In this episode I'm joined by Annemarie Gray and Felicity Maxwell to discuss how the YIMBY movement is finally cracking the code on housing reform in major American cities. We examine the recent groundbreaking victories in New York City and Austin, exploring how pro-housing groups are learning from each other through networks like Welcoming Neighbors Network, and wrestle with the challenge of increasing housing supply while protecting existing communities.
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David Roberts
All right, hello everyone. This is Volts for February 19, 2025 — I have to keep reminding myself — "What YIMBYs are learning from their victories across the country." I'm your host, David Roberts. Few social movements have had as many political and policy victories in recent years as the YIMBY movement. It stands for "yes in my backyard," and it refers to the loose coalition of groups and constituencies that are pushing US cities and towns to rapidly increase housing supply.
It has gained momentum from the growing acknowledgment of a housing crisis in the US — a crisis that is suppressing economic growth, exacerbating economic inequality, increasing traffic, pollution, and greenhouse gases, and siphoning voters away from dense blue areas into red exurban and rural areas. By making it difficult to build housing, progressive blue city leaders are shooting themselves, and progressivism, in the foot.
Two of the biggest housing breakthroughs, both the result of years of patient effort, have taken place recently in New York City and Austin, Texas, both of which have passed sweeping reforms including everything from upzoning to reduced parking requirements.
My two guests today played key roles in those victories. Annemarie Gray runs Open New York, a grassroots pro-housing advocacy organization, which she joined after several years as a policy advisor to New York City government. Felicity Maxwell is a long-time housing advocate and organizer in Austin who now runs Texans for Housing, a pro-housing advocacy organization, and is on the city planning commission.
Though both are focused on their local campaigns, they are also part of the Welcoming Neighbors Network, a growing coalition of pro-housing groups across the country dedicated to sharing insights and strategies. I am extremely keen to hear about those insights and strategies and how well they might transfer across geographies, so let's get into it.
Annemarie Gray
With no further ado, Annemarie Gray, Felicity Maxwell, welcome to Volts. Thank you so much for coming.
Felicity Maxwell
Thanks for having us.
David Roberts
Super excited about this conversation. Just to frame things a little bit — and I discussed this with both of you in advance — the reason I wanted to do this and sort of the mindset from which I'm approaching this is, to me as I've gotten interested in urban issues, housing, transportation, transit density, that whole network of one thing about it has struck me over and over again. I've never quite been able to put it adequately into words, but I want to compare it to the Sunshine of the Empty Mind or whatever that movie is called, insofar as, I mean, it seems like no one ever learns anything.
Like the battles never change, like the battle over the bike lane in 2025 is the same as the battle over the bike lane in a different city in 2018, or 2010, or 2005. It's like the same constituencies arrayed against one another, the same arguments, just the same everything. It seems like it's always struck me like nothing ever changes. There's no momentum. You know, it's like you're starting over again every time. It's very frustrating in that way. I don't exactly know what the term is for that or whatever.
All of which is to say, it's very exciting to me to hear about this network of pro-housing groups that are trying to share what they've learned, share strategies. Just the idea that, like, we might actually be figuring out how to do this better and quicker over time, you know, just like that's very hopeful to me. And this sort of run of victories that has popped up lately seems to indicate to me that, "Yes, like, maybe we are learning, maybe we are getting better, maybe it's not the same every time." So, that's what I'm excited to hear from you guys is like, what we've learned that might be transferable.
But to back up a little bit — sorry, that's a whole second introduction — to back up a little bit. Let's just start by maybe each of you what has happened in your city. I referenced it very briefly in the introduction, but Annemarie, maybe I'll start with you. Maybe just tell people, like in the last two to three years, what happened in New York City? What are the reforms that passed?
Annemarie Gray
Sure, and super great questions. The positive answer here is, I think, we are making progress. Right. As you mentioned, I worked in government and most recently in city hall for 10 years total, three years in city hall, really overseeing planning and land use and housing issues. And frankly, the momentum that we've seen and the narrative change that we've seen even in these short years has been so interesting. In 2020, 2021, I worked on the SoHo, NoHo and Gowanus rezonings, which were two of the first the city has passed in decades that were in sort of high opportunity, well-resourced neighborhoods.
And that kind of had seemed to be politically off-limits before that. And you had this emerging group of some established orgs, but also just some kind of like loosely organized individuals, volunteers who were tied to this group, Open New York in the early stages start to show up and sort of have this new and newly visible constituency saying, "Yes," especially to these types of projects.
David Roberts
Yes, I want to. I want to get in later to exactly what that constituency looks like.
Annemarie Gray
Yes. And so, I saw that from the inside and honestly, I made the jump almost two and a half years ago to become executive director of Open New York and really grow it to focus on not just project by project, but citywide. And now we're even doing statewide work. And we've grown tremendously because there just has not been this outside force in the same way.
And then, we've been part of this network that has also just grown exponentially in the last couple of years and really learning from each other. What's been so interesting is, since I took over, we saw the first proposal at the state level for the types of state-level reforms that New York has never passed yet, but other states have. That was in 2023. And then, the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity proposal is sort of rooted in a lot of the work when I was back in City Hall and a lot of the sort of fair housing focused work.
And that passed in December after a really huge push that us and our organization, our members were really, really, really active in. And that, frankly, was the first real pro-housing win for New York. And it was actually taking a citywide approach rather than these one-off, kind of like toxic neighbor to neighbor fights to actually say, "We need to do this, we need to bring this to a higher level of decision making and pass these really sensible policies that impact every district." We are also now — yesterday we were up in Albany relaunching the first major pro-housing bill that would be statewide, called the Faith-Based Affordable Housing Act.
David Roberts
Maybe just tell us, I mean, I know it's a lot, there's a lot in there, but maybe just give us the brief, sort of high line, like what is the City of Yes? It's a package of a bunch of things. What are the sort of top-line items in it?
Annemarie Gray
Yes, so yes, it's a citywide plan passed in December. It has a bunch — the tagline has been, it was introduced by the city and was really passed with a lot of leadership also from the City Council. It's a whole package of reforms with the idea it's a little more housing in every neighborhood. And so it includes legalizing accessory dwelling units in some of the lower density parts of New York City, making it easier to convert an office building to housing, some transit-oriented development, lifting parking mandates in a lot of parts of the city, and introducing a program called University Affordability Preference that added an affordable housing bonus in a huge swath of the city and a handful of other things like that.
So, something that touched every neighborhood in a very sensible way.
David Roberts
And this is, you know, as you said, just to emphasize, this is really the first citywide shakeup in zoning and land use in New York City in ages.
Annemarie Gray
Correct.
David Roberts
Okay, Felicity, what did Austin do?
Felicity Maxwell
It's funny because it sounds a lot like what New York did, except in Austin. So, yes, for those who may not be familiar, during COVID and even before then, Austin had sort of become this hot, hip city that everyone wanted to move to. And of course, we had this huge run-up in housing, a result in a real constraint on supply. And I think some people may not be aware that we'd actually tried to do a lot of work around reforming our land development code, like how we build in the city for basically 10 years.
So, it's interesting to hear, Annemarie, because what they did in maybe a shorter time, we did over a much longer time. The organization that I'm with, or I have been a board member of, AURA, has actually been in Austin for over 10 years. And so, the work was much slower here, but then suddenly accelerated very quickly after 2020.
David Roberts
What's the quote? " Slowly, and then all at once."
