Abundance Without Architects

In typical conference fashion—breakfast burritos, coffee, orange juice, and roundtables—YIMBYtown 2025 (YIMBY in “yes-in-my-backyard”) drew housing advocates from around the country, state and congressional lawmakers, and grassroots New Haven groups to the Omni Hotel. (Shout-out to Local 217!) As members of the Yale chapter of The Architecture Lobby, we went to see what architecture students might learn from the YIMBY movement for pro-housing policy and zoning reform. But something was missing: where were all the architects?

The energetic tinkerers at YIMBYtown were intent on perfecting the combination of tax credits, code reform, zoning, and deregulation that would unleash a new boom of housing abundance. A room of over two hundred people discussed the latest single-stair code reform, while other attendees expounded on how to rationalize the complicated Oregon vent pipe code—which, according to the Director of Plumbing Standards Research and Development at the non-profit Center for Building in North America, has made new-build plumbing too intricate and expensive since the early 20th Century—and how to streamline building code reform procedures.

But we were still reeling from a moment during the previous panel, “If You Legalize It Will They Build It? Real Estate 101.” City planner-turned-developer Seth Zeren was asked about when developer costs will come down low enough that starting rents will follow. Zeren’s answer was quite clear: any savings in building costs will always go to developer profits, not to lower rent.

So why is the so-called housing abundance movement so focused on speculative developers? What role can architects play in breaking these rules of the game and envisioning a new future for de-commodified housing?

YIMBYtown taught us that reforming building codes is less of a hassle than we thought. Codes are revised on three year cycles, and architects can be vocal proponents for those changes. Our professional practice class neither covers that, nor recognizes the potential for architects to use our expertise as a lever for policy changes.

With that, we encourage current and future architecture students to join these conversations and create space for architects to do more than accept the status quo. We can no longer afford to stay silent and allow groups like the AIA (who had notably no presence at this national conference) to speak for us (or in this case, to not speak)—it’s crucial that we reach outside the studio to participate in these critical discussions of our time.