But I quickly fell in love with the place. A little rough around the edges? Sure. But walkable to MARTA, Little Five Points, East Atlanta, Reynoldstown, Kirkwood, Inman Park, and more. So much lovely greenspace. And it was full of houses that were full of bands I loved. Seemed perfect.

My girlfriend-now-wife and I used to joke that Edgewood had the potential to become like a suburb. Like Buckhead. It would only be a matter of time until some people with strange priorities found out about it, moved in, and started trying to change things, we joked. Haha, we said. We didn't spend any real time worrying, though. After all, it was a great place to live. Still is most days, despite the dipshits.

Sorry. Not nice. I guess I'm just disappointed and embarrassed. Plus, "dipshit" is a funny word. Trying saying it out loud right now. Feels great, right?

***

We had a chance to do something special here in Edgewood. A developer recently brought a plan to the neighborhood to build 48 "innovative missing middle" units on a couple lots conveniently located near MARTA. (They have a bus stop across the street and are a mere 10-minute walk to the Edgewood-Candler Park train station up the road.) Best of all? A full 25% of those units were to be made available at rates affordable to people earning 60% of the area median income—without the help of subsidies. Amazing.

This is where the dipshits come in. Not nice, I know. But maybe they don't deserve nice.

There's a very particular type of dipshit that I'll never understand, who thinks Edgewood has "too much" affordable housing and "too much" density. They like to frame these falsehoods as if we're carrying this massive load, like we've already done our part. When one of those dipshits see a development like this, they bring out all the old sky-is-falling tropes: parking, traffic, taxes, yada yada yada. Sometimes they'll even use these tropes to scare other neighbors into signing petitions that make it seem like the whole neighborhood is up in arms.

In one particularly telling response, Edgewood's zoning committee chair said "that most of the immediate neighbors and the Zoning Committee members that were opposed to this development were only opposed to it based on the site selected.”

You see, the dipshits claim to like density and affordable housing. But when it comes down to it, they do not like living near them. Not in my backyard, they say.

It's weird, when you think about it. A lot of the dipshits have lived in Edgewood for two, five, or 10 years—sometimes even more than that. But it's such a drop in the bucket of the neighborhood's rich, diverse history. Imagine trying to gatekeep a place, pretending it's yours to govern, with such little experience.

***

What makes the dipshits most uncomfortable? That's easy: people who don't have much money. They find subtle ways of saying it most of the time, coded words and phrases that they'll use as cover to avoid saying it outright, but if you go to enough meetings you'll occasionally catch one of them slipping up and saying the quiet part loud. They'll talk about how apartments come with consequences, such as lower income levels. They'll literally just say that, as if it's something we should be afraid of.

It's wild to me that people think like this. Wild, in fact, that people like this want to live in a city. Go to the suburbs, dipshits! There's a lot of room out there. Single-family homes for everyone! Big yards. Plenty of space if you don't want to see your neighbors. Less sidewalks, which means less people walking by your home. Garages and driveways for parking. Lots of folks who are afraid of everything that's different from them. You'll fit right in.

***

So, why should we care about a few dipshits? Great question. For starters, it's not just an Atlanta problem. The U.S. is in "the throes of a housing crisis: Across the country, Americans are running out of affordable places to live." And this is happening because of choices we're making that include restrictive regulations, NIMBYism, and other factors. But the nice thing about choices is that you can often undo or reverse them with new, better choices. And that's where the good news of the next paragraph comes in.

The most important thing about the dipshits? They're not the majority. They're loud, which makes them seem like they're in charge, like there are just so, so many of them. But that isn't the case. I know this because I live here. There are lots of us who want more neighbors, who want to prioritize walking and transit, who want affordable housing and apartment buildings—all that good stuff. Life is busy, though, and it's hard to get all these people involved, attending meetings, voting on these matters, making sure the real voices of Edgewood are being heard.

But thanks to the dipshits, we're organizing. We're sending emails, sliding up in DMs. We've got momentum. We're building a coalition, and we're gonna force the dipshits to do better. I hope you'll hold us to it. I hope you'll join us, too—in Edgewood, Atlanta, or wherever you live. Do it for your future neighbors.