Felicity Maxwell
All at once. That's literally what happened. We had some elections that really led to a big turnover in who was leading the city and the city council members. And there was suddenly this huge appetite to really address in a very holistic and, I think, I would say, dramatic way: How can we sort of try to attack the unaffordable housing in Austin? So, we had a suite of reforms. They were a little bit more piecemeal than I think what they all did in New York. We didn't have a great tagline like "City of Yes".
David Roberts
It is a good tagline, I gotta say.
Felicity Maxwell
It's a good tagline. But, you know, we kind of, I like to joke, we speed ran it because we eliminated parking minimums across the city. We did minimum lot size, we did three units by right. We did a lot of work around our new Project Connect, which is our transit system. So, that's ETOD work. We also did something related to compatibility, which is how close you can build to a single-family home. So, it was literally all these kind of thorny issues that had been part of Austin's — like the underlying causes of all of this for years and years and years that have been sort of intractable.
David Roberts
When you say three units by right, will you just unpack that very briefly?
Felicity Maxwell
Oh, absolutely. So, similar to what Annemarie mentioned, we now have the ability to put up to three units on any single-family lot in Austin.
David Roberts
And when you say "by right," that just means you don't have to ask. You can just do it.
Felicity Maxwell
Don't have to ask. Essentially, it replaced — we had duplex rules and ADU rules, which were quite onerous and made the units kind of unattractive and unaffordable. I'll say, like, really impractical. And so now it's very simple. If you have a certain lot size, you can build up to three units. There are some limits in terms of how big each one can be and it gets into complicated things like FAR, which — let's not talk about that. But the idea generally being that if you have a certain size lot in Austin, you can build, you know, more than one house, which really does help with infill.
And then, of course, the second part of that is, if you don't want to have three units on your own lot, you can subdivide your lot. And that's where you get into things like dividing lots into smaller sizes. Austin went from 5750 in terms of our lot size down to 1800 square feet.
David Roberts
That's pretty wild. That's a huge jump.
Felicity Maxwell
And, you know, I've been in this fight for probably the last five to 10 years, and it's amazing to me that we did that all basically in like 18 months.
David Roberts
I know, I know. Well, I'm going to ask a little bit later about what we think about durability and that sort of thing. But, in both cases, you had pressure over a long period of time, and then, like a dam, broke and a bunch of stuff happened all at once. So, I want to sort of get to what I think of as the key question. I want to hear from both of you on this. So, anyone who has been on the YIMBY side of any fight or campaign in any city is familiar with a basic asymmetry involved in these fights, which is to say, the people who have the time and money and wherewithal and knowledge to know what's happening and to show up to the meetings and to lobby tend to be the people who already live in these areas, which tend to be older, wealthier, and whiter.
All things being equal, that's who tends to show up to these meetings where, you know, they have their coordinated T-shirts, they have their neighborhood groups. They've been in these neighborhood groups for years. They share info, etc. They're very organized, etc. And on the other side, the pro-housing side, you know, sort of by definition, like the hundred, you know, 200 people who will live in the apartment building that might or might not get built, don't know who they are, no one knows who they are, no one knows who's going to live in the building yet. So they're not showing up.
Right. And lots of times, if it's affordable housing, like lower-income people have jobs they can't get away from or just have less social capital, more trouble finding out, these things are going on. So all of which is just to say that the forces of inaction, the forces of freezing neighborhoods in place, the NIMBY forces, have a sort of built-in advantage here, which means the organizing task facing YIMBYs, it's just a higher bar, they just have more to do, it's more difficult. And I would say that New York City and Austin were known in these circles for years not just for having these neighborhood groups, but for having particularly organized, vigorous, some might even say vicious neighborhood groups, specifically in both those cities.
So, what I'd like to hear, just at a high level, is just like what's kind of your theory of change as you approach that asymmetry? How do you think about how to cobble together a force that can match that very organized pre-existing force that already exists in every one of these places? Annemarie, you can start.
Annemarie Gray
Sure. So, we have chosen — city and state level policy actually could intervene here — but we have chosen to defer these types of decisions to sort of hyper-local constituents. It's not a representation of the district or the needs of the city. You know, exactly as you said, they skew better housing insecurity, they skew older, wealthier, whiter. And so what we've done is really, I mean we just have a whole new crop of people who are feeling this. And frankly, I do want to recognize there are people who have been feeling the crush of the housing crisis for so long, but I think that it has gotten to such a degree that it is now hitting frankly middle-class people.
It is hitting a much wider swath of the population, such that organizing the shared interests and the number of people riled up about this is easier. So, we really strategically organized just volunteer members of ours who live in their district to show up at these exact meetings that have just for decades been monopolized by these same particular voices. And what's so interesting about it is we're not talking about all that many people. Right. It's just sort of. We've chosen to defer these processes to a very small minority of people that's not representative. And that is, that is a choice.
Right. That is a choice that city and state policy could actually intervene on. And so, I think that our theory of change of all this is really make it visible. You know, we pick the types of projects that really make visible how unfair and undemocratic this is for the consequences of the problem for the whole city, the region, and frankly, the country of New York City. And then also strategically build more of a narrative and more of a movement to take these issues out of the reactionary project-by-project fight. We're never going to solve this by fighting project by project.
So, we are, you know, New York City is kind of a small state. City of Yes was the first time we actually did something citywide such that you just negated the need for a huge number of hyperlocal fights. And the real ticket that we're working on, you do that at the state level, you do that even further. Right. So, these just have to reach a higher level of government, which is the way that we decide other major policy issues. Right. Housing is kind of unique in this.
David Roberts
This is the maddening — the maddening thing in this particular area. For some reason, it seems more than any other area of policy, people are like, "The more local it is, the more democratic it is." And that just doesn't follow. It doesn't make any sense. Like, there are more people in New York State than there are in that neighborhood. So it's more democratic if more people weigh in on it. You know, almost by definition, the larger polity you're working with, the more democratic it is. Like, why would it be democratic for, you know, 12 old people to run land use?
Like, I don't get that instinct.
Annemarie Gray
It doesn't make sense, and it's not working.
David Roberts
Yeah. So, who — maybe put a little meat on the bones. Like, these are young people who are in apartments who can't afford houses you're organizing? Are these people who want to move to New York City? Are they people who are — insofar as you can, you know, broadly characterize them, like, who's involved in these other constituencies?
Annemarie Gray
Of our membership?
David Roberts
Yeah, yeah. Just like who's pushing for YIMBY reforms now, like, who are the kind of groups?
Annemarie Gray
So, we're the only pro-housing, major pro-housing group in the whole state, actually, and the city. So, we're filling, we're growing quickly, filling a huge void. We, at this point, have over 800 members, you know, starting in New York City. So that's our largest base, but we've been growing chapters across the state too, and then also partnering with other groups with shared interests. So honestly, you know, it's a quite diverse bunch. Right.
We do have people of all ages. They skew younger because they skew people. People who are renters and, you know, they like, want to build a family, they want to live here, and they just don't see how that's going to be possible. And sort of the story of New York City as the place of promise, the place of opportunity, the place that's really open to everyone, is just not really feeling true. And it's getting so much worse exponentially. A healthy housing vacancy rate is about 7 - 8%. New York City's been about 4% for the past decade.
Last year, we had a 1.4% vacancy, which is basically nothing. It's just basically nothing. Right?
David Roberts
I know. And it's always... There's always a slightly maddening, crazy to me that, like, this is viewed as a big problem for a city. Like, what could be a better problem for a city to have than a bunch of people want to live there? Like, you know, it ought to be like celebrating. And yet everyone in the, you know, everyone in these neighborhoods is like, "Ugh, people, blah." Makes no sense to me. Felicity, tell me. It's the same, I know the neighborhood groups in Austin are very well organized. Who did you find to do an end run around them?
