Don't worry, there are sooo many free speech absolutists that will come out of the woodwork to protect this dastardly attempt to stifle speech through abuse of legal procedures.
No? Where did all those absolutists go?
I also oppose mandatory licensing. (In this case, to practice law)
The latter is the accusation, it seems impossible it’s not thrown out.
Even the one reply to me from a self-proclaimed absolutist didn't bother to defend the political speech and petition of government, just said that they were present!
The bad faith free speech argument that somehow applies to only some people, to only one side of the political divide, but never to the other was prevalent mainstream argument for years now. Some peoples free speech was sacred and if you criticized or opposed them, the criticism and opposition themselves did not counted as free speech - even if it in fact consisted of speech only.
So like, kicking at those people is entirely fair. Because they actively damaged "free speech". Not that they care or ever cared.
The regions that give the strongest support to the Democrats, like Marin County in California, don't want anything built, are actively kicking out ranchers that have lived there for generations, are adamantly against anyone calling anyone else something offensive, and are in general against what was classically liberal.
Meanwhile, rural Texas counties that give the strongest support to the Republicans are for worker protections, generally against government-prohibitions on insulting someone, are increasing in their support for populism, and so on.
The Democrats used to support free-speech absolutists, who are no longer welcome there, but the Republicans are just opening up to the ideal, and don't fully support it yet.
The nationalization of every policy on earth needs to stop.
Nobody is gonna go through the "everything else" approval process that strip clubs and heavy industry have to go through just to expand their business parking or do $10k of environmental impact assessment to drop off a $1k garden shed. (literal examples from my town).
These evil people can't make things illegal outright so they make the process so expensive almost nobody can do it and it takes decades for someone to come along with a lucrative enough development that's worth expensively challenging it inn court over.
They just want everyone to build what they want in their own backyard.
NIMBYs might more accurately be called NIYBYs.
Rancho Palos Verdes should not be required to comply with the request of some random activist who probably has never even stepped foot in the town.
If a city was allowing racial discrimination and no one within the city sued, would that make it ok?
Rancho Palos Verdes should comply with the law, or face the consequences of not being able continue that control of their land management.
A great value of democracy is that a "random activist" can petition the government to enforce the law, that's how we keep the whole thing in check. The idea that random activists could not be a check on illegal behavior of the government is a very, well, authoritarian idea that is not compatible with any of the values embodied in the US or California constitutions, our legal system, or the very character and culture of the US.
You can accuse them of being hypocrites if they don't also support more housing in region Y but that's a pretty big if you have to prove there.
But you can't say their interests are invalid.
And my point is that there are limits on the impact region X has on region Y based on their proximity. Should someone in downtown LA be able to compel someone in Palo Alto to upzone based on this "impact"? What about someone in Kansas or Florida?
As an extreme example, I can say that hurricane victims have an interest in butterfly wing flaps across the world because there is some indirect causation.
Housing expansion advocates consistently describe the simplest of supply-demand mechanisms, whereas housing demand is heavily driven by local and national economic conditions as well. Gary IN doesn't have a housing shortage.
Or higher prices in Y, because X will be both more crowded and with on average poorer people than before the supply increase, and people who prefer a less crowded area and less poor people (either directly because they are poor, or because of other demographic traits that correlate with wealth in the broader society, like race in the USA) around them will have an even higher relative preference for living in Y than before.
> The interests of people from region Y are valid.
They exist, validity is...at best, not a case you have made. Existence of a material interest does not imply validitym
Let’s remember, CA is in a housing CRISIS. I feel an immediate urgency to build as many houses as possible in this state so that my young children can feasibly afford to live here without being an AI engineer when they are adults
This seems entirely reasonable to me, and I'm grateful that a group like this exists.
But I'm a YIMBY, so of course. If lobbyists were influencing my municipality from afar on the basis of laws that I disagreed with, I can imagine feeling frustrated, conspiratorial, or disenfranchised.
Maintaining a consistent commitment to liberal democracy, the legal system and due process is one of life's great challenges!
If your local building code requires an elevator that can accommodate a hospital stretcher, which is almost certainly does, that was jotted down in the building code by literally one guy from Glendale, Arizona, on the basis of a whim.
