For years there has been a loud and often polarizing battle: NIMBYs vs. YIMBYs. But as housing costs soar and climate pressures mount, a new movement might offer a way forward—one that’s not about saying “no” or “yes,” but asking “how.” 

Meet QUIMBY: Quality In My Backyard.

QUIMBYs champion the creation of new housing, but they call for smarter planning, better design, long-term affordability, and a serious commitment to sustainability. It’s a vision that blends pragmatism with aspiration, recognizing that cities must grow, but also that when they grow in ways that people actually want to live in—and live next to—it’s possible to win over even the most hardened NIMBYs. This middle path is gaining traction. More and more organizations are embracing QUIMBY principles, suggesting a shift away from zero-sum battles and toward common-ground solutions that aim to unite instead of divide by embracing development that makes neighborhoods better.

The old camps have brought the debate to a standstill: NIMBYs—short for Not In My Backyard—push back on nearby developments, while YIMBYs—Yes In My Backyard—push for more housing everywhere, so that supply can finally tame soaring rents. While YIMBYs have built political momentum and passed hundreds of laws, the results have been mixed. With each law there seems to be a countermove from local opponents, creating new regulatory hurdles that have made development in the U.S. painfully expensive, often twice as costly as in places like Europe.

Consider Vienna. There, high-quality housing is built efficiently and affordably, with little pushback. On a study trip, a U.S. developer asked Bernd Riessland, the head of a Viennese limited-profit housing group, a pointed question during a panel discussion: “Mr. Riessland, I want to ask you directly: How is your construction so cheap?”

Mr. Riessland paused, then responded: “I reject that question. Instead, I want to ask you: How is your construction so expensive? We both purchase materials on the global market, so our prices should be similar. In Austria, we build for a much harsher climate, which requires higher-quality materials—if anything, that should make our construction more expensive. On top of that, our labor costs include fully unionized wages and comprehensive social services for workers, so those expenses should also be on par, if not higher.”

Then he paused again, and asked, “So, who gets the rest of your money?”

A very good question.

A Brookings study pulls back the curtain on U.S. housing costs: just 50% goes toward actual construction. The rest? Land eats up 20%, while a staggering 30% is swallowed by “soft costs”: fees, legal wrangling, bureaucratic overhead. A separate analysis by the Sightline Institute puts the construction share even lower, closer to one-third.

When projects get complex (think rezoning battles or fierce local opposition), those soft costs surge even higher. Navigating the maze of regulations and resistance means hiring land-use attorneys, entitlement consultants, and political lobbyists. Add in delays, and the meter keeps running, increasing the final price tag.

So why does this happen in California, but not in Vienna?

In Vienna, the planning process includes real, meaningful input that makes projects better. Designs are chosen through an open competition, judged by professional juries and local stakeholders. And here’s the key: once approved, projects must be built as designed—no value-engineering, no backtracking, no cheapening out. The result is developments that enhance neighborhoods. Residents see the new homes as a community asset, and possibly a future home for their children, or even themselves. And many developments are cooperatively built, where the architecture, layout, and design are chosen not by developers, but the actual homeowners, who then own their homes for about the cost of the land and construction. This model can bring down costs and could be especially effective in California, where condominium construction laws and extensive red tape have severely restricted the development of multifamily condo ownership. As a result, the state now ranks second-to-last in the nation for homeownership rates. 

But the most important factor is quality. Apartments are designed for long-term living, often using single-stair layouts that offer windows on both sides. The result? Natural light, cross-ventilation, and a rare urban luxury: the ability to sleep with windows open to a quiet interior courtyard. New homes are built using “Passive House” design, which in L.A.’s temperate climate could mean zero energy bills and year-round comfort. And they’re intentionally human-scaled, cohesive with the vernacular and character of their neighborhoods, and built to last. They look great and are lovely places to live.

Could this be a model for California and the nation? QUIMBYs think so.