Felicity Maxwell
Funny, because I like to think of it also as your city's getting younger, smarter, and more involved. I just have to say in Austin, there's been this influx of people from other cities. Obviously, San Francisco, the Californians moving to Texas is a big narrative, but maybe priced out of some of these other blue cities. And then they came to Austin and they're like, "Hey, wait a second, what do you mean you can't have a sidewalk cafe and an apartment right next door?" And I think the other thing that sort of Annemarie touched on, which is the way we were doing it, didn't work.
And we spent a lot of time trying to make those neighborhood groups, who were very well organized and quite politically powerful, happy, and there was no version of it that they could live with. So, I think that's the other thing is for political folks, at some point you stop beating your head against the wall and say, "We're going to do something different." And that is exactly, I think, the thing that I like to emphasize is elections make a difference. Political leadership makes a difference. So, as much as you organize and have people come to these ridiculously hyperlocal meetings, you have to have someone who's willing to listen.
And unless you have that type of leadership who's saying, "You know what? Maybe the neighborhood groups aren't right, and maybe we should be having more people live here." I mean, Austin did 10 years of, "If you don't build it, they won't come," and they came anyway. So, it was like we were just at a breaking point. And so, I think that that does help, is that not only do you have new faces and names and people coming that are excited to make your city the best it can be, that sort of dynamism helps you to create a narrative that is different from what has been there before and also makes those folks seem a little bit head in the sand.
If you want your city to grow, you have to have new people, and they have to have a place to live. They're contributing to the economy. They're paying taxes. One of the biggest things in Austin that I think is interesting is that we have our state universities here, University of Texas at Austin, and we have tons and tons of college students who live in Austin, sometimes for only, you know, two to four years, but sometimes much longer. And there was this real sense of, "If you went to UT, you should be able to stay in Austin."
Like, that's a long, honored tradition. And guess what? They couldn't. There was no place for them to live. Apartments were outrageous. So, it was just this sense of, "Hey, wait a second. This has been something that generations of Texans have done." Come to Austin, gone to UT, slacked off for a few years, then, you know, moved back to Dallas and maybe grew up. Right. But you couldn't do it anymore.
David Roberts
I have relatives in my very own family who lived that exact arc. Well, here's a question. It is the kids of those very older, wealthy NIMBY homeowners who can't afford to live in the same city as their parents. Is that not reaching any — ? Like, does that not affect them in any way? Like, does that not change any minds? Their own kids have been priced out of their city. Does that argument not reach any of them?
Felicity Maxwell
I think it does, actually. To be fair, I think that some families understand that you can't expect to have your grandkids live near you if there's no place for them to be able to buy a house. And I'm sure Annemarie's heard this story over and over, that people now leave New York when they want to start a family. So, if you are, you know, there's no opportunity to live there in a sort of townhome or a larger, like you were talking about, tiny apartments by and large. So, it's very difficult to feel like you can have a family life that works necessarily in New York.
And then in Austin, the same thing. You are moving out to the suburbs, you know, these outer kind of exurbs area far away from, exactly to your point, these nice inner suburban areas or sort of core parts of Austin. And people are like, "What do you mean? My daughter has to live in Round Rock?" And you're like, "Have you looked at housing prices in your neighborhood? That's why." And so, I do think it helps with the light bulb. But there is this fundamental sense, going back to where we started with this conversation, of these folks are neighborhood preservationists, and as much as they might want their granddaughter around the corner, they're not really willing to give up the sense of, "Oh, that might mean an extra house in my neighborhood."
You know, like, there's a real tension there.
David Roberts
I'm so glad to hear you say that, like, these people are unreachable because, honestly, you know, I'm a good liberal. I'm like, "Well, maybe, like, maybe they have a point. I should listen to their arguments." You know, so I actually, it's funny, I went to one of the AI engines for the first time I've ever done this. I was like, "Alright, AI, tell me, what are the arguments that the NIMBYs use, you know, in New York City? Like, what are they saying? I'll try to engage these." And they're just bad arguments.
Like, they're just — and they're the same bad arguments that have been refuted a gazillion times. So, it's very difficult for me, even as a sort of bending-over-backward liberal, to like — the vibe you get is like, "These people just aren't going to change their minds. These are not good faith arguments." Like, you know, the arguments, like the stuff about trees and all this stuff, it's just like you people are dug in and you're reverse engineering arguments from a place of immovable insistence. Like, that's, anyway, so. But there is one, there is actually one argument that I think kind of tugs at the values and the heartstrings of liberals like me.
And of course, like, it directly affects communities involved, which is this notion of gentrification and displacement. So, I think the communities who live in the places that are proposed to be up-zoned will say, "If you do that, it gets nice. They're going to build a bunch of luxury apartments, a bunch of rich people are going to move in, we're going to get pushed out." And that argument, I think, motivates them. And I think it also has a kind of hold more broadly too. Like, I think your general progressive is like, "Yeah, that bugs progressives too."
So, I guess I would just ask like A, what is the right way to think about that? And then B, what are the arguments when you're dealing with those groups that are under that threat? What do you tell them? How do you interact with those groups? How do you deal with that issue? I'll start with Annemarie.
Annemarie Gray
Again, it's a really good point, and it's actually something, you know, the first founders of Open New York, even before me, made a very intentional choice that we are focusing on the most exclusionary neighborhoods, the whitest, wealthiest neighborhoods. And frankly, in New York City, I mean, a lot of them, not only are they not building any housing and they're in the middle of Manhattan, in the middle of some of the nicest parts of Brooklyn, they're on top of transit. They're next to the best job and transit centers in the entire country. Right.
They're not only not building anything, they've been on net losing homes. Actually, there's been some really fantastic research by a member of ours, especially in, we have a lot of historic districts — again, love-struck buildings. But like when you're not building any more housing, what's happening is you're losing apartment buildings invisibly by, you know, wealthy people converting a whole, you know —
David Roberts
Oh my God, so they're losing housing units because rich people are merging houses?
Annemarie Gray
Correct. And we're not building anything else.
David Roberts
That's dystopian.
Annemarie Gray
That wouldn't be as big a problem if you were actually building anything. There's actually some reporting that New York City has lost 100,000 units in the last couple of decades.
David Roberts
God, that's amazing.
Annemarie Gray
Right? Yeah. So, we have like, you know, the whole maps show parts that are growing and parts that are literally negative. So there has been a very intentional choice to focus on that. And then, the same with sort of — this is how I came at all of this work from a very deep fair housing lens. Frankly, these are all fair housing violations. Right. Like the way we do this really actually should be seen through that lens and that especially in New York City has really helped build much more alliances with progressive movements, with groups that have been working on different types of fair housing policy for decades and creating a narrative that, kind of to your point earlier, there are some people who feel this stuff very, very strongly.
I actually really firmly believe a lot of people, they don't care nearly as much. But the problem is they're given a choice to fight for something and they get all worked up. We actually are, we're advocating around one particular project in an area that hasn't built an affordable home in 15 years. And the local community board is just like extremely oppositional to this one, like a 12-story building. But those exact same people, that exact same community board unanimously voted to pass City of Yes, which does actually almost the same thing.
David Roberts
I mean, that's what they all say, right? That "We're not against affordable housing." No. Like, you can't find any of them that will say they're against affordable housing. "It's just not here. Not here in my place."
