Unironically, Big Eureka is probably the best YIMBY idea out there.
Let me explain.
One bizarre thing about the NorCal/SoCal divide is that “Northern California” is actually in the middle of the state.
The actual northern part of California is mostly just wilderness, except for the dying industrial centers of Chico and Redding, and the beautiful coastal town of Eureka (pop. 26,512; metro area 45,034).
Eureka sits on a wet part of the northern California coast, so it was settled long before California developed the elaborate irrigation and pipeline systems that rocketed the central valley and Los Angeles to their modern importance.
Eureka also has one of the mildest, most pleasant climates in America, tempered by the cold waters of the Humboldt bay. It’s also only a short drive from the scenic Trinity Alps and the Six Rivers National Monument.
So, Eureka had a lot of growth in the 19th century and the early 20th. By 1920 the city had reached half it’s present population, and by 1960 it had a greater population than today. So, the city has a quaint turn-of-the-century old-town:
And a lot of cool midcentury moderns:
Eureka is cool!
So why did it stop growing? Simple: growing would be illegal.
Eureka, like many California cities, has an “urban boundary” beyond which development is restricted to “rural” uses, which means pretty much nothing. That means Eureka is trapped in it’s old borders (plus the neighboring villages of Rosewood, Cutton, and Myrtletown, which are roped into the urban boundary as well). Look at the picture of Eureka above. You can trace the urban border yourself.
Eureka also has strict zoning that prevents building more than is already there.
That means that living in Eureka is expensive. An extremely modest home goes for $3-400,000:
While a normal, middle-class house might sell for nearly a million:
Paradoxically, living in Eureka is so expensive that the population is falling as residents are slowly pushed out by tourism and second homes.
Which is why Big Eureka is the best YIMBY idea that exists. Most small cities can’t grow because they can’t outcompete the “agglomeration effects” that a big city offers. So, Boston and New York strain at the seams while Hartford, Pittsburgh and Syracuse are basically free to live in. That leaves us pretty much stuck with the big cities we have, which is bad because city locations used to be determined by things that don’t really matter any more (like water transit) but cities today should be located next to value-adding amenities like mountains and beaches.
So the agglomeration effects trap us in sub-optimal urban locations. That means that normal YIMBYism can be sort of bad: it unlocks growth in New York and Boston, but that keeps us stuck in New York and Boston even if they aren’t really the best places for cities any more.
YIMBYism can’t help most small, perfectly located cities to grow because they’re pretty cheap to live in anyway. They just aren’t desirable because they lack agglomeration effects.
Eureka is the exception. It’s so nice that it’s crazy expensive even though there’s nothing there.
Which means you can make it into a big city just by relaxing the land-use regulations.
Eureka is just the best place for a big city. Perfect weather, no risk of drought, and near beautiful scenery and productive farmland.
And yet Eureka is just a little town.
Eureka is emblematic of the infamous phenomenon known as “The Lack of Shit Between Portland and San Francisco,” shown below:
It’s weird that there’s not more shit there? The Southern Coast has Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Monterrey, Santa Maria, Salinas, Santa Cruz, etc.
The East Coast has a big city pretty much anywhere you could safely live, and the smaller coastal cities of the South (Savannah, Charleston, Wilmington) are growing as fast as you can build homes.
The Norcal coast basically just has Eureka. And Oregon has almost nothing.
It’s Big Eureka time.
Indefensible Expectations 