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> Stop arguing for this about cost, or "family friendliness", or preschool availability, or anything else, because you are immediately missing the actual reasons. NIMBYs are racist. It's that simple. Zoning and land use is designed to keep minorities away from "pure" suburbs.

Counterargument: The same/equivalent zoning, land use and NIMBY problems happen in countries that are racially homogeneous.

Can you give a few examples?

The Maldives are the most monoethnic nation-state in the world [1]. They have strict land use regulations [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoethnicity

[2] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-s...

I live in a city in Québec that is, according to 2018 census, 94.2% white. And the land use, parking and "neighborhood's character" policies are present. The divide is among the socioeconomic status.

e.g. Czechia. Racially homogenous and have one of least affordable properties in Europe.

https://www.expats.cz/czech-news/article/prague-is-the-third...

The parent is only slightly off the mark.

The core underlying thing that is driving exclusionary zoning is not racism, but classism. But racial exclusion is the bonus on top because race and class are often related.

When zoning was beginning to be broadly implemented in the 1930s the core goal was to limit apartments. Apartments were filled of relatively low income, working class renters. They were often also racial minorities too. Two core reasons why wealthy single family home owners wanted to push them far away.

This is bananas. You are chastising people you disagree with for not recognizing the nuance of the situation, and that they ought to recognize others don’t hold the same views as themselves. Fair point.

Then you forget you just said that and say the real reason is that everybody that doesn’t agree, for the most part, is racist. This is an insane and hateful point.

The sort of belief that if held sincerely can hurt people. Where do you get the confidence or the merge to claim something like this? You’re the one that seems to be comfortable ascribing beliefs to people you don’t even know.

This is the "not a racist bone" defense, implying that you need privileged insight into someone's intent, motivations, and personal beliefs to call them racist. Which of course we rarely ever have.

Another choice is to look at outcomes. Racial exclusion is a predictable result of these policies. It does not need to be the intent. People who consistently support policies with racist outcomes can be called racist. It's a useful shorthand, not a conviction of their soul.

Racism doesn't need to be a matter of personal malevolence. Taking self-interested action with known & predictable unjust outcomes is sufficient.

> implying that you need privileged insight into someone's intent, motivations, and personal beliefs to call them racist. Which of course we rarely ever have.

Which is why loosening the definition has backfired so spectacularly. Some ascribe racism statistically, to the point that in some circles it's done a full circle to all white people being inherently racist. Most, however, perceive it as a moral judgement. If you loosen the definition to remove intent, it's no longer a moral judgement.

> Taking self-interested action with known & predictable unjust outcomes is sufficient

But it's not racism by most peoples' definition. It is by the neo-academic revisionist one. But that loosening gave cover for the actual racists to come out and become accepted again. (If everyone who wants a parking lot is called a racist, it takes the bite out of the guy waving a Confederate flag. And if you're called a racist despite knowing you had no racist intent, it makes the other people being called racist more sympathetic.)

It's worth pointing out that some of the most problematic zoning regulations were indeed enacted due to racism. Huge minimum lot sizes with large setbacks, for example, made housing very expensive — combined with redlining and making it extremely difficult/impossible for PoC to get loans <- Very racist.

NIMBYs are self interested. It is that simple. Establishing a community and keeping outsiders out is nothing new. Is it morally wrong? Probably. Relaxing land policy required people to share and give some of what they have. Sharing is hard.

It's morally wrong to take somebody else's land, too. That's not sharing.

Where in the US is this happening? We're talking about developers developing land for landowners while other people are able to stop them for "reasons."

Is it morally wrong to take somebody's money for taxes? You never have an absolute right to your land. e.g there's eminent domain, or talk to the Texans that have oil rigs next to their McMansions drinking their milkshake.

The brutal truth is we are all living on land that has been “stolen” at some point in history.

You are making the exact same reductivist mistake but in the other direction.

> I'm talking about people concerned about the "riff raff" that more permissive land use will bring.

The fact that you are making the huge logical jump from "I don't want crime in my neighborhood" to "You must hate black people!" says more about your assumptions and biases than it does people who simply don't want crime - regardless of the type of person who is committing it.