Simple Messaging Increases YIMBY/Housing Supply Support
A new study (Do Housing Supply Skeptics Learn? Evidence from Economics and Advocacy Treatments by Christopher S. Elmendorf, Clayton Nall, and Stan Oklobdzija) finds that brief informational interventions can significantly reduce housing supply skepticism and increase support for market-rate development among American adults. Most Americans want lower housing costs but don't believe increasing supply would help. This disconnect hampers efforts to address the housing crisis.
The big picture: Housing affordability is a relatively new issue in state and national politics. Public opinion may be more malleable on this topic than on long-standing political issues.
By the numbers:
5,118 respondents participated in the study
50% supported more suburban development after the video (up from 35% in control)
61% backed transit-oriented development after video (up from 47% in control)
22% of respondents accepted the invitation to write to policymakers
How it works: Researchers tested four informational treatments:
Economics research summary: A summary of recent economic studies showing how new market-rate housing in expensive areas frees up existing affordable homes elsewhere.
Used car market analogy: A text explaining how supply chain issues for new cars affect used car prices, drawing a parallel to housing markets.
Text summary of "cruel musical chairs" video: A written description of the video's content, explaining housing shortages as a game where wealth determines who gets housing.
Animated "cruel musical chairs" video: A 1:45 minute animated video illustrating housing shortages as a game of musical chairs where wealth, not speed, determines winners.
All treatments conveyed that new market-rate housing reduces competition for existing affordable units. The study used preregistered analysis methods to control false positive rates while maintaining statistical power.
Key findings:
All treatments reduced supply skepticism and increased development support. The pooled effect increased an index of economic beliefs by 0.29 standard deviations and support for market-rate development by 0.18 standard deviations.
The "cruel musical chairs" video was most effective, increasing support for development by 0.35 standard deviations. This is two to three times larger than the effects of economics-information or persuasive messaging interventions.
Homeowners were as responsive as renters, challenging the "homevoter hypothesis" which predicts homeowners would oppose development to protect property values.
No evidence of partisan backlash was found. After the economic evidence treatment, both Democratic and Republican homeowners showed increased support for market-rate development.
The treatments did not polarize opinion by tenure, suggesting advocates may build pro-housing coalitions using supply-and-demand messages even in majority-homeowner electorates.
Results challenge previous findings that economic information reduces liberal homeowners' support for nearby apartments.
Treatment effects were similar for respondents with and without college degrees, except the economics text treatment was more persuasive for college graduates.
The video treatment increased the probability of writing a pro-development message to policymakers from 1.1% to 3.4%, suggesting the treatment affected not just stated preferences but also willingness to take political action.
Post-treatment manipulation checks showed high comprehension rates, with over 90% of respondents in all treatment groups passing and 97.8% for the video treatment.
Between the lines
The study also measured costly political efforts. The video treatment tripled the rate respondents wrote pro-development messages to policymakers (from 1.1% to 3.4%).
Yes, but: The study has limitations:
Based on a one-shot survey, not a panel design
Potential coding idiosyncrasies in message content analysis
Use of a self-selected online sample
Treatments were sometimes longer than typical campaign ads
Over 90% of intended recipients were treated, higher than in real-world campaigns
Bottomline
Simple, engaging messages about housing supply and affordability can significantly shift public opinion, potentially opening paths for policy change. This raises a number of questions, such as whether simple messaging could be adopted for other policies, or if it works, why don't more YIMBY groups adopt it? The lack of polarization between homeowners and renters suggests advocates may be able to build broad pro-housing coalitions using supply-and-demand messages.
I only stumbled on the "musical chairs" video recently via twitter and it was by far one of the most concise, impactful simulacra of the YIMBY movement I've so far encountered. Further, I think it'd behoove the movement to lean strongly into this level and quality of winning memetic content.
I proffer we be proactive about loud and proudly celebrating all the "wins" already made - that is, cities in the global and national context that go above and beyond at having excellent urban planning, zoning conducive to growth, accommodating the forgotten children of their rural surroundings; and whose policies result in particularly fine execution of the style, capacity, cost of construction and ultimately resultant resident quality of life and all downstream effects like facilitating significant academic or cultural scenes. I am not sure how we would go about encoding all of this in a way that can be effectively crowd-sourced and arbitrated, but I am sure I'm not alone in beginning to imagine the blueprint of such an endeavour. The YIMBY movement can feel negativity as there is of course so much legitimate frustration to be voiced about the failures of the current system, and yet I also feel like those cities that are pulling so much more than their share of the weight in various ways and by achieving various fragments of success, should be rewarded in order to create appropriate feedback mechanisms and foster pride for the simple beauty of urbanism that has so far been meticulously engendered in the cities of the world as they currently stand.