Annemarie Gray
Yeah, and I do really think that people's perspectives are malleable because I think that's what you've really seen, at least now in New York City. You compare articles from even a couple years ago, people are saying, "Oh, we need to build more homes." And that has become a progressive stance. And I think we are very, very intentional to also say, "This also doesn't solve all the problems." Right. We have, we very intentionally have a broad housing platform that covers things like tenant protections, covers different ways that we need to make sure we're building deeply affordable housing.
But, this has been a missing piece of the puzzle that there has never been a sustained advocacy force around. And, I think you're seeing that in a really smart, interesting way right now.
David Roberts
Felicity, have you dealt directly with these groups? And how do you think about it? It's not just what are the policy mechanisms, but really how do you think about it? Do you worry that people are being displaced? Like, is it a real phenomenon? Like, how do you think about that?
Felicity Maxwell
Oh, absolutely. For those of you who are familiar with Austin, you've probably driven on I-35, which basically bisects the city into East and West Austin. East Austin just has borne the brunt of a lot of the development and has been transformed. And of course, that was traditionally black and Hispanic neighborhoods. They've been displaced to other parts, again, to those exurbs that are more suburban. And there's been a huge loss of history and culture of those communities in the Eastern Crescent, as we call it here in Austin.
So, absolutely, when we started talking about housing reform, this became a huge issue because it was suddenly like, "You're going to give us more housing? Like, wait, what? We don't know. We're the ones who've already had this direct displacement because of the development that's happened in Austin."
David Roberts
I know it's such a torturous debate because, like, you see that point. But then, on the other hand, you're like, "Well, the solution can't be to keep your neighborhood run down on purpose, to avoid this." Like, that can't be a good solution either. There's got to be some third way.
Felicity Maxwell
Yeah, well, so our emphasis really was on citywide. Exactly the same. Because then you are not carving out special districts. So, you know, white, wealthy Austin does not get special privileges to say "no" to three units by right. Now, you can build ADUs anywhere. And it was sort of this idea of like, "Look, you've had the brunt of this because we intentionally created policies that made it easier to build on the East Side." And your point about the neighborhood preservationists, they're like, "I don't care if you build housing as long as it's not here." So there was always a "here" that's not here.
And that was the east side of Austin. And so, we saw this happening in real time. So our point was always like, "Look, this is actually undoing a lot of the bad faith," or sort of intentional or unintentional sort of carve out of where you could develop easily in Austin, Texas. And I do think that that was very successful. And I will say this, like we went back — so one of the original plans in Austin is called the 1928 Plan. The zoning category, it's racist, like, there's absolutely no doubt. And so, like, I think that was our point too, is we are legitimately trying to undo historical harms in a way that benefits the community and try to repair some of the things that have happened.
And I would also say that we have really great, again, leadership on this because we did things like financial assistance around, you know, building ADUs and a lot of things work to make sure that those communities felt like there was a benefit to them for this. It wasn't just rampant development that's been the same thing that they've seen for the last 20 years. We're talking about displacement, we're talking about gentrification, and we're doing the things we can to address it. Is it fixing everything? No.
David Roberts
I mean, this is the question, like, what do you do? What is the best case outcome, I guess, in your head? Is the idea that like these communities build up and all or some substantial number of the people who live there before that process starts are sheltered and can remain there? And is that like practical? Is that viable? Like, what is the best case scenario here?
Felicity Maxwell
I think that's an excellent question. And exactly that, because unfortunately, a lot of the housing stock in East Austin or other places that are of lower income status, it's older now. Like, it might be at the point where it is really fine. To your point, you can't keep neighborhoods run down just because people may not want to move or, you know, that feels right to them in their community. We have to think about what it looks like to have new housing stock that is replaced. It's like having an older car. Great that it sits in your driveway.
Probably not practical over the long term. I think that's what we would say too, is if there's a way to gently turn over housing stock in a way that feels compatible with the community that's still there. I think it feels good. I would also say — this sounds strange — but things that we've done, which is that gentle density and trying to encourage ADUs, that's the idea that people can stay in these communities and build a new granny flat. So they can, you know, so you're trying to come up with creative solutions that recognize community but also understand that change is necessary and the change that they feel comfortable with, like is positioned not as we are telling you what to do.
We're giving you a suite of options so you can figure out what feels right for this neighborhood or this street. I don't think it's perfect by any means, but it's certainly better than setting up policies where you get run over by developers because you literally can't build anywhere else.
Annemarie Gray
I think it also points to the reason why it's so important that we have a whole suite of policies and sort of like an "all of the above" approach. Especially in New York, we've very intentionally been like, "People are really rightly feeling the pressures when we're not building enough in the neighborhoods that we are actually most focused on," sort of the most centrally located, well-researched neighborhoods. Those pressures are real and they're not going to change overnight. People respond very differently to new projects if they don't feel like they themselves have some more protections as a tenant, if they're a tenant, for example.
Right. So, we've very intentionally been like, tenant protections go along with this. Right. Same with programs that are really trying to address like predatory forces of longtime black homeowners right in parts of Brooklyn that are now suddenly really hip, right? And these fears are super duper real, and we have to think about all of them because those fears are real and they are going to be barriers to this, this idea that everywhere should be growing. But it's been so unequal. And people's fears and feelings about that are very legitimate.
David Roberts
There's also a bunch of research that's come out lately, which I think is cool and interesting, which shows that even if what you're building in an area is luxury apartments for, you know — like no one, there is no set definition of what that means.
Felicity Maxwell
What is a luxury apartment?
David Roberts
People say that as a kind of slur, you know, like "developer," like nobody knows exactly what they mean by it. But even if, say you're building high-end apartments in a place, the research shows that wealthy people will shift into those and then less wealthy people will shift into whatever apartments they abandoned and so on down the line. You're freeing up units and if you build a bunch of those, lower average rents in a place over time. But I will say, despite there being a lot of research to that effect, boy, howdy, do people not believe that. Boy, do people not want to hear that.
Like, I have yet to encounter a person who's convinced by that in the wild. Do you guys even try to bring that argument into play at all?
Felicity Maxwell
I'm going to jump in on this one because if you look at Austin's housing and our rental prices, and how much we've decreased rentals just because we've added supply —
David Roberts
Case in point.
Felicity Maxwell
I am just going to say, we are the real-world example of what that is, which is filtering. And if you don't believe it, if you live in the city, like I've got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn, right? You just have to understand that it works. And we are actually proving it month by month, year over year, because we're adding supply.
And sure, it's not all in the central corridor or whatever, but the more multifamily units we've added, the more we've seen rent decreases. And like, we see examples of people who've moved from two bedrooms into three bedrooms and got a rent decrease in Austin. And so, that's the thing is that type of supply and market demand, it shifts how renters are treated. And what's available to them. So then, this narrative really becomes much more like, "Oh, I have housing options" versus feeling housing pressure.
And I think that's really important because when people feel like they have housing options, they're like, "Oh, I like these reforms. Oh, maybe I should. You know, I want to be supportive of the things." And so we just literally saw that with our own elections. We essentially had a good housing council here in Austin and now we've elected another additional person who's pro-housing and reelected our mayor. So, like the votes were there to support the work we did. So not only did we do all the reforms, but then when election time came, the public said, "Please do more of this." And so that feels great because I think that is a, exactly to your point, a real-world case example of like economics work, supply works.
And guess what? When you do it right, people respond.
David Roberts
Yes, and this is only novel and odd sounding to people because it's in housing. In any other area of life, this is just basic supply and demand economics. Like, you increase supply and prices go down. This should not sound weird. And yet, for some reason, people have the weirdest sort of folk notions in their head about housing. How about — Annemarie, my guess is, this hasn't been going on in New York City long enough to draw a lot of results. Is that true?
