Kier Starmer wants to build houses on the green belt. For those of you who don’t know, the “green belt” is an area around some English cities where house-building is heavily restricted. It’s name conjures images of pristine creeks and primeval forests, land that has been protected since the dawn of time and must remain so. But nothing could be further from the trust, most of the green belt is monoculture farms and car parks. The only thing “green” about it is the branding. Which is exactly why the Green Party and other self-proclaimed “environmental” groups are so heavily opposed to Kier Starmer’s plan.

In far too many cases, I’ve seen that “Green” and “Environmental” groups are really just NIMBYs. High rise development is far more efficient than spread out housing, but green groups in my city are opposed to it. The German Greens are famously anti-nuclear, but pro-coal; or rather national Greens are fine with coal away from them but local Greens hate coal in their backyard. And in California, CEQA and other environmental regulation has destroyed the state’s ability to build nearly anything. The state has decided to little by little allow special carve-outs to CEQA for projects of dire need (or good kickbacks) but has still refused to just scrap CEQA for good.

But to bring it back to housing, I think the utter lack of housing in most of the Western world is a damn crime, and the entrenched groups opposed to housing must be fought at every turn.

Just take the Green Belt, a quick search of social media shows that many self-proclaimed leftists are up in arms about it. But what is so wrong with a car park being replaced by houses? And the Tories are against it as well, but why should a supposed party of free market economics forbid people from building what they want on their property? If I want to turn my house into an apartment block, why should Big Government forbid me?

The reason is of course NIMBYs, and there’s an entire Maginot Line of mottes and baileys that the NIMBYs have constructed to defend their arguments and their property values. The most baffling is their claim that more supply doesn’t lower prices. In fact some go so far as to claim that a new apartment will raise housing prices in the area through some mechanism heretofore unknown to economics. But think for even half a second: when there was a shortage of eggs just this year, what happened? The price of eggs rose, yes? And when the egg shortage was alleviated by more production, then what happened? The price fell, just as supply and demand says it will. When there is more of stuff, prices go down.

If a brand new high-priced apartment gets built, then a rich lawyer and family can move out of his luxury apartment from the 90s which is sort of grotty after 30 years of use. Now a young couple can move into that apartment from the 90s, moving out of their tiny apartment in the suburbs. And now someone who was homeless or living with family can move into the tiny apartment vacated by the couple. New housing, even ultra-expensive luxury housing, lowers the price of all housing as people move into it and move out of where they currently are.

Another NIMBY motte is the demand that instead of building new houses, we should implement a policy that is utterly useless. Usually they demand that we should have rent control, or forbid foreigners from owning houses, or forbid corporations from owning them. Absolutely none of these things help in the slightest, in fact rent control is actively harmful. Yet NIMBYs will claim we should never ever build a single new home until these useless policies are implemented.

I saw a truly mask-off moment on social media when talking about Boulder Colorado. I wasn’t aware, but Boulder is one of the most unaffordable cities in America. And on a news story talking about such, the response from Boulder residents was clear: “you don’t have a right to live in Boulder, if it’s too expensive then get richer or leave. We don’t want more houses or apartments because it would change the character of Boulder.” You could very easily see George Wallace saying the same thing.

At the end of the day, NIMBYs think that they, personally, should be immune to market or government forces. Their neighbor should not be allowed to build a bigger house on his land because it would affect them personally. And the government should not be allowed to build houses either because again it would affect them personally. NIMBYism is a blight upon capitalism and a war against the poor. I think anyone on the Left, Right, or Center should oppose it.

So god-speed Starmer, and please build 10 million houses on the green belt you beautiful centrist bastard you.