YIMBY chapter lead here… has anyone else found developers to be quite unhelpful advocates for housing reform?

I’m in a small city with mostly local developers. I’ve contacted a few of them over the years, thinking they’d be natural partners on upzonings, code reforms, parking, etc. On every occasion, I’ve found them to be disengaged or outright resistant to engage in broad-based code reform discussion. In fact, they seem to be pretty uncomfortable advocating for anything outside the context of their own projects, like rezonings.

AT THE SAME TIME they’re always quick to complain of mistreatment by planners, plan reviewers, etc. 🙄

Curious what others’ experience has been.

1. Non-farm productivity increases with population and population density.

2. Minimum population to support basic amenities is about 10,000.

3. Ideal walkable unit area would be about 250 acres with minimum 10,000 population, or average 40 persons per acre or more.

4. Non-market housing solutions is limited to 5% or less of the population in US, therefore market based solutions are required.

5. In a market, a desirable area will naturally attract more buyers and price driven up. The only affordable solution is to continuously build more such areas if population can increase.

6. If population is not increasing, it may be more economical to remodel less desirable areas to become more desirable.