Annemarie Gray
I often reference Austin and how rents did actually fall. And other cities that have done that. And very much seconding , sort of like people feeling this as optionality. A line that we've actually used a lot is like, "Your landlord should be worried that you can find another apartment." That's the other way around, right?
David Roberts
It's like a strong labor market, you know, it's the same. It's exactly analogous to a strong labor market. Like, if there are fewer workers, workers are more empowered.
Annemarie Gray
Totally. But to your first question, even if the sort of academic research does draw this out, I do not tend to use the argument of like, "Oh no, no, no, you build like that building across the street." But it's also, it's — yes, it might lower your rent, but by a very marginal, like a tiny amount. It's just not, it's not a great argument project by project. But this is yet another reason why this cannot be discussed or analyzed or fought project by project. Because if you did that citywide and especially region wide, again, it is just completely bonkers.
The number of parking lots we have near train stations, especially in like Long Island, Westchester, and the New York City region.
David Roberts
And it turns out, the minute you go after one, every single one is a precious, historic parking lot that the community loves, that it could not possibly live without.
Annemarie Gray
But it's also just — it's exactly the reason that you have to bring this to a higher level of decision-making, because citywide and region-wide, that impact is so real. Right. New York City, honestly, the best example in our region of that is New Jersey. And the only reason New York's housing crisis isn't even more insane is because New Jersey has sort of been a release valve.
David Roberts
Oh, yeah.
Felicity Maxwell
Yep.
David Roberts
Let me ask about partisanship here. So, one of the things that the sort of network of these groups, the Welcoming Neighbors Network, kind of emphasizes is that you're going to end up with strange bedfellows, coalitions to make these things happen. You know, like we sort of discussed earlier, you're sort of cobbling together coalitions and those are necessarily probably going to be cross-partisan in most places. And I will say that it seems like, and I'm knocking on wood, honestly, even saying this, but it seems like to some extent the simple push for more housing has not yet been polarized, has not yet been dragged into the polarization machine and made into yet another polarized issue. That seems to me like both an incredible and increasingly rare advantage.
And also, it just feels like you're all dancing through minefields here. You know what I mean? It's so easy — there's such a heightened sensitivity around that stuff these days that it's really easy to run into those tripwires. So, I'm sort of wondering how you, I mean — let's start with you, Annemarie. I mean, New York City's blue, so, you know, maybe it's not as big of a deal for you, but I'm just wondering, how do you think about not tripping those partisan tripwires?
Annemarie Gray
Yes, I think we're on one end of the spectrum in the network because, you know, in New York City, the City of Yes just passed without a single Republican vote and the Republicans we have are nuts and aligned with our current president. Right? There's a massive baseline democratic values disagreement here.
David Roberts
But, like New York Democrats, are like, I mean, no offense, no great shakes.
Annemarie Gray
Oh, don't worry, don't worry. I deal with them every day. It's sort of been a, especially in New York City, it's sort of like center, center-left, and progressives. And if you look at how all the votes shook out for City of Yes, that was all very, very needed. And that's been so much of the focus of how we talk about this work and how we've built coalitions and built strategy. We are on the state level — the interesting thing about New York State is the major, major policy passes in the budget, which is three Democrats in a room.
Again, they are responding to their, with sort of different levels of representation, responding to all of the legislators that do have some Republicans or do have some more centrist Democrats that are very worried about a Republican challenger. And again, we are learning in real time how to pass housing policy in Albany because we haven't passed it yet. We're kind of one of the lone states that hasn't done that at the state level yet. And so we're learning that in real time. But it has been interesting that we have a particular budget process where major things pass that is not kind of your standard whip count.
And so, what we're trying to figure out and sort of build momentum from, we're really, truly learning in real time. And there are also, you know, we have Long Island Republicans who are a very certain type, like far western New York Republicans, actually have a different approach to some of these things. So, we're just learning this in real time. But our strategy has been so centrally focused on the whole span of the Democratic coalition. And again, some of the biggest opposition we've seen is in the deepest blue districts.
David Roberts
Oh, sure, like the "D" next to your name is no guarantee on this issue for sure.
Annemarie Gray
No, which is partly why really showing like this is the right side to be on if you want to call yourself a Democrat or progressive on any front. And also, then you mentioned this at the beginning, but the national implications for the Democratic Party of New York losing seats is enormous and is extremely, extremely driven by how those same Democrats are not doing anything on housing policy.
David Roberts
Yeah, so just to, like, just to put a line into that, because I don't know if I really spelled it out in the intro or if people are aware of this, but, like, refusing to build housing is literally losing these blue areas population to red areas, which means they're literally losing congressional representation. Which means, I heard — this is like an apocalyptic factlet for you — if you just reran the 2020 election with the new districts based on the newest population numbers, Trump would have won, like, in incredibly close national elections, Democrats are literally, like, losing votes in Congress.
I don't know if people get this, but, like, that, I think, is one of the reasons that the national Democratic Party is slowly but surely waking up to this issue, because it's starting to threaten their reelection chances. So, Felicity, you're down there. You're a little blue island.
Felicity Maxwell
Yes.
David Roberts
In a big red sea.
Felicity Maxwell
I was gonna say, well, we'll happily take those congressional seats here in Texas.
David Roberts
How do you think about partisanship? I mean, I can only assume that it's kind of more of a thing down there.
Felicity Maxwell
Yeah, it's a very different reality, obviously, because Austin is quite liberal, very similar to New York City, and we have that same sort of, shall we say, spectrum of how you view housing. And I actually think an interesting thing to think about on the Democratic side is the age of the people who are in leadership, because I will say that we do see the kind of more conservative around housing issues tends to really go with an older politician, certainly someone who's more enmeshed and, to your point, has maybe been a part of those neighborhood groups and had those T-shirts for years. So, like them feeling the pressure.
David Roberts
And we should just say, live in suburbs, and drive everywhere. Right?
Felicity Maxwell
Exactly. So, I think as we've seen younger folks come into leadership here in Austin in particular, that has shifted because those people are all Democrats, but they believe very much in the pro-housing reforms that we implemented here. I think at the state level in Texas, the very interesting thing is probably the most deregulatory pro-housing folks in the state of Texas are Republicans.
David Roberts
Interesting. I was going to ask about that. Like, is there meaningful Republican support here?
Felicity Maxwell
Absolutely. And that is all related to the fact that we have this thing called the Texas Miracle, which has been this huge growth of Texas, hence all the new congressional districts. But the idea is exactly that, is that we have welcomed new industries, new businesses, new people. And all of that requires services and housing and sort of just this kind of growth machine, if you think about it. And that's happened probably over the last 15 to 20 years in particular. And in Austin, for example, that's the tech scene. In other places, Dallas finance, it's been different in different parts of the state, but the same result everywhere, which is net migration.
And also, of course, just growth in the sense of everything is booming. And so, when you look at it that way, for those Republicans who support this deep in their heart and believe in the economics of what we're doing in this state, they understand that housing becoming unattainable for workers who move here or moving throughout the state, that's unacceptable. That basically breaks one of the cogs in the machine and the machine falls apart if housing prices basically get out of —
David Roberts
You know, who restricts housing and thereby limits their growth? California. Do you want to be like California?
Felicity Maxwell
No, please. There's people in Texas who might faint if they heard you say that.
David Roberts
Right, exactly.
