How about if your neighborhood wanted to keep out people of a certain ethnicity instead? Is that a democratic outcome that we need to respect?

The definition of democracy is that we hold regular elections for political office. It does not mean that every single decision in society is up for a vote at the local level. 51% of my neighbors cannot decide that they'd like expropriate my house or checking account. The point of YIMBYism is that these kinds of decisions have negative externalities and a larger group of voters- at the state or national level- are removing that decision-making power from a smaller group at the local level. This is a democratically legitimate outcome!

NIMBYism is frequently driven by a small number of people who feel very strongly and use rules designed to protect minority rights to get their way. Is it democratic? I don't know... much of what's going on if put to a vote would be split 3 ways. A minority in favor, a large number who don't really care and another minority against (but they either don't get a vote or the default result is to go against their wishes).

> If we want our respect for democracy to be taken seriously we need to respect democratic outcomes ... even when they are not the ones we prefer.

The flaw in this argument here is that the opposition is trying to prevent these folks from even having a voice, which is fundamentally undemocratic. So this isn't a relevant statement here because this isn't a complaint about a democratic outcome. It's a complaint about people trying to eliminate voices who want to solve a problem. It's an attempt to silence discussion, which has the effect of preventing action.

What an odd viewpoint.

Effectively, we are all living in a shrinking prison of all decisions made before us. A "democratic" dystopia.

Respecting an outcome doesn't mean you have to (1) give up on differing views, or (2) stop working respectfully for another outcome.

The question is, -- is it a deliberate democratic outcome, or is it an accidental consequence of local zoning codes and city planning?

If governments are involved in planning, it's legitimate to use laws and the planning process to try and push these processes out of local minima towards more globally optimal outcome.

Is it still a democratic outcome when NIMBYs are doing things like abusing environmental regulations to choke out developments that citizens had approved of with their votes?

It’s not democracy when you exclude people impacted by the decision making process from the decision. Preselecting the outcome before the vote destroys any legitimacy the outcome has.

I support upzoning. It is a bad idea to come after people’s comfy, expensive cars. People like cars.