Chapter 6: Define and Tenaciously Commit To Your Values | Building YIMBYs of NoVA
Set the tone
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Welcome to Chapter 6 of the Building YIMBYs of NoVA series, which covers:
Chapter 7: Recruit Like Crazy (Plus Thoughts on Social Media)
Chapter 8: Think And Talk About Opponents As Little As Possible
I defined four core values fairly early on for the Facebook group, later refining them for our website. Articulating our organization’s values kept us grounded and helped create a useful sense of purpose and seriousness for our work. YIMBYs of NoVA’s four core values are below, with the notes from our site, plus commentary. The tenacious commitment aspect is simple enough: I always have our core values in the back of my mind, and in an ambiguous or emotionally heated situation, I refer back to them. The whole point of these values is that we adhere to them when doing so takes extra effort.
Civility & Integrity
This is non-negotiable. Organization members will represent ourselves and each other well and work together. Disagreements will be resolved amicably and through thoughtful discussion. We will always be factual and honest.
One of my litmus tests for civility is not getting into back-and-forths with opponents, whom* I will discuss in chapter 8. You get dirty and pig likes it, as the saying goes.
Positivity was a great strength for us in the Arlington Missing Middle housing fight. I was told again and again that it was key to our effectiveness. YIMBYs are often viewed as aggressive or transgressive, not so much due to baggage from YIMBY’s Bay Area origins, but because we are going against the grain by advocating for growth, development projects, and housing. The veteran D.C. organizer I met early on emphasized to me that reputation is hugely important in politics. Relationships define political advocacy. You have to be deliberate about perception and your narrative. Negativity you put out into the world will follow you around.
I originally thought of this element as civility and kindness. You must be truly intentional about treating each other well. It does not happen organically in a group with differing personalities. As a leader you, gentle reader, have a special duty to not necessarily mirror how others treat you, but rather try to model how you want folks to treat each other. That means taking some things on the chin, which can be a lesson in humility. And when folks are kind and compassionate, you need to find ways to honor that. You want people to have a positive emotional experience working with you and each other. It does not have to be fun, but pleasant is a good goal.
Action Orientation
We are dedicated to taking action to combat the housing affordability crisis. We will show up to local council and zoning board meetings to make our case. We will participate directly in the political process. And we will be positive, focusing on the merits of what we support rather than the defects of what we oppose.
We do not preen. We do not sit around and talk about how smart we are or call our opponents stupid or bad people, even when they behave badly. We do the work. We are proactive, not passive. I always try to guide internal and group discussions back to productive action, often by asking a question. (‘Who has signed up to canvas?’)
“Do not dwell on what you cannot control” is intuitively correct but can be surprisingly difficult to stick to. You might not even realize you are spinning your wheels, which can consume a lot of emotional energy and mental bandwidth.
Urbanism’s tangible, pragmatic promise of a better world captured my imagination. It was intoxicating in the best sense. YIMBYs should hold onto that positive vision and share it with others. It should be the focus of our advocacy and public comments. We are not simply anti-NIMBYs, we are the people who say, “Yes!”
Issue Focus: Housing Affordability
Issue focus and message discipline will keep our tent big and our coalition strong. We will relentlessly pursue our goal of making housing affordable in Northern Virginia by making homes abundant. This will require much more and denser housing, which in turn will require providing residents attractive, convenient alternatives to driving such as walkable amenities, protected cycling infrastructure, and transit.
I drew this lesson from an NPR clip about the gay marriage movement. Its leaders were disciplined about resisting mission creep, refusing to incorporate other causes such as environmentalism into their advocacy. This kept them focused on what was relevant but also kept their tent big, which helped them dramatically shift the Overton window from the 1990s, when undercover cops were still entrapping gay men.
We chose to be officially neutral on whether a car dealership should have its special use permit renewed, for example. I had to shut down one fellow who insisted our group should branch out to education policy. My joke is, “We are not saving the whales, we are not curing childhood cancer, we are making housing affordable.”
Non-Partisanship & Pluralism
Our organization adheres to a strict policy of neutrality with regard to political parties. We may work for or against specific candidates, but not a party. Any partnership with a partisan organization should not be construed as an endorsement of it. All people of goodwill are welcome in our community.
We engage with Democratic politicians because they have almost all of the power in Northern Virginia, but I like being able to move between different political spaces. When someone incorrectly assumes I agree with them about a non-housing issue, I keep my mouth shut. When I agree, I say so. I was not a particularly good congressional reporter, but some staffers on both sides assumed I was on their side.
Urbanism and YIMBY transcend ideology. Supply-side housing reform is fundamentally a deregulation argument, but advocating for abundant, affordable housing does not require any ideological commitment. Some local YIMBY groups apparently impose ideological litmus tests on who they will allow to join their team. This is short-sighted and, frankly, stupid. If someone wants to work with you and has good things to offer, unless they are truly toxic, you should welcome them to join you.
People have differing values, beliefs, and political views. Unless they unavoidably affect your work, you should tolerate those differences or, if anything, appreciate them as a source of strength. YIMBYs of NoVA has an ideologically diverse leadership team of folks from various backgrounds. We are mostly progressive Democrats, mirroring our membership, but our leaders include classical liberals and, previously, a Republican and a Democratic Socialists of America member. Both of them are wonderful human beings and they got along just fine, in the most unremarkable way. This quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson captures the spirit:
“Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.”
If you enjoy this series or want to work together, I would love to hear from you at lucagattonicelli@substack.com. I am glad to answer questions from readers, ideally in future blog posts. Visit YIMBYs of Northern Virginia at yimbysofnova.org.
*With gratitude to my editor and better half.