America is short on homes.

There are 4.7 million fewer housing units than families in the United States, according to a recent report from the real estate website Zillow. And this shortage is getting larger over time, in part because the pace of construction has slowed over the past two decades.

Dwellings are especially scarce — and thus, unaffordable — in places where economic opportunities are plentiful. As a result, the housing shortage hasn’t just fueled displacement and inflation but also stymied economic growth and social mobility. It is arguably the single biggest economic problem in America today.

The Yes In My Backyard (or “YIMBY”) movement seeks to solve it. This faction — a loose constellation of advocacy groups, think tanks, and intellectuals — is animated by one basic observation: America’s housing shortage is mandated by law.

Zoning rules prohibit the construction of apartment buildings on roughly 75 percent of America’s residential land. Throughout much of this territory, land-use laws effectively require all single-family homes to be spacious (and thus, pricey to build or buy). Even in city centers, parking mandates often make multi-family housing financially or physically nonviable.

And these are just three of the more conspicuous ways that regulations constrain housing supply.

YIMBYs have therefore implored local and state governments to relax regulatory restrictions on housing development. The movement has won significant reforms in Minnesota, California, and Montana, among many other states. And with the publication of Ezra Klein (a Vox co-founder) and Derek Thompson’s best-selling book Abundance — a manifesto for YIMBYism and adjacent causes — the quest to loosen land-use laws has attained newfound prominence.

It has also attracted much criticism.

On the left, some hesitate to blame any major social problem on excessive regulation. And they have raised a number of complaints with YIMBYism, most of which are unsound. For example, many contend that upzoning actually raises rents and fuels displacement — an intuition that doesn’t withstand empirical scrutiny.

But there is one left-wing critique of YIMBYism that’s partly right.

What YIMBY skeptics get (half) right

Much YIMBY skepticism is rooted in an accurate observation: Investing in a new housing development is a dicey proposition.

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