Felicity Maxwell
That's exactly. I will actually — it is actually so true though. It's like basically you can't say the C word around Texans because we know what it looks like when you have the growth magic growth machine and then you turn off the housing spigot. That's California. And I think there's a very clear understanding of we don't want to be like that, so what can we do proactively? So our situation at the state is very much, Republicans are leading on this. And how can we get Democrats, some of whom are of that older generation, to understand, "Hey, no, no, this is a statewide issue."
To your point, that is not chewed up with partisanship. That is not actually something that needs to be thought of as left. Right. It can be something that works for everybody.
David Roberts
And you can point to Montana, right? That's the —
Felicity Maxwell
Exactly. Montana's the big example. And, you know, Montana's a pretty small state, but I would also say that they had a similar situation where they had such an influx of people, again from California mostly and other places on the west coast, where they saw their sleepy little towns get overrun and just that huge spike. So, I think in some ways, that kind of crash to the system does have an impact on the policies that come out of it. And that's why I think at the state level, we will see some state housing reforms this year, because there's just that sense of we can't wait two more years.
Yes, the Texas Legislature only meets every other year, so we have a time clock on us. Because two years from now, that growth machine might be starting to look a little shaky. And that would be because of housing prices.
David Roberts
So you think not only is there Republican support for these kind of reforms, you think there's majority Republican support sufficient to get it through an extremely Republican legislature?
Felicity Maxwell
Absolutely. The lieutenant governor just named housing affordability as one of his 20 key priorities. So, I think it's SB15. The bill is not officially announced yet, but he will be leading on a specific housing bill. And so, like, when you see it at the highest level of Republican government in the state of Texas, my job here is not to talk to Republicans and say, "Hey, we need to do this." They've already gotten that message because of the way they think about the economy, what they want for their communities.
What I have to do is go and talk to Democrats and say, "This is something we can do together, and we can make it better by doing it together, because then we'll be able to talk about things like affordable housing, displacement, gentrification, and all those other things. You know, don't let them lead us to a place that works just for the free market. Let's get to a place that works for everybody."
David Roberts
And, Annemarie, wouldn't it be embarrassing if the Republican Texas legislature passed a bunch of housing reforms and the Democratic New York Legislature did not?
Annemarie Gray
I would love to. I ask that question every day. Right. You know, I say that line all the time. But... yeah.
David Roberts
Are you optimistic about statewide reforms? Like, do you feel like this has gained enough momentum that it's got a statewide majority of Democrats?
Annemarie Gray
So, it's gained so much momentum so quickly. As I mentioned, we've been running the first housing bill in the state general. That's actually something that's passed in other states, working with a whole coalition of faith-based organizations. We had a rally yesterday with pastors and folks from all faiths, just the state, making it legal and empowering them to build affordable housing on their land if they want to. It's been known as "Yes, in God's backyard."
Felicity Maxwell
YIGBY!
David Roberts
Such a small ask, such a modest ask.
Annemarie Gray
But it is. And sort of the crux of it is, it is the state using the powers that it has to say, "This makes sense. We're going to use these powers and make that legal, even if that is not what local zoning says." Right. And so you get the same sort of local control fight, which, you know, in some cases, that's the argument used to defend school segregation, right?
David Roberts
Yes, well, I mean, local control does not have a proud history here in the US, let's just say.
Annemarie Gray
It definitely does not. And so, I'm feeling optimistic. One, because I should go to something else if I'm not. But also, it's just so pressing. It's getting so much worse. And I think that the narrative has changed so quickly. We also do a ton of really grassroots organizing, both with our members and with these coalition groups. We have really smart policy people that are there just explaining stuff to legislators who have never thought about this before. They just haven't.
David Roberts
A lot of this stuff is just so new.
Annemarie Gray
Yeah, it's really wonky. You say the word zoning and people's eyes just glaze over. We're also doing a lot of really smart comms and political communication. Last year, at the advice of frankly everyone that's worked in New York politics for a long time, we started an electoral arm of our organization to actually put money behind our endorsements and also build up enough influence to eventually challenge people that have been really bad on these issues. And so, it's growing quickly.
It's tough, you know. And I will say I think some bipartisanship, I think there's also some uncharted territory with what's happening on the national level and how that plays out. But I think that we're really — to say the least — but I think that we're really like, the narrative has changed so quickly. Even people who a year ago were like, "Eh, don't bother with that," are like, "Okay, this is a good bill." And so we're throwing everything we have at it.
David Roberts
Along similar lines, this is all fairly recent. So, I know any lawmaker's main worry is reelection. Right. So, I know that despite what they may say, all of them are sort of approaching these kinds of things, like, "Well, is this going to screw me? Is this going to get me booted out of office?" So, I'm wondering, like Felicity, the reason this stuff happened in Austin is that a new city council got elected, a substantially new city council got elected. Have we had elections since this stuff happened? Do we know enough yet to say what the electoral implications might be?
Felicity Maxwell
Absolutely. I think I mentioned that we just reelected our pro-housing mayor and then have actually flipped an additional housing seat on the city council.
David Roberts
And that was all in the wake of this?
Felicity Maxwell
Yes, that literally was in November. So, we had just finished. We basically did all of the last set of reforms passed in May, and then we had basically an election season and everyone won reelection, which seemed like a pretty good sign to us. I would say, generally, I think the thing to think about also is just that there's a lot of education that has to happen on this. And you know, I will say for political leaders who maybe have thought more about, I don't know, police contracts or how you're getting water utilities, you know that the things that the municipal sort of bread and butter has really been overwhelmed by this housing affordability crisis and attainability crisis.
And that's at the local level. So, like, those are the folks who felt it first. But if you think, you know, county level and then, you know, state level, those people have a certain amount of distance from all of this. So as the crisis kind of deepens or gets to a pinch point, you have to really educate at every level. And so, I think to Annemarie's point, we spent a lot of time the last session, so two years ago in Texas, just getting people to understand what the issue was and getting them to understand it and giving them exactly that.
"I know zoning sounds really boring, but I swear it's really important and you can make an impact," kind of conversation. And now they've heard it and they've seen it, and so now I think they're ready to do the work. But I will say that's the same thing at every political level, is that you just have to — there's a certain amount of education and outreach that has to happen and organizing, to your point, but then at some point it clicks and you see that willingness to, like, lead and to be a little bit less afraid of the electoral results. And to know — and I do think that this is where you get a shifting electorate — there are people who want you to do this and they will turn out and vote for you. And like, that is critical.
David Roberts
You know, it was always the NIMBYs who were active. There are a lot of passive YIMBYs, you know, out in the world. It was always the NIMBYs who were organized and active. And that is what I think has changed more than anything else. It's like the YIMBYs are starting to get activated. How about you, Annemarie? Has there been enough electoral activity in the wake of all this to be able to say anything about what effect it might have?
Annemarie Gray
Yeah, I mean, I think reiterating and also sort of talking about the entire network, something else that's really interesting. It's just really important to remember how insanely young all of this work is. Right? I mean, we've all been at this for only a couple of years and sort of the broader Welcoming Neighbors Network, it's, you know, I think it's been an official organization for less than three years and we already have like 42 members across like 25 different states. And what's been interesting is we've had like, a sponsor of our bill has been talking to a legislator in California who passed a similar bill to be like, "What helped pass it?"
David Roberts
Right.
Annemarie Gray
And they're also seeing other electeds elsewhere in the country be like, "Oh," like, "Oh, they got reelected because of this." They're standing up and saying that that's good politics. But also at the same time, sort of back to some things from earlier in our conversation, it's really, really important that — and the network has, I think, done a really good job of this — empowering whatever strategy works for the city and state that you're in. Because all of our, like, our messaging looks different, frankly. We have a whole different, a wide range of messaging that we use if you're in Westchester, if you're in parts of New York City, if you're far upstate, and different things resonate with different electeds .
