Meet The "Island Homes Meme" Creator
Interviewing YIMBYs of NoVA member Ryan Arnold
Special treat this week! I recently interviewed YIMBYs of Northern Virginia member Ryan Arnold about his famous creation, the above meme visualizing dense housing’s environmental benefits. Ryan is uncommonly kind and was very active in our advocacy for Arlington County’s Missing Middle housing reform. I emailed him questions about the meme and himself. Below are his responses.
When did you first create the image? What were you doing professionally at the time?
I started working on it on April 20, 2021 — a Tuesday evening. The design evolved over a month or two — for instance, originally the island was big enough for 218 houses, which made it hard to recognize them as houses when seen on a social media feed. At the time, I was working a nine-month stint at a small architecture firm. In my free time, I created a few other memes around then, too. For instance, on April 2, I made one highlighting the destructive impact of coal mining.
What app or platform did you use to create the image?
Adobe Illustrator. I started by creating a grid of squares, which is most obvious in the water around the island, as well as in the houses. I wanted to create an appealing graphic, like the look seen in popular computer games. Civilization III is a good example.
What inspired the meme? Was it born out of a conversation? What motivated you to create it?
“Habitat loss is the #1 cause of species extinction.” That sentence accompanied a very early version of what would become the meme. There’s a widespread misconception that apartment buildings are a bigger environmental villain than detached houses — see also the book Green Metropolis, by David Owen — and I wanted an image that could expose that myth at a glance.
There’s a widespread misconception that apartment buildings are a bigger environmental villain than detached houses … and I wanted an image that could expose that myth at a glance.
Did you have a specific audience you wanted to reach, or were you not thinking about that?
I was once involved in an effort to create a mixed-use “village center” for the neighborhood where I lived. This would have replaced a smallish 1960s supermarket-and-parking-lot with a larger supermarket, a variety of storefronts lining the sidewalk, two stories of apartments on top, and a nice park/plaza on the side. The ferocity of the opposition that materialized was outdone only by the absurdity of their arguments: They claimed the new building would trigger a fatal heat-island effect — never mind that the asphalt already covering most of the block plays this nefarious role quite well. When I set out to create my “island homes” meme, I could only hope that a simple image might stand a better chance of reaching such people than the lengthy presentations and op-eds I produced at the time.
Would you consider yourself an environmentalist as well as an urbanist?
Absolutely. I came to urbanism through environmentalism. Earlier in life, I took an electric car to high schools to give presentations and demonstration rides to student ecology clubs. This was in Orange County, California, sort of the epitome of suburban sprawl. I was surprised when the president of one of these clubs (i.e., a civically active, idealistic, environmentally-minded teen) told me that the car, with its 60-mile range, wouldn’t work for her family because both her parents’ jobs and other destinations are so far from home in various directions. That started me thinking that there’s something wrong with the way we’ve been building our communities.
Why is conservation important to you?
We’re told that what we’re on course to lose will not come back on any human timescale. I don’t want to be part of the cohort that breaks the planet.
How conscious was your choice to depict an island rather than a coastal or landlocked area?
An island, with its clear geographic limits, is the simplest way to convey the meme’s message. Also, there’s a common metaphor of Earth as an island. Do we want human activity to alter the entire face of the world? Of course not — but here we are.
Are you ever tempted to change or "improve" any aspect of the meme?
No, but I once saw someone else “improve” it by making the apartment building half as tall and covering half the island with houses. At least she didn’t add a freeway interchange [editor’s note: lol].
When I originally conceived of the meme, I thought it might be part of a series of similar memes about how density can make things better: This one says that density saves nature; the others could be about how density can improve people’s quality of life, or save lives, or improve health, or lead to better economic outcomes. I’ve seen people point out, correctly, that density can be good or bad — it depends on how well it’s designed and implemented. It would be nice if we could include such nuance in a simple meme.
I’ve seen people point out, correctly, that density can be good or bad — it depends on how well it’s designed and implemented.
When did you start seeing the meme pop up on Reddit and elsewhere online?
April 8, 2022. I can be that specific because I posted about it on Facebook: “Good news, everyone! Strangers on Twitter are sharing this meme I invented.” Someone in College Park, Maryland was commenting on something called the Adelphi Road Sector Plan. “By limiting dense development in a transit- and job-rich area, we will see more sprawl, car dependency, and greenfield dev in rural areas.” She gets it.
Why do you consider yourself a YIMBY?
The YIMBY vision of “more and denser housing … close to jobs, opportunity, and the amenities of daily life” closely aligns with my own. Research shows that per capita greenhouse gas emissions are much lower in the densest neighborhoods, and there’s persuasive literature saying dense cities are better than sprawl on a range of social and financial metrics as well. We know what it takes to make sustainable cities and regions; we just need the political will — and YIMBY groups and their allies demonstrate that we do in fact have that will.
Thanks Ryan for answering my questions! I want to close by sharing a concept video he created for redeveloping a typical suburban shopping center in Irvine, California, into a car-lite mixed-use district. Ryan exemplifies the kind of positive vision that will gradually build American cities into much more humane, vibrant, prosperous places.
Thanks to my subscribers, especially my paid subscribers. If you enjoy this blog or want to work together, please contact lucagattonicelli@substack.com. I would love to write about a topic suggested by a reader. Visit YIMBYs of Northern Virginia, the all-volunteer grassroots pro-housing organization I founded, at yimbysofnova.org.