Recap From The First Ever YIMBY Conference

Seattle was abundantly represented this weekend at YIMBY 2016.

The first ever Yes In My Backyard (YIMBY) conference took place this past weekend. Many cities were represented, but none had the spotlight on it like Seattle!

Sightline Institute’s Serena Larkin, Anna Fahey, and Dan Bertolet presented recent focus group findings about mandatory housing affordability. Local journalist Erica C. Barnett attended as well, co-presenting with me (“SEAyimby”) an impromptu and well-attended session “Men, shut up!” about the tendency for male voices to dominate urbanist spaces both online and offline. Alexander Brennan, senior planner from Capitol Hill Housing led a session about the emergence of the EcoDistrict‘s Capitol Hill Renters Initiative.

One of two keynote speakers, Seattle for Everyone’s Sara Maxana spoke passionately about choosing to be the hero in the housing affordability story. For her, being the hero means inviting more people to live on her street, go to her children’s school, and have access to the amazing transit near her Ballard single-family home. Maxana’s keynote address brought tears to the packed audience at Boulder’s eTown Hall.

The other keynote speaker was futurist, Alex Steffen. For those new to Steffen’s message, it was an impactful and sobering reminder that inaction is not an option in the global climate crisis. Steffen’s speech fell flat on some members of the crowd. His most sour note had something to do with “boys liking Tonka Trucks”.

Better Boulder hosted the event from June 16th through June 19th. Attendees included politicians, like Ben Gould, who is running for Mayor of Berkeley, and the Mayor of Sitka Alaska, Mim McConnell. Traveling from furthest away were two YIMBYs from Brisbane, Australia. Other cities represented included Chapel Hill, Oakland, Austin, NYC, D.C., Cleveland, Chicago, Portland, Cambridge and Boston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and San Diego.

The “unconference” was chaotic, with some participants planning their sessions in advance while others looked at the landscape of existing events and creating their own. Sessions covered a range of topics generated by attendees. Sessions sometimes turned into brainstorms while others felt like a workgroup meetings or some like a university lecture. At any given hour on Saturday there were seven choices of sessions and attendees were encouraged to session hop. Attendees learned about organizing strategies, messaging techniques, inclusion and diversity, open source data platforms, net zero buildings, how to engage renters, and property rights.