David Roberts
Yeah, and one thing I want to say, this is like in the network's literature too, and you're sort of implying it here, but I just want to underline it, which is: When people are not familiar with an issue, they're not familiar with the wonky ins and outs, they're not familiar with the policy or the economic dynamics in that situation, who is the messenger who is trying to persuade them becomes so important. When you're leading people into new territory, who is on that stage is so important.
Annemarie Gray
A thousand percent. And it's also why it's so important, like groups like what Felicity and I are running and all of our sort of counterparts around the country: you gotta be in these rooms to really understand, like, whose message works best, who they listen to, more or less. And you just tailor it. And what's so interesting about a lot of this work is we're kind of talking about the same things sometimes, but in completely different ways. And that's fine, right?
Felicity Maxwell
Yes, and in Austin, we actually got to host something called YIMBY Town, which is kind of our big hurrah last February. And WNN was, the network was a critical part of all of that work and sort of helps to facilitate the YIMBY Town gathering. And obviously, we were honored to host it. But the most impactful thing was exactly what Annemarie said was, you know, getting to hear people talking about the exact same issue but approaching it in different ways and having different messaging, but they're succeeding, like, you know, and learning from that opportunity. And a great example of this is, I think Annemarie mentioned the YIGBY bill.
Texas is going to have a YIGBY bill. There are several other states. We're going to do a network call so we can all talk about it. And you know what? Our YIGBY bills are not going to be the same. They're not going to look the same. We're not going to talk about them the same way. But fundamentally, it is a statewide reform that has a likelihood of passing in 3, 4, 5, 6 states this year. That is a huge win and something that would not have been possible 2, 3, 4, 5 years ago, certainly not 5 years ago. A, because nobody was talking about housing this way, and B, because we didn't have that collaboration and ability to learn from each other.
So, I think there is this certain amount of momentum that's not only are the wins building on each other, we're learning from each other and building a network that's going to be, I hope, a force to be reckoned with.
David Roberts
Well, I love to hear that. We're running a little short on time, but I did have a couple, just like two more questions that I really wanted to get to, and this one requires a little bit of wind up, if you'll indulge me. So, I'm in Seattle and there are a lot of NIMBYs in Seattle. There are a lot of people who oppose new housing. And then, when I look out at Seattle and I look out at, practically speaking, what does it look like when Seattle builds new housing? What happens is we don't want to offend anybody who lives in a single-family home neighborhood.
Those are inviolate. So, what does that leave? It leaves the narrow corridors in between single-family home neighborhoods. And so, all of Seattle's new housing consists of beige, ticky-tacky apartment buildings alongside giant three, four, and five-lane arterials. So yes, that's density, yes, it's new housing and that's good in and of itself, but it's pretty ugly and unpleasant. And like, you go outside your door and there's the din of traffic and there's the smell of traffic. Like, I literally, in Seattle planning documents, have seen these apartments on the corridors referred to as buffers to protect the single-family homeowners from that noise and that smell.
So, all of which is just to say, like, if I look around at Seattle and that's what density looks like: well, gross. Like, you know, it makes sense to me that people don't want that. And so, when I look at the policies recommended by your network and the sort of top-line policies that you've passed, all of them or most of them look to me like they're basically devoted to just more housing as such, more on a lot, divide the lot smaller. You can build more kinds of housing here, you can build taller here, but I don't see a ton of stuff devoted to making that density nice, i.e., trees, green spaces, public spaces, you know, the kinds of things that make the little cute European cities so nice to go visit. It's not just the density, it's the amenities, it's the layout, it's the quality of life. So, I'm just wondering, like, I know the main thing is we just need more housing, but it seems to me like you're going to smooth the skids, make it easier to build more new housing if when people see new housing, it looks nice, it looks like a place you might want to live. And like in Seattle, that's not the case.
So, I'm just wondering, how do you think about the balance there? Just like blunt force, more housing versus trying to make the places where more housing goes in nicer, nicer to live in. How do you think about that balance? Annemarie, I'll toss that one to you first.
Annemarie Gray
Sure, sure, yeah. A number of thoughts on this. And funny enough, I studied architecture before I went into all of this space, so I'm sensitive to some of that. But I think that one, there's been just needing to get over this baseline hump that building more homes is good, right? And I think that there are people who you could have the nicest multifamily building you've ever seen, and it doesn't matter, right? So, I do think there's a component of that. I think there is a component of there's a whole slew and almost — I mean, ours and I think a lot of different YIMBY group platforms have things like building code reform in their policy agendas as well. Because we also have, you know, if you followed any of — like single stair buildings.
David Roberts
I tuned into that fight.
Annemarie Gray
I'm sure you have. Like, there are also just kind of structural barriers to build better buildings that are part of this. I also very much fundamentally believe that it's very cultural. I mean, you know, the most beloved parts of Brooklyn, like brownstone Brooklyn, you go back when they were first built, people said the exact same things they say about new buildings now about those, right? And so, there is something very cultural about it. And I also think there is something, you know, people want something that feels human, right? And so, anything new is, by nature, needs to be lived in a little bit to feel more natural, right.
I think the main thing I point people to is one, like, you gotta get over the whole multifamily building thing. And in New York, that doesn't fly, right? Like, you know, it's about, is it a massive tower or is it like a low apartment building? So, we just, that's — I mean, we have some low-density districts, but it's just not the same.
David Roberts
Well, all the amenities I'm talking about only work with a certain level of density, right? They just don't work. If it's single-family homes or all duplexes or whatever, you gotta cram enough people in the space to activate the public spaces and whatnot.
Annemarie Gray
Correct, correct. Yeah, that's 100% true. And the one other thing I'd say is if we lived in a world where you take the entire New York City region and you had legalized missing middle housing across the entire region, like, just reality would be so different, right? Housing pressures would be so different. The pressure for one particular lot that you can finally get some housing on to be as tall as possible, it just would look different, right? And I think that, you know, if our historic preservation regulations were different, other countries have figured out how to have new buildings next to old buildings and the sky doesn't fall.
Right. What is tricky sometimes is, you know, every single new building might not check every single box we possibly want, but all of these policy changes collectively would make such a better reality for everybody. And how we figure out how to explain that and talk about that in ways that feel real is a lot of the challenge.
David Roberts
Yes, but to be clear, I'm not just talking about buildings. I'm talking about neighborhoods, basically, like transit, you know, like land use more broadly than just the building level. I mean, in a lot of American places, like kind of the horse is already out of the barn on that. It's so grim already. But like, a lot of, you know, I think if you want to bring in a bunch of density, people are only going to do it on some level if it's decently nice. How about you, Felicity?
Felicity Maxwell
So, yes, you actually said that perfectly, because zoning is more than housing is the thing. So, I like to point out that exactly we need more housing and it's a place that's added a lot of supply in a lot of, I'll just be saying, ugly buildings. Maybe we have something here called the Texas Donut, which is essentially a building that wraps around a parking garage. It's great housing, but is that really the, to your point, the pinnacle of housing in the 21st century? No, obviously it's not. But I will say I totally agree about building code reform.
We're working on single stairs reform right here now in Austin. And that's a really important thing because I think as you get past that supply tipping point, which thankfully has happened for us, you can start to think about exactly the questions you're asking. And I do really want to say that there is something fundamentally wrong with our planning when we say that the only place you can add density is along the most congested, polluted, noisy parts of the city.
