In reality, everyone is a NIMBY when someone shows up and tries to build a rail line or some high-density housing in your backyard. Sure, you support progress as a concept, but this is not the right place - have we considered alternate locations? Can the infrastructure cope with that? Don't we need to build another hospital or a police station first? What about the impacts on the Canada thistle and raccoon habitat?
I'm only half-joking here. I have plenty of notionally anti-NIMBY friends and they, without fail, are collecting petitions and protesting at planning meetings every time someone tries to ruin their backyard tranquility. And I'm sure I'd be doing that too if they tried to put a Costco or a highway off-ramp over there.
Fundamentally, the proposition behind a lot of progress-centric projects is that they will harm some people for the well-being of others, and this is something we stubbornly fail to address. If we're OK with that as a society, we should say so, and we should have streamlined ways to lessen these impacts instead of pretending they don't exist, and it's all just irrationality of the select few. Make it a part of the social contract, instead of the current implicit promise that your cul-de-sac can stay the same forever. And once we have that, just build stuff - without years of reviews, environmental studies, lawsuits, and so forth.
“if you want the government to pay more taxes you should just personally write a bigger check during tax time”
The underlying optimal game theoretic action is obvious (and therefore common), the problem are the laws that require you to respect the neighbors.
This is why state-wide anti-NIMBY laws can get passed, everyone thinks it won’t come for them so they let it pass. Let’s pass more of those and make em stronger.
Why on earth would you want your local "historic" San francisco launderette to be turned into apartments? New supply will hurt the resale value of your apartment.
nimbys behaving in a rational way are a nicer target than, say, the Howard Jarvis taxpayers foundation. That one is backed by fine, upstanding billionaires and not filthy middle class homeowners. We all know who is "really" to blame for all of this and it is not the billionaires who set the rules of the game, it is those who play it.
NIMBYs want to protect some aspects of a particular place usually because it is their home.
Capitalism largely lives on destroying particular places to benefit people who are [mostly] somewhere else.
This is the only thing happening in capitalism but it's a big part of it. The end game of this kind of capitalism is that every place is destroyed (ecologically) and it gradually grinds to a painful halt.
Maybe there's a way to have some elements of capitalism in a society that doesn't destroy places but I don't know.
this is the reflex, and it's a sensible one to have. but the perception of what is or isnt a threat can range from something legitimate across the board ("I dont want a giant thing taking all the power and pumping my head full out sound 100% of the time near my home") to the truly detrimental ("I should get to be the last one moving into this area. Me moving to a place is good and fine; other people moving to where I live constitutes destruction. No new housing.")
NIMBYs forget they moved to where they live from somewhere, and they are not more important than other people on a societal level.
I feel kind of the opposite way really. I've even known plenty of people who lease apartment units and don't want other apartments built because newer construction = more expensive (even if it keeps their own rent from being more expensive since it relieves some of the demand).
The "My Backyard" part of the shortcut explains that very well
> It reduces the debate to fighting some imagined, small class of property owners who oppose progress.
because it is exactly that. Just that "small" class" contains everyone that has a backyard and something else is there to affect their backyard.
"Sacrifice of an unit to benefit the whole long term" is concept people romanticise, but not preach.
Also like 80% NIMBY problems are caused specifically by housing and property being value store instead of utility. If your property is most of your net worth and you are still paying for its mortgage, any attack on its value is existential threat to your (and your family, and possibly your kid's inheritance) well being.
> If we're OK with that as a society, we should say so, and we should have streamlined ways to lessen these impacts instead of pretending they don't exist and it's all just irrationality of the select few. And once we have that, just build stuff - without years of reviews, environmental studies, lawsuits, and so forth.
Pretty much. If the loss of perceived value would be compensated above market value, there would be far less problems with it. But if the deal is "you get rough value of your house but now you need to dive into housing market again and hope you get decent deal that still have stuff you want around be around", who would want that? Even worse when compensation is low enough that you'd need to downgrade your standard of living.
In my experience NIMBYs tend to be heavily over-represented in the older and wealthier demographic. And this demographic has outsized political power in most Western democracies, which is a big part of the problem.
it's true. i have plenty of these friends too. owning land is structurally sociopathogenic. maybe the way to route around that is if you own land you instead get to vote on zoning/development projects one town over or something.
rho138•1h ago
glimshe•1h ago