But of course it’s not really for the greater good. Because from a community perspective, YIMBY is the acquiescence to the “reverse alchemy” of transmuting lower-density, more livable neighbourhoods to higher-density neighbourhoods, often with more noise and pollution and less access to nature. For this, they get none of the profits of development, but often bear most of the costs in the form of higher municipal taxes to pay for the additional infrastructure and services needed, such as garbage collection, sidewalks, water mains, sewers and storm drains.
Which raises the question: is it legitimate to call YIMBY a psyop?
YIMBY: a psyop against opposition to growth?
Psyop is short for psychological operation which dictionary.com says is another term for psychological warfare, defined as: “the use of propaganda, threats, and other psychological techniques to mislead, intimidate, demoralize, or otherwise influence the thinking or behaviour of an opponent.”
Can this definition be applied to YIMBY? Let’s check how well it fits.
Propaganda, threats, and psychological techniques
Several organizations in Canada promote YIMBY, which can be considered a movement. More Neighbours Toronto encourages people to use its online tool to ask their member of provincial parliament to end exclusionary zoning. More Neighbours Toronto is part of a larger organization called More Homes Canada with at least 12 groups (including in Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax) that push local residents to engage in political activism to enable growth, such as demanding zoning changes that allow for greater density and taller buildings. The Alliance for a Liveable Ontario “welcomes a growing population” that it believes can be accommodated through all the usual methods that have so far failed spectacularly to stop sprawl.
Even parties and organizations whose alleged purpose is environmental protection have leapt onto the growth-embracing bandwagon. Mike Schreiner, an MPP and leader of the allegedly Green Party of Ontario, promotes YIMBY using buzzwords like “legalizing housing” (see below). In 2023, Schreiner introduced two private member’s bills (Bill 44 and Bill 45) that would densify neighbourhoods and give residents no opportunity to appeal. The alleged environmental organization Environmental Defence asks people to “fight sprawl by supporting the approval of more homes in your neighbourhood” and “demand that your municipal government end exclusionary zoning.”
While it would be a stretch to say that YIMBY uses threats, it clearly uses propaganda and psychological techniques to advance the interests of growth-promoters. The attempts to shame growth-resisters, as discussed below, also make use of psychology.
Mislead
Mislead means to guide wrongly or tend to deceive. It can be argued that the very term “YIMBY” is designed to deceive. It presents something (densification and development) that is in fact detrimental to the intended target (people who live in neighbourhoods about to be densified) as a socially good thing, when in fact the benefits (profit) almost entirely go to others (developers, speculators, mortgage providers, some businesses). And it entirely avoids challenging the driver of unwanted growth: extraordinarily high levels of immigration set by the federal government.
Terminology can also be used to mislead. In October 2023, housing minister (and former immigration minister) Sean Fraser used the absurd term “legalize housing” while in Kelowna, BC. Housing is obviously legal, but in pro-growth Newspeak, “legalize housing” is a nice way of saying that municipal zoning regulations can be dispensed with, with no avenue to appeal, to allow the densification driven by the federal government’s reckless immigration policies.
Intimidate (or maybe just shaming as a psychological tool)
The YIMBY movement does not (as far as I know) engage in outright intimidation, but shaming is definitely an arrow in its quiver, as shown in the pro-YIMBY meme below: |
The merger of the Corporation
And the State
Overflows the Rich Man’s plate.
[…] proposal for many reasons, some baseless, but others reasonable. Sociologist Robert Lake argued that NIMBYs are best defined as locals standing in the way of capital, not social […]
[…] por muitas razões, algumas infundadas, mas outras razoáveis. Sociólogo Robert Lake argumentou que os NIMBYs são melhor definidos como habitantes locais que atrapalham o capital, e não como […]