Minneapolis has a YIMBY message for America: Build more houses and get rid of suburban-style zoning and inflation will disappear

Archive link. There are really two things going on here:

1. Minneapolis successfully eliminated legal mandates that required single-family zoning in residential areas. That is, the political class agreed to make changes to municipal codes that hadn't been updated in decades. It is important to remember that, while this country is pretty democratic, elected officials ultimately decide what exact legal policies are enacted and reversed. Public opinion is a major part of that, but it is important to highlight that specific legal measures were undertaken—Minneapolis did not "good feelings" its way to a sensible housing market, it used legal frameworks to enact better policies.
2. Urbanist activist groups became significantly better organized, they refined and upgraded their messaging, and they coordinated far more effective campaigns within the political sphere and in the public consciousness. To some extent, they have benefitted from a slight uptick in nationwide awareness about "urbanism" as a concept. (It should come as no surprise that this change coincides with increased popularity of urban development videos on YouTube.) People are talking about these issues more than they ever have.

Frankly, most people, including most NIMBYs, have never read and would struggle to parse an actual zoning document. These bodies of regulations are technical and boring. (For reference, here's the Minneapolis Zoning Code. It's one of the better ones, with proper illustrations and maps. Still not exactly a fun read.) But they don't really need to be zoning experts to have a generally negative opinion toward "development." Likewise an activist movement can change that entrenched opinion with suitably attractive discourse.

Many people who urbanists would call "NIMBYs" are actually relatively ambivalent about specific policies. Rather, they are reactionary toward an unspecific concept of "build-up" which is personal to their tastes. They may have a preference to live in a SFH in a neighborhood featuring houses that look more or less like theirs, for example. But even these people can often recognize when development is good for their community, and when certain policies might be harmful. More importantly, they can be assuaged if activists present a cohesive and desirable narrative that at least superficially addresses their concerns.

There is not really a centralized NIMBY movement in the sense that every NIMBY has a different reason for not wanting a very particular development. (For this reason, there is not really a centralized YIMBY movement either.) Certainly there are anti-urbanist organizations out there, but a narrative of conservatism (and I mean this in the strict sense of the word) is not as appealing to an urban populace as something transformative which solves perceived problems rather than maintaining or exacerbating them. In an urban setting, your neighbor's problems are very visible to you: it is hard to be satisfied with the status quo. Any urban philosophy whose plan is simply "change nothing" is fighting a bit of an upward battle if there are any significant problems in that municipality. What has changed in the last 10 or so years has been better definitions for and awareness of said problems.

Here are some general observations on this success story, and others like it:

• Urbanist organizations have narrowed down what they actually want better in the last few years. In Minneapolis' case, it was identifying specific issues in the zoning code rather than ambiguously complaining about the housing crisis (which is generally unconstructive, if sometimes cathartic).
• Pro-development activist groups have gotten better at communicating with stakeholders early on. This includes the public but also transit agencies, local politicians, and community organizations. In many cities, what would have been a scrappy grassroots campaign to install a bike lane 10 years ago is now a registered 501(c)(3) with members, donors, and sympathizers who have seats on important community boards, city agencies, and sometimes political offices. In other words, urbanists have more allies and more connections.
• Social media, including novel platforms like Discord, have enabled people with generally YIMBY attitudes to create citywide coalitions that, while often moderately decentralized, share resources, strategies, skills, and experience to accomplish specific goals. Because most urbanists are also young, they are more familiar with and generally more adept with these newer online services.
• Urbanists have also gotten their statistics and their facts defined in a much better way than before; they can reasonably push back against unfounded, false, or misleading claims. And, in my experience, they have gotten way better at producing clear documents and useful visuals for capital projects and redevelopment plans than before. It is often these meaningful documents that change perceptions, not stats alone.

In sum, pro-transit, pro-walkability, pro-cycling, pro-accessibility, pro-density, and pro-affordability advocates are no longer on the fringe of political conversation. There is no single magic bullet that immediately allows YIMBY policy to win; it's going to be extremely city-dependent, and it does take time. But all of these factors are relevant at getting rough ideas turned into refined ones turned into bills turned into laws.