We were warned by nay-sayers the county would burn down but that never came to fruition and meanwhile I've seen so many code-Nazi places in California burn down from wildfires.
It's hilarious watching the systematic destruction of the counter points when people tell me about the horrors
(1) "You wouldn't want to live in such a house, it would burn down." I already do, and have been.
(2) Your neighborhood would catch fire. I live in such a neighborhood, it didn't.
(3) Just wait long enough! It will happen eventually. Eventually you'll have bad luck! This has been going on for 20+ years.
Hah, they most certainly are! To such an extreme extent that I figure you'd probably reword this to something like "If I was aware of all the ways that lobbyists were influencing my municipality from afar". They are most certainly constantly and relentlessly influencing your municipality on every issue that is relevant to them.
To those downvoting, if you tell me your municipality I will provide you with evidence of corporate lobbying influencing decisions of governance at the municipal level.
https://www.govtech.com/archive/uber-encourages-voting-gets-...
In this case though, it's not someone going to a non-local city council or school board meeting and arguing for or against some policy that is up to that local board, but it is someone pointing out a policy that has been set at the state level. Any arguments for or against that policy need to take place at the state level, because that is the only place where it can be changed.
I totally get it. People don't like change - I certainly don't. Especially when it changes the neighborhood you're living in.
if there was any centralized advocacy, they'd have to confront the fact that they all want development to happen in each other's backyards and it would expose the lie.
I think it's definitely a good thing to build up more high density housing. I've got no complaints there.
However, a major problem we are having locally is that while that local housing is being built like gangbusters, the infrastructure to support that housing, such as the roads and public transport, hasn't been upgraded in tandem. 10 years ago, I could drive to work in 20 minutes. Today during rush hour it's a 40 to 60 minute affair. It's start/stop traffic through the neighborhood because there's no buses, interstate, etc to service the area where all the growth is happening.
It also doesn't help that promised projects, like new parks, have been stuck in limbo for the last 15 years with more than a few proposals to try and turn that land into new housing developments.
What I'm saying is housing is important and nice, but we actually need public utilities to be upgraded and to grow with the housing increase. It's untenable to add 10,000 housing units into an area originally designed to service 1000.
right, it'd be great if that stuff could be built to support the housing before the housing gets built. but you can't do that either without people having a fit about wasting money building a road to nowhere, or buses just being for homeless people. the NIMBYism doesn't just apply to housing, it applies to building literally anything. often because people think they can block new housing development by opposing the infrastructure that might support it.
nothing about YIMBY is about opposing infrastructure development. we need to build all the things that humans need to exist - housing, infrastructure, recreation, businesses. build it all.
opposing housing because there's no bus route is still opposing housing. if you want to help, advocate for that bus route.
It makes people unable to do anything themselves because they don't have space.
It gives investor groups exclusive power over housing and locks even people who own into rent-like housing association fees.
It removes people even further from nature.
It drives up costs.
What's to stop them from saying that it should now be zoned for industrial, and a chemical treatment plant can open up next door to a school? It's the same line of thinking.
Why do people who don't own the land think they're entitled to tell the actual owners what they can build?
> It's the same line of thinking.
It is not. This is a made up slippery slope.
That's not what's happening.
People who are living like that are being invaded by high density people who want to live in high density in their communities. They want to take over and force people out.
And generally they just want to flip. Find somewhere cheap and make it expensive to make money by lowering everybody's quality of life and calling it progress.
How do you "force" people out? The existing owners have to sell land, and once they do the new owners have as much right to decide as the other residents. Are there thugs going door to door forcing sellers to sign papers?
Allowing higher density construction doesn't mean higher density must get built there. That's still up to the property owner to decide. True freedom.
And the occasional eminent domain.
In any case, it shouldn’t be illegal to build either dense or sparse housing.
How?
Upkeep is arguably more expensive for a detached house, and suburbs make cars almost mandatory.
Look up property taxes, cost of living expenses, and overheads like parking, schools, etc.
Is NYC the cheapest place to live in the country?
Is there a cost of living chart: density vs. cost?
