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Haunted Terrains and Critical Topographies: Rethinking the Production of Space
  • ISSN: 2050-9790
  • E-ISSN: 2050-9804

Abstract

‘Yes in My Back Yard’ (‘YIMBY’) movements, which have garnered increased attention for advocating developer-friendly ‘solutions’ to crises of affordable urban housing in the United States and Canadian cities, are inventive interpreters of popular culture. This article adds urban cultural studies and affect-theoretical threads to recent Left critiques of YIMBYism, building on Robert W. Lake’s critique of ‘planners’ alchemy’ – the fantasy of converting always-already parochial ‘NIMBY’ opponents of development into enlightened ‘YIMBY’ supporters. Drawing on the work of queer-feminist affect theorist Lauren Berlant, who warned against ‘positivizing the ambivalence’ that necessarily accompanies contradictory forms of social change, it makes a case of Swedish novelist Fredrick Backman’s novel (2012) and its Swedish (2015) and US (2022) film adaptations. Although claimed as YIMBY texts, I argue these works also attend to oft-ignored spatial and affective displacements resulting from both welfare-capitalist initiatives like Sweden’s Million Homes Programme and contemporary neo-liberal urbanizations.

Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • The Hixon Center for Climate and the Environment at Harvey Mudd College
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2025-11-29
2026-04-14

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/content/journals/10.1386/jucs_00105_1
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): affect; ambivalence; displacement; gentrification; Lauren Berlant; NIMBY; Sweden; YIMBY

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