The YOUNTVILLE MOON
Articles & Essays
VOLUME 1, 2026Our goal is to provide the information residents need to think for themselves, understand the tradeoffs, and ask better questions of the people they elected to govern this town.
The Story the Local Press Missed
The problem with the recent Napa Register story on Yountville Commons (and the Press Democrat story) is not that they got the meeting wrong. The Yountville Town Council did vote to begin repealing the Commons zoning ordinance. That repeal followed a referendum petition. Council members spent the discussion calling for more information, more outreach, more time, and more clarity.
All of that is accurate.
None of it explains what happened.
The Scarcity Yountville Built
Small towns do not run into trouble because too many kinds of people want to live there. They run into trouble when they allow too few kinds of homes for all those people to fit.
Preserved in Amber
Eight towns embedded in long-protected agricultural landscapes, drawn at the same scale. The one with the most land holds the fewest people.