The Silent YIMBY Majority, and Why They Lose

?,000 Linden Hills residents who are indifferent or mildly supportive of the project, but don't have the time or interest to be any way involved in the political process for it. They may not even be aware of it.

?00 potential residents of this building that want to live in this location, but aren't currently able to. Maybe the nearby single family homes are too expensive. Maybe they are physically impaired and need to live close to retail amenities and transit service. Maybe they simply prefer living in a condo in a mixed-use setting that isn't as busy as Downtown or Uptown. Denying this development is also denying more people a chance to live in a nice neighborhood of their choice.

??,000 people that visit Linden Hills to shop or eat and would enjoy having additional retail destinations and restaurants to choose from.

382,000 Minneapolis residents who would benefit from broadening the tax base. Pretty much every property owner in the City has had taxes go up in the last few years, even as property values have fallen. There are two ways to help that: cutting the budget, and broadening the tax base. Since the City is now down to laying off firefighters and cops, broadening the tax base is probably the only viable route for any substantial relief from property tax burdens.

7,000,000,000 people across the globe who will in some way be impacted by climate change if we can't reduce our transportation emissions; to have any chance of doing so, we need to reduce dependence on motor-vehicles by increasing density in walkable communities. It may seem extreme to claim that the outcome of a single local land-use decision will impact billions, but this same process is repeated a thousand times over in cities across the country. If a 5-story building can't be built in a commercial node of a relatively dense urban neighborhood, where can it?