I currently live in an arguably not very dense city, in the suburbs. I pay thousands of dollars in property taxes. I must own two cars to serve the whole family, for things as basic as going grocery shopping. My HOA is almost a thousand dollars a year. A couple years ago I had to replace the roof, at a cost of several thousands of dollars.
I had none of these problems when I was living in a more dense city, and on top of that, I could actually walk to the nearest coffee shop.
> Is NYC the cheapest place to live in the country?
NYC is dense because it appeals to more people, and the more people that move to the city, the more expensive it gets, precisely because there are not enough homes.
Are you assuming that less dense cities are more desirable to live in? Is Anchorage a more appealing city to live in than NYC?
I would make money, since more high rises means higher price per square foot of land, but I wouldn't like having to move. If someone moves into an area that is zoned for particular types of properties, then new zoning is imposed by outside fiat (not a vote of the people who live there) is not appropriate.
The character of the neighbourhood is only invoked for perceived negative externalities. No one complains when the cracked sidewalks get repaved, or fiber internet lines replace slow copper, when increasing affluence mean that houses are better maintained, when a new sewer line allows people to remove septic tanks. That all changes the character of a neighbourhood, but never gets fought.
Go ahead and commit to the bit, lock in on the character in ALL ways: make sure you fight any alteration to any building, any change in the shade of paint should be fought! Your neighbour replacing their front door? Denied! Replacing a concrete driveway with pavers? unacceptable? Replacing incandescent bulbs with LED? Uncharacteristic! Increasing home values changing who can afford to live there? Not acceptable, gotta sell your home for what you paid to maintain the character!
> If someone moves into an area that is zoned for particular types of properties, then new zoning is imposed by outside fiat (not a vote of the people who live there) is not appropriate.
How small are we going to allow the "area" to be defined? Is it one vote per property owner, or one vote per resident? Can we call a block an area? Who decides the arbitrary boundaries? Do people living on the boundary line get to vote for projects in adjacent properties in adjacent jurisdictions?
Just call NIMBYism what it is, selfish justification for control of other people's property. Your position is - explicitly - that other people and property owners should be made less well off for your comfort. "The Character of the Neighbourhood" is a red herring.
You are now describing an HOA, which overlaps with NIMBYs.
It's just the public input process is a filter that selects for extremely high activation, interest, and agency. So if a democratic vote ruled these decisions, YIMBYism would rule the day, but if you go to the meetings it's NIMBYs who are prevalent.
There are definitely centralized NIMBY groups, like Livable California:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-26/how-to-br...
And there are tons of smaller groups that organize locally, far more than YIMBY groups. In my city there are 2-3 people that typically organize a group, give it a new name, make a web page, and act like they have the backing of everybody in the city when they talk even though most people disagree with them. They've been doing it for decades, and have found many tactics to amplify their voice to be much larger than the sum of the individual group members. YIMBYs are far behind on doing this, though they are getting better at it.
When I first joined NextDoor about a decade ago I dared speak up in favor of a plan to allow apartments to be built on a commercial thoroughfare, and the onslaught of a single person in their replies and direct messages was completely overwhelming (If people here think I'm loquacious, well, I have been far bested in that....). That was my first entrance into city politics, and I quickly learned that this person was in charge of a large "group" that mostly consisted of that single person. They had also been doing it for years, with creative group names, the best of which was probably "Don't Morph the Wharf" which even launched lawsuits to prevent changes to the wharf, delaying necessary maintenance and repairs which a few years ago resulted in the front falling off of the wharf. Individuals can have very undemocratic impacts on local politics.
My best bet now may be to move to orbit like S.R. Hadden. But it'll have to be high orbit, away from the satellite constellations.
I can't really think of a way to measure it that would come out how you said.
That is correct, for the reason you yourself gave. Since it bothers you so much personally, I'm very sorry about your bad luck. But it was objectively the right decision.
Most landscaping teams have 2-3 dedicated guys who do nothing but leaf blow the entire time they are at a house. Towns have been largely unsuccessful in curbing this, mostly because demand for landscaping services is so high.
It's great to want to be around few people, that's a choice that should be respected. Just as there should be a choice to allow people to associate at higher densities. But in practice, the law only works against one of these choices.
