At 17, I lived in Nicaragua to show solidarity with the Sandinista socialist revolution. At 23 I raised money for Guatemalan women's cooperatives. In my early 20s I lived in the semi-Amazon doing research with small farmers fighting land invasions. At 26 I helped expose poor conditions at Nike factories in Asia.
YIMBYs should embrace a housing reform agenda broader than increasing urban density. This should start with ending tax shelters in the form of land conservation easements to cattle ranches and farms that abut suburbs. This would create an incentive for landowners convert them either to new housing subdivisions or to genuinely new natural areas.