NIMBYs

Posted by on . 7 comments.

In the comments, Ben Ross directs us to a piece he wrote a few years ago on the roots of NIMBYism. Check it out.

As much time as I’ve spent arguing in favor of better development policies, I think we probably need to look at infill development in the same way as we do climate change legislation. It would be great if we could go to everyone individually, make the case in favor of emission reductions, and win their support and cooperation, but that’s not going to happen. Instead, what’s needed is a policy that assesses the social cost of community actions and then ensures that we all pay our fair share of that cost (based on how much we contribute to the problem).

In the same way, I don’t think we can count on our ability to convince residents in neighborhoods all over the city that they need to be held responsible for the costs they impose on other Washingtonians, the city, and the environment. Instead, we need policies that ensure that those who really, really want to stop development can do so, so long as they’re willing to pay for that privilege. But we can’t allow our neighbors to costlessly reduce the potential of this city.

Comments

  1. Christopher says:
    July 24, 2008 at 3:07 pm

    Two decade ago a friend’s aunt moved her family to Vancouver. In many ways, they loved it. But she was amazed at Canadians respect for their government. Every year that they had lived there, the school district boundaries were redrawn. No one complained at all, figuring: if this is what the government says we should do, than it’s for the best.

    As my friend’s aunt said, “It’s no wonder they never had a revolution.”

    Americans have a (perhaps eventually fatal) hatred for authority and being told what to do. It’s in our shared political history at every step of the way.

    NIMBYism is a factor of that cultural value, so it seems to me. Perhaps an ugly factor and more than a little influenced by mob rule. The question should be whether there is away to have both participatory democracy and also to have leaders that can see the bigger picture and advocate for that with the strength of their convictions.

    Will NIMBYism go away. Of course not. And it probably shouldn’t either. It would mean, perhaps, that we’ve given up fighting. And fighting is what we do best.

  2. monkeyrotica says:
    July 24, 2008 at 3:14 pm

    A corrolary would include urban nimbyism that favors upscale retail zoning versus fast food, nail salons, and blue collar haunts. Granted, a community has the right to remake neighborhoods in their own image, but that comes at the expense of folks who ain’t so upscale. And what happens when the only businesses that want to open shop in your upscale neighborhood are the sorts of chains that already litter the suburban stripmall landscape? Isn’t that what you were trying to avoid in the first place when you moved downtown? That sort of homogeneity is what turns a “vibrant” economically diverse community into a yuppie monoculture.

  3. ryan says:
    July 24, 2008 at 3:17 pm

    With respect, I think that’s exactly the wrong way to think about it. These issues aren’t about the people versus the government. It’s about some people versus other people. More specifically, it’s about some people doing everything they can to prevent other people from enjoying access to a neighborhood. And it’s about some people saying that they have every right to tell a private property owner what he or she can do with that property.

    I don’t see anything revolutionary about a bunch of folks who are afraid of change leaning on their government in order to use government power to limit the property rights of others.

  4. Cavan says:
    July 24, 2008 at 4:09 pm

    Christopher,
    I think you missed the point of Ben’s piece with regard to your “rebel against authority theme”. Ben’s piece says that the NIMBY is motivated by protecting their own view of the status of their neighborhood. It’s “we won’t be so cool if other people live here too”, not “I hate authority”. It’s cool-hunting, straight out of Veblen’s writings. They may express it differently. For example the emails from Brookland might sound slightly different than the words out of the Town of Chevy Chase/Columbia Country Club, but their structure is the same. They both have constantly shifting, flimsy reasons for why development/redevelopment/improvement shouldn’t happen. They both try to pretend to the outside and even themselves that they’re not merely little NIMBYs, rather that they’re standing up for what’s right and true in the world or something. They are doing these complicated exercises to convince themselves that they’re motivated by something other than protecting their own view of their own social standing.
    It’s sad how much progress towards reducing our carbon footprint is being held up by the middle school-like social attitudes of NIMBYs.

  5. AC says:
    July 24, 2008 at 8:37 pm

    Ryan, if you figure out how to solve NIMBYism with Coasian bargaining, you will win the Nobel Prize in Zoning & Land Use Controls. (It’s a relatively new category.)

  6. ryan says:
    July 24, 2008 at 10:27 pm

    I’m sure the policy I come up with will be just as successful politically as the carbon tax.

  7. JB says:
    July 25, 2008 at 4:30 pm

    Ryan,
    The consequences of your last paragraph, I’m afraid, are what we witness all over the city (and country). Those with connections, money, education, and flexible time – are able to wield those resources and block sensible metro growth (cough*Tenley*cough). And the cost of doing so is bearable. But in other places, folks might be rightly opposed to something that will forever damage their safety, health, or way of life, but they lack the resources to fight it.

    I don’t think that was your point there, so I’m not quibbling, but it gets at a larger question: how do you effectively price the ability to stop development, without giving some citizens a vast advantage over others?