Do lawyers still really believe they can just throw some legal jargon at laypeople and we will just get confused and back down? Like not only do we have every single law and legal precedent on a device in our pocket, we also have AI's that can instantly answer questions. I am sure shit like that might have worked before 2010 when you would have to scramble to figure out if what they were saying was true or not, but it just seems antiquated to attempt it nowadays.
In many places it’s illegal to call yourself an engineer unless you match certain criteria, such as being a licensed engineer or working for a company in the industry that can oversee your work in a specified capacity.
There was a famous case where someone tried to get some attention about a traffic problem at an intersection in their city. They included a drawing of the intersection. The politicians involved didn’t like person so they tried to retaliate by going after the person for doing civil engineering work (aka making a drawing of a road) without an engineering license.
The worst part is that they actually might have had a case under the licensing laws. The licensing laws are outdated and mostly unenforced, but they’re out there. If you call yourself a software engineer you might be breaking a law in your location.
Let the free market decide whether it wants the homes or not.
30 minutes drive in no traffic, crossing half a dozen cities and the 405. There's reasons to inveigh against the YIMBYs (why are they celebrating densifying a coastal area that's actively falling into the pacific[1], nevermind it's inherent beauty) but let's not deny geography.
Also RPV doesn't have 1-5 acre lots, it just costs ~$4m for an house on a normal lot, rising to ~$20m as you get to the coast. You might be thin thinking of Rolling Hills, to the extent you're thinking of anything on the peninsula at all?
Also, I just dislike activism in general, which seems like it generally is trying to force people to do things they don't want to do through passing laws. I get that there is sometimes a need raise attention. But generally it seems like activists are very one-sided, agenda/ideologically driven. It also feels like they are trying to find meaning in activism (yeah, we forced other people to do what we think is Right), instead of healthier, more traditional forms of meaning.
Is going into cities that are violating civil rights laws basically being a tattletale?
>they don't want to do through passing laws.
Yes, that is how the rule of law works.
there's no such right, never been. Just because one has a right to speak, doesn't make it an obligation for others to listen
The situation is more complex. The forces about housing right now are incredibly destructive. Rich people want to make more money by building expensive homes. In this case NIMBY is the correct solution. In other cases Rich People want to prevent affordable housing. In this case YIMBY is the correct solution. But blindly applying these terms provides a cover for a complicated situation. We have cults of personality, and now we have cults of Jargonism. Neither helps us.
Being outraged because lawyers don't want you to speak is great. The issues legal and housing issues are far more complex and important.
Rich people want to make more money by blocking homes from being built, thereby driving up their property values and making all housing in the area more expensive.
You present a very simplistic view that does not begin to capture the complexity of what's actually happening in practice:
> Rich people want to make more money by building expensive homes. In this case NIMBY is the correct solution.
Why would NIMBYism ever be the answer here? What values does it represent? Allowing rich people to build housing for rich people means that the rich in need of housing don't take away more affordable housing. And when rich people are forced to pay for more affordable hosuing, what used to be affordable becomes unaffordable.
Ensuring that rich people's money goes to new building that doesn't hurt less rich people is the correct solution, if one values keeping housing affordable. One should only block that rich housing if one wants the existing housing to become more expensive.
This sounds suspiciously similar to what happened to Chuck Marohn from StrongTowns.
It’s just like… why?! I can’t wrap my head around it. There’s no downside to being able to top off on milk and eggs by taking a leisurely stroll on a sunny Saturday morning. That sounds downright idyllic.
People would rather stay marooned in the middle of an endless desert of houses with essentials being a 30-45m drive away.
darkwater•1h ago
Edit to be more explicit: are the people that sent/asked to send the 2 letters to the City Council residents of Rancho Palos Verdes?
cbeach•1h ago
epistasis•1h ago
darkwater•1h ago
moron4hire•1h ago
NIMBYism has always been about nosy people obstructing progress.
baggy_trough•1h ago
only-one1701•1h ago
baggy_trough•1h ago
only-one1701•32m ago
volkercraig•1h ago
yardie•1h ago
volkercraig•1h ago
iamnothere•38m ago
baggy_trough•1h ago
AlexandrB•1h ago
alistairSH•1h ago
nine_k•1h ago
The key problem of US housing is that a house is seen as an investment vehicle, which should appreciate, or at least appreciate no slower than inflation. Keeping prices high and rising can't but go hand in hand with keeping supply scarce.
triceratops•1h ago
nine_k•1h ago
estearum•1h ago
alistairSH•1h ago
Is this regularly true? IME, in Northern VA, land values have always increased with infill development. Thinking specifically of Arlington in the Courthouse/Ballston/Clarendon strip in the 90s and 00s. And now Reston.
