California YIMBY is an organization that advocates for land use reform in California.

History

California YIMBY was founded in 2017. As of August 2022, the organization has over 80,000 members and 20 local teams across California.^[1]

Evaluation

Open Philanthropy considers California a promising jurisdiction for land use reform advocacy because the state accounts for 12% of the United States population and around half of the most expensive areas in the country; because California has very high rates of rent-inclusive poverty and high rates of out-migration by low-income residents; because state-level advocacy appears to be more tractable than city-level advocacy; and because of other reasons.^[2]

Open Philanthropy estimates the social value of a new housing unit in coastal California to be in the low hundreds of thousands of dollars.^[3] Combining this estimate with the consensus view that California should build millions of new houses suggests that efforts that increase the probability of more housing being built have very high expected value.^[2]

As of August 2022, California YIMBY has received over $5.4 million in funding from Open Philanthropy,^[4] as well as $1 million from Stripe co-founders John and Patrick Collison.^[5] Alexander Berger has recommended California YIMBY as an attractive funding opportunity for individual donors.^[6][7]