What's the YIMBY movement and how can it help housing policy?

Grattan Institute’s work on housing policy keeps coming back to one basic idea: Australia needs more housing in the areas where people want to live and work.

So why hasn’t Australia built enough homes to keep prices under control? Because of the land-use planning regulations that dictate what gets built where. Those planning regulations have a status-quo bias. They give too much say to people who oppose development or change – the so-called ‘NIMBYs’, or ‘Not-in-my-backyard’.

Enter the ‘YIMBY’ movement: enthusiastic young people who say ‘Yes-in-my-backyard’.

In this special Grattan podcast on Australia’s housing crisis, our Senior Associate, Joey Moloney, and guests Jono O’Brien and Melissa Neighbour from the YIMBY movement discuss this grass-roots movement that aims to revolutionise the housing debate and make it easier for young Australians to get a roof over their heads.