Traffic and noise concerns might be legitimate, but I'm not buying the loss of value argument.
triceratops•1h ago
Literal NIMBY-ism, where the backyard is one's own property, is just straightforward property rights. They want to control other people's property and tell them what they can and can't do with it. That's basically communism.
triceratops•1h ago
munk-a•1h ago
triceratops•1h ago
How does that work exactly?
WarmWash•1h ago
The state wants your community to turn it into apartments, but obviously the community is icey about it.
Then activists from another city dozens of miles away, who have never cared for your town or really been to it, show up at Town Hall meetings and are scheduling meetings with town councilors to push for building the apartments.
Those out of town people jumping into your community to dictate change are the YIYBY people.
If the apartments are built, they'll put another feather in their cap while walking around the forest near their home.
pixl97•1h ago
Who owns the forest and why do you think you get to say if people build on it or not?
mothballed•1h ago
* But muh republic -- spare me, the zoning fiasco shows the current constitutional limits on democracy doesn't stop it.
WarmWash•1h ago
iamnothere•51m ago
If someone already owns the forest, then they should get to build on their land.
WarmWash•36m ago
They are "forcing" in the same way billionaires "force" politicians to lower taxes on them.
I think the term you meant to use is "lobbying", which is in fact what these YIYBY groups would be doing. They are lobbying a random town that they are no part of to cut down their forest and build apartments.
iamnothere•31m ago
Lobbying can’t force the town to sell the forest.
WarmWash•19m ago
People who live in the community don't want unaffiliated outsiders lobbying their town leaders. Those people doing the lobbying would be "Yes In Your Backyard" people. They would be this because it is not their backyard they are lobbying for, but yours.
I cannot be more straightforward in explaining the term YIYBY than that, heh
iamnothere•10m ago
If the voters did their job and elected good representatives, who respect the interest of the voters, then they have nothing to worry about: the forest will not be sold.
Voters could also try to establish a referendum system where public lands cannot be sold without a local vote, assuming this is not in conflict with state law.
triceratops•1h ago
It's more common for forests to be cut down because dense housing is illegal, so cities have to keep expanding outwards.
munk-a•1h ago
I've never thought of the B in NIMBY as literally meaning backyard - it figuratively means "near enough to effect me" but people still want it within reach - so the ultimate NIMBY dream would likely be to live in an island of placid suburbia surround by a ring of vital services that are just far away enough that you don't need to see them every day.
(There's also, I think, a separate environmental NIMBYism but that's a really strange concept and usually more of a deliberate misinterpretation by people with an agenda to push - I'm more concerned with city service NIMBYism around public transit, food availability, hospitals, etc...)
triceratops•1h ago
pixl97•1h ago
Which costs? Driving 30 miles in heavy traffic because density is not allowed close to you? Paying excessive taxes because of huge oceans of SFHs? Having to own a car because public transportation doesn't work in low density?
There is no free lunch, only which costs you're going to pay.
munk-a•1h ago
bee_rider•1h ago
NIMBY seeks to prevent the development of nearby properties to preserve some sort of “neighborhood character,” so the “back yard” is actually the whole neighborhood (and I think part of the negative connotation of that phrase is that they are treating shared spaces like their own personal yard). Then, YIMBY seeks to allow their neighborhoods to be developed.
If we’re going to extend it to “YIYBY” and “NIYBY,” we should apply the same logic, right?
Rather, I think YIYBY mostly doesn’t make sense because YIMBY people are trying to convince people that they should allow development in their neighborhood. Zoning rules… I mean, they have difference policies for changing them, but YIMBY activists aren’t usually manually and unilaterally changing them for other people.
Ultimately the decision making process is probably (depending on local regulation of course) “yes or no in our back yards,” when you get down to the details.