California — finally — has taken steps toward being the kind of YIMBY — Yes in My Back Yard — state that counters the NIMBYism that has led to the nationwide housing crisis.

Too much demand. Too little supply. Regulations standing in the way of supplying enough roofs over enough heads.

But Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law new legislation, Assembly Bill 130, that exempts urban housing projects from CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act, the state environmental review law that for decades has delayed new development.

“Housing projects of fewer than 20 acres located in incorporated communities and unincorporated urban areas will generally no longer have to conduct environmental reviews required by the CEQA,” as Reason magazine synopsizes the situation in our state.

Obviously, Newsom, after years of inaction on CEQA and other regulatory vice grips on the ability to build, is trying toward the end of his second term in office to move toward the middle in his effort to become a national figure and a potential Democratic candidate for president.

But NIMBY and YIMBY are examples of an odd disconnect in the two main political parties. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats in all the 50 states have particularly covered themselves in glory in the effort to allow more housing to be built in our country.

Zoning is more of a class issue — an I’ve got mine, and don’t care much about yours, situation — in the suburbs that house the middle and upper-middle classes throughout the nation.

It’s such a touchy subject that it’s somewhat hilarious to hear that former President Barack Obama, who actually, objectively, has one of the better track records of any national politician in recent decades on promoting YIMBYism, had to be talked out of even using the word “zoning” in his 2024 speech to the Democratic National Convention in which he wanted to talk about increasing housing stock and therefore affordability.

You don’t want to offend the multi-millionaires who are the big donors to both parties, and who live in the places with the big lawns.

But more recently, Obama is pushing back against the push-back. He sees an opening for his party to align itself with the politics of abundance. And it doesn’t matter to the American people who gets the job done. So long as it gets done. It’s not going to be easy to educate everyone concerned on the simple fact that to increase affordability, and to mitigate the nationwide homelessness crisis, that we need to produce more housing. But, to his credit, the former president sees an opening.

As CNN reported last week, Obama gave a recent speech at a New Jersey fundraising event. And he’s clearly feeling that it would be better for his party to find a new foothold on this issue.

“I don’t care how much you love working people,” he told the crowd. “They can’t afford a house because all the rules in your state make it prohibitive to build. And zoning prevents multifamily structures because of NIMBY. I don’t want to know your ideology, because you can’t build anything. It does not matter.”

It won’t be easy for Democrats to re-invent themselves as the party of abundance. Blue-state Democrats have become an odd amalgam of rich and lower-income voters.

As Reason notes, “At the state level, it benefits Democrats for their states to become enclaves of wealthy liberalism,” as middle-class conservatives move to Florida and to Texas.

Plus, labor unions and wrongheaded rent-control advocates who imagine their policies are good for working-class people to be able to afford homes are also a key part of the current Democratic coalition.

But those of us who simply want more supply to meet the demand, and who want to cut the red tape that prevents more housing being created in America, don’t care which party advocates doing the right thing. We just want to get it done.

Los Angeles Daily News