusetts, many of the themes will feel recognizable to anyone who has ever attended a meeting of local government on a matter of planning or development.
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