QUIMBYs are YIMBYs at heart who have found that through dialogue with stakeholders, they can find common ground in quality—even with NIMBYs. It turns out that NIMBYs are not a monolithic group opposed to everything. We know from experience that when presented with a plan that addresses their concerns, even the biggest “housing skeptics” can get behind housing.  

What do NIMBYs care about? They consistently have three concerns: tall buildings, ugly architecture, and more cars, making local traffic worse and parking impossible. But when a plan addresses those concerns—gentle density, three-to-five stories of beautiful architecture along underutilized commercial corridors that have been transformed into 15-minute walkable neighborhoods located near jobs and transit—they embrace the idea, even in their backyard, lending their support through public comment and letters of support. NIMBYs are often people who care deeply about architecture and aesthetics, and we should care that housing is high quality for the people who live there. The lesson is that high quality can transcend division and paralysis.

This speaks to one of the core sources of the conflict: Opposition to new housing in the U.S. is in many ways about broad design failures, and it reflects a few deeper truths, starting with the fact that American cities are built first for cars, not for people. With low-quality transit and noisy, dangerous, and congested streets, residents fear one thing above all: traffic. As the late great urbanist Donald Shoup put it, “If new residents didn’t bring cars, few would complain.” People want more friends. They just don’t want more traffic.

But traffic is just one part of the story. The buildings themselves are the other part. Much of U.S. multifamily housing is bland, bulky, and badly designed. While cities around the world have mastered the art of crafting beautiful and livable apartments, the U.S. has largely abandoned that playbook. In its place is a relentless drive for efficiency that prioritizes square footage over soul.

But this drive for efficiency isn’t just the fault of “greedy developers.” Our Rube Goldbergesque rules can destroy our architecture and design, and our loathing of developers for building these terrible buildings—that our rules forced them to build!—has created a permission structure for elected officials to tack on random rules and massive fees, which treats even mom-and-pop development like an ATM to fund a cornucopia of local priorities that are important, but could be funded from other sources without suppressing what we need: housing construction. Developers opt out, instead opting into things we don’t want simply for climate reasons: sprawl, mega-mansions, and luxury glass towers; or they move to red states that welcome them with reasonable rules, one-week permits, and a healthy balance sheet. The builders who do stay need to find ways to make projects “pencil out”—and one way to make it work is to “extract the profits” from the quality, leaving cities like L.A. with low-quality housing, and not enough of it.

Monolithic boxes perched on concrete parking podiums; double-loaded corridors that choke off natural light and cross-ventilation; windows facing alleys, side yards, or deafening highways; courtyards packed with noise, not nature. These buildings don’t invite, they repel. They feel generic, out of scale, disconnected from the neighborhoods around them.

And, critically, they’re not built for families or anyone hoping to put down roots. The dominant unit types are studios and one-bedrooms, often with windowless bedrooms and layouts aimed at roommates splitting rent, not multigenerational households or long-term residents. Developers are left to try to work within the convoluted, opaque rules that even land use attorneys can’t always follow, and with little help from often openly hostile city agencies. 

But it doesn’t have to be this way. QUIMBY is flipping the script on urban development by fighting for high-quality design that is embraced by the community and offers homes at a broad range of affordable price points; all with a deep commitment to zero-carbon housing with zero-carbon mobility. Rooted in movements like Strong Towns, the 15-Minute City, New Urbanism, and Missing Middle Housing, QUIMBYs advocate for walkable neighborhoods, shared green spaces, natural light, freedom from car dependency, and smaller-scale, beautifully designed homes. 

Why are human-scale, gentle density, three-to-five-story streets important? People are drawn to these neighborhoods and find them calming and inviting. We have an oversupply of single-family homes and a massive deficit of apartments in urban, walkable 15-minute neighborhoods—when 40% of the U.S. would prefer this Jane Jacobs, Greenwich Village lifestyle, and less than 10% live that way. And 15-minute cities are one of the few ways to address traffic and the air pollution and emissions associated with it. The demand is so great that our “revealed preference” shows up in places like the West Village, with its tight streets and blocks and blocks of four-story brick buildings, where small apartments and townhomes sell for $3,000–$5,000 per square foot, triple the price of real estate markets like Bel Air, California. 