David Roberts
I hate it so much.
Felicity Maxwell
I totally agree. And we have so many stroads in Texas because we love our highways.
So, I really feel that. Exactly what you're talking about. And also, it's fundamentally unfair because then you're basically saying that renters can live there, but people who own single-family homes get to have quiet neighborhoods.
David Roberts
It's segregation.
Felicity Maxwell
It is. So, like, I just want to totally acknowledge that that is an issue. But I think we're right now in the supply crisis, so we can't really start to think about the nuance of what it looks like when we have a better version of supply. But I do hope that we will get there. And I think to your point, that requires a lot of infill and thoughtful development that we just haven't seen.
And guess why we haven't seen it? Because neighborhood preservationists don't let us even think about it. Like, the people with the T-shirts show up and they're angry because you want to put gentle density in their neighborhood. So, I think this comes back full circle to where we started. In some ways, we've done great with supply in a lot of maybe easier places, but the really beautiful supply that we might want for the central part of our neighborhoods or next to those nice parts, that's trickier. And I don't think we've gotten there yet.
David Roberts
Yes, and another thing that new density needs is transit. You know, if you want people to — you're removing parking requirements, which is part of what's enabling you to build more units on those little lots. You know, if you don't have to have a set number of parking spaces, but if you're going to get rid of a bunch of parking, you need other ways to get around. And I just wonder, like, are both of you, do you both also consider yourselves transit activists, or is it just like you have enough on your plate and you hope the transit activists do their job?
Felicity Maxwell
I think it's actually a great question, and AURA, the group that I've been involved with for a long time, we literally call ourselves pro-housing, pro-transit. That's our job. And I will say in Austin, because we've never had the opportunity to have really robust transit, we are eventually going to get a train. We always knew that you had to advocate for the trains and better transit, and that requires a certain level of density. And I think to your point, now we're at this place where, okay, the train is theoretically coming, assuming we continue to fund trains at the federal level, which that's maybe, we don't know yet, but assuming the train is coming, that means we have to actually think critically for the first time what does it look like if you have that train?
What does the housing look like? What does the environment look like? And so, we have this chance to be transformative.
David Roberts
Don't do what Seattle did, which is put a train on your highway.
Felicity Maxwell
So, I will say, I think that that's the exciting thing about the next phase is not just that supply. It's a better version of that supply. And to your point, linked to transit hopefully.
David Roberts
Annemarie, the New York City transit situation is somewhat unique in the country in that you already have some. But how do you think about this?
Annemarie Gray
Yes, and I think this is where we're a little different. One, our members, so many of our members are also transit activists. My partner works in transit, so it's all very much the same family. But I think what's different about New York and, if we're talking about the New York City region, I think parts of upstate western New York are a little different, but we actually already have this infrastructure. It's one of the most incredible things about New York is the transit system. And actually, the problem is there are stations, especially further out in the suburbs, that are losing ridership because they're not building housing.
And we think about the whole network in a somewhat comprehensive way. We have zero region-wide housing planning that actually uses the capacity of the most miraculous, incredible system in the country right now. And we still have fights in New York City about building more. I mean, again, we have a lot of apartment buildings in most places, but we have some low-density districts and even just mid-density districts. They still fight about building higher density when you're next to a train station —
David Roberts
That is just madness.
Annemarie Gray
that's 15 minutes away from Grand Central.
David Roberts
If there's one obvious, I mean if there's just one thing that no one should be arguing about, build up around your transit stations. Not to, you know, this podcast is not intended to be a Seattle gripe fest, but like we put, we've spent billions of dollars on light rail and we're putting all our stations next to the interstate and we're barely upzoning around them. Like the station that's closest to my house has a friggin' golf course right next to it. It's just like, it's a nature preserve. That's what they'll say if you try to get rid of it.
Like, "What about all the birds?" It's just unbelievable. But, building up around transit is just an utter no-brainer.
Annemarie Gray
And also, really tying that, like that is climate strategy. Like that is really, really making sure how closely these all tie together because we need all of the activists and all of the advocates to see these all as connected.
David Roberts
Yes, this is like I was going to put this in the intro, but it would have made the intro too long. Just like, why am I talking about housing on a climate solutions podcast? But I think that sort of deserves its own dedicated podcast just to sort of make the case at length. Like this is a climate issue, but that's sort of, that's implicit in everything we're talking about. And implicit in the reason I'm talking with you is this is, among other things, how you cut emissions. So, I could talk to you all forever. But just one final question, which is: what is next?
What is next, Annemarie? What is next for New York?
Annemarie Gray
We're in the middle of a state legislative session. We're trying to really, really break through and start to pass this bill. They're working on the YIGBY bill and then build from there. I mean, a region-wide transit-oriented development bill is definitely on our radar. And then at the city level, again kind of post city bs. We're in a year of a mayoral election, but there's actually, we're doing some work around. There are two commissions looking at the city charter and we're really thinking about, there are things you could only do with charter reform that you otherwise need State legislation that get at exactly these same incentives that are built into our land use review process. That and then we're making endorsements for a lot of our races happening this year to try to really build more pro-housing champions and truly expanding our footprint to organizing statewide.
David Roberts
New York has not always had the best of luck in its mayoral choices. If I could —
Annemarie Gray
Understatement, understatement, understatement.
David Roberts
Is there a chance that you're going to get an actual pro-housing, pro-transit champion out of that process this time? Dare we hope?
Annemarie Gray
I'm still young, but I've worked in this long enough to moderate my expectations about the quality of our politicians. But, come back to me in a couple of months.
David Roberts
We'll see. All right. All right, we'll see. How about Felicity? What's next in Austin, Texas?
Felicity Maxwell
So, we're in a similar sprint through the Texas legislative session, which will end in June, and we have a myriad, a smorgasbord of housing bills. We'll see how far we get with some of them. But our goal is to definitely have two to three, hopefully, bills passed by June and supported and make those official. And I think that will make a huge launching pad for us as an organization. It's also just kind of really bringing the pro-housing movement statewide. That is actually also the focus is to be building up the work that we've done in Austin to replicate that in other major cities in Texas and also to be thinking about what does it look like to be pro-housing in sort of, I don't want to say smaller, but certainly places where maybe that housing crunch isn't as acute, but it's there.
I think Annemarie touched on regional housing planning and a lot of other things we have some great ideas of. What does it look like once you've gotten past this initial hump, or you have a good start? What comes next? I think that does look like state housing plans. Where do we need more supply? How can we be thoughtful about helping communities that are smaller but still struggling with housing? What does it look like to have housing in more Latino and border areas? It's a big state with lots of challenging problems, but we'll be here working on it, hopefully for the foreseeable future.
David Roberts
This is awesome. It's so rare I get to talk about good news and good things happening and people winning. It's like a little island of goodness here. So, I don't want it to end, but we're over time. So, thank you two so much not only for coming on and walking us through this, but for all your work. It is God's work you're doing. So, Annemarie Gray, Felicity Maxwell, thank you so much.
Felicity Maxwell
Thank you.
Annemarie Gray
Thank you for having us.
David Roberts
Thank you for listening to Volts. It takes a village to make this podcast work. Shout out, especially, to my super producer, Kyle McDonald, who makes me and my guests sound smart every week. And it is all supported entirely by listeners like you. So, if you value conversations like this, please consider joining our community of paid subscribers at volts.wtf. Or, leaving a nice review, or telling a friend about Volts. Or all three. Thanks so much, and I'll see you next time.
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