NIMBYs to the left of me, YIMBYs to the left
From our US edition
First disclosure: I do not appear in this book. I say that only because — second disclosure — I consider myself a YIMBY, and I am familiar, at least online, with many of the characters and figures quoted or interviewed. However, I learned a lot about this loose movement and found it fascinating to read a book on a phenomenon that I would have trouble viewing with a detached, scholarly distance. Yes to the City, by the cultural sociologist and urban policy scholar Max Holleran, must have been a difficult book to write, not least because YIMBY (“Yes in my backyard”) is as much a rallying cry or a slogan as it is a movement, let alone an organization. The YIMBY nemesis, NIMBY (“Not in my backyard”), is equally amorphous.
