Finally, a media breakthrough of the pro-Yimby narrative that has dominated press and politics - 48 hills

"A major, unheralded source of their success is the mainstream media's virtual blackout of their critics. By 'mainstream media,' I mean venues ranging from Mother Jones to The Wall Street Journal, as well as NPR. Thanks to its reach and stature, the liberal New York Times is the most influential pro-Yimby censor. When did you last read a serious challenge to Yimby orthodoxy in the Times, other than in the readers' comments? Never."

"So it's newsworthy that, on Sunday, February 1, The Washington Post, of all things, published a story that reports on the growing scholarly dissent from the Yimbys' supply-side housing agenda. After noting 'a wave of Yimby legislative victories,' reporter Julie Weil turns to 'supply skeptics,' starting with Michael Storper, an economic geographer who teaches at UCLA and the London School of Economics."

"'To put it bluntly,' Storper tells Weil, 'in America we haven't actually been underbuilding....The problem is demand is now split in a very unequal society. The supply you get is the wrong kind of supply.' Weil cites the new paper that Storper co-authored: Despite 'broad consensus in public discourse' embracing the YIMBY push for deregulation, 'Links between regulation and supply, and between supply and prices, are weak at best.' Simply unleashing developers to build more homes won't make housing affordable, the paper says."

Yimbyism began in 2014 and has since rebranded as Abundance, gained bipartisan congressional support, and seen pro-housing laws pass in many states, including California. Yimby advocates influence progressive city governments and advise prominent officials. A key factor in Yimby success has been limited mainstream-media coverage of critics, which has left academic dissent underreported. Recent scholarship argues the United States has not broadly underbuilt and that much new construction produces the wrong kinds of units. Researchers find weak links between deregulation, increased supply, and lower prices, indicating supply increases alone may not yield affordability.

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