While U.S. cities often swing between sprawling suburbs and isolated high-rises, QUIMBYs call for a third path: human-scaled urbanism with gradual density and diverse housing choices. It is a road map for creating vibrant walkable main streets as an amenity for the entire neighborhood with an abundance of low cost housing options—creating livability, affordability, and sustainable communities. 

This goal wasn’t always out of reach. Until the 1970s, U.S. cities built moderately dense housing like townhomes, courtyard apartments, and garden-style complexes. These “gentle density” options were affordable, livable, and remain popular today.

Modern zoning laws and building codes have all but erased the middle ground. In their place, we’re left with two extremes: single-family homes and often low-quality apartments built without thought for the tenants’ quality of life, or how it fits in the surrounding neighborhood. 

The solution is not more low-quality housing, and it is definitely not more sprawl. It’s better and more thoughtful housing. Quality and affordability aren’t at odds. Smart urban design can actually lower costs by making cities more livable and walkable which can mean that housing does not need parking, which lowers construction costs and lowers rents, while radically lowering the cost of living. Pair that with efficient construction and thoughtful planning, and we can build cities that people don’t just tolerate, but cities that they love to call home.

Enter the Livable Communities Initiative

The Livable Communities Initiative (LCI) is a bold, unifying framework for creating vibrant, people-first neighborhoods. Picture walkable streets lined with attractive, three-to-five-story buildings; housing that’s beautiful and affordable. Think high ceilings, lush courtyards, and sunlit interiors, all designed to elevate daily life and strengthen community.

The goal? Safe, inclusive places where cars move slowly, sidewalks bustle with life, and everything you need is just a short walk or bike ride away. In these 15-minute neighborhoods, you can step out of your front door and grab groceries, coffee, or dinner—all without reaching for your car keys. With strong transit links and car-share options, life becomes car-light or car-free.

Public support for the LCI is strong and growing. Communities are already embracing it, weaving it into housing plans and exploring pilot programs.

The LCI is a vision, but it is also a highly detailed plan. And an example of the Abundance Movement in action: get the code right to unlock the things we want. The LCI clashes with outdated zoning codes, legacy building regulations, and the siloed authority of multiple agencies. Fixing that means tackling a few things—but only a few:

• Allowing setback relief for front and side yards
• Reforming rigid single-stair rules and gaining buy-in from fire departments
• Planning neighborhoods to align mobility with housing 
• Engaging stakeholders to identify standard plans 

The most important is the paradigm shift of following Vienna’s model, where the city invites property owners to build and brings a collaborative approach to supporting construction by reducing the hundreds of friction points in the process. Identify the housing we want, then make it easy to build.

The barriers are real, but they’re not insurmountable. Around the world, this kind of human-scaled, mixed-use development is standard practice. So, rather than debate for years over every word of code, let’s take a simple step: Pilot it. Start with one neighborhood. Build it, observe it, refine the rules, and scale from there. Real-world results will drive smarter and faster reform.

Who would want to live there? A recent survey of retail workers on Los Angeles’ Larchmont Boulevard found that 50% of respondents would want to live in an apartment above retail nearby, 73% would want to walk or bike to work if they could, and 64% would ditch their cars. Build it, and we are confident they will come.

As cities try to address their shortages while navigating voter skepticism and pushback, it’s worth asking what kind of neighborhoods people actually want, and what kind of homes people want to rent, own, raise a family in, and grow old in. The real estate prices are already telling us the answer: people want quality streets, quality architecture, and quality homes. And if we had streets like this, who wouldn’t want this in their backyard?

All images courtesy of the Livable Communities Initiative.