NIMBYism
Also read Goodspeed on NIMBYism. For my money, the biggest problem with public involvement and development is that some of the biggest beneficiaries of new development have no seat at the table–those who’ll be living at to-be-constructed residences. Even if you bring all neighborhood stakeholders in, educate them, and get their opinion (eliminating squeaky wheel bias), you’re still not getting the views of all interested parties.
However the planning process addresses public participation, policy should begin with a pro-density bias to reflect that fact that other things equal, developments will always be less dense than is socially optimal. That’s because the people who would like to be residents of an area but aren’t benefit from development but have no political say in the matter.
Another way of looking at this is by asking who has the right to restrict entry to a neighborhood, and how far does that right extend. When thinking about theoretical negotiations over the terms of development, we need to determine whether the burden is on current homeowners to pay for the right to exclude additional residents, or if the burden is on non-residents to pay for the right to live there. Current policy is de facto the latter. To live in the District, one doesn’t just pay the economic value of the land and the home, but also a price premium representing supply restrictions–a NIMBY tax.
But the current system is hugely inefficient, because we’re not even trying to figure out who the actual losers are, what a reasonable estimation of their losses is, what the social gains are, and so on. As such, you have projects which might potentially generate huge social benefits and considerable private benefits–to neighborhood residents, as well–derailed because a handful of very loud people shout loudly. And this costs those loud people only the time to organize and shout.
In theory, I’m quite fond of the idea of public participation in planning and development. There have been plenty of cases where such participation has generated positive results for a community. But as long as there is no recognition of the extent to which the asymmetries of the process lead to inefficient and deeply unfair outcomes, I’m going to have a really tough time buying into it.
July 28th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Really enjoy your blog. I’m not sure I can express this very well, but I feel like there needs to be a better metric for judging when people are being selfish NIMBYs and when they’re opposing a public-policy disaster that also happens to affect their local community. First off, I agree entirely with you about these density issues. But, at the time, the ordinary folks who blocked bulldozers and hampered the freeway-construction and urban renewal boondoggles got slapped with NIMBY labels. Jane Jacobs, absurdly, got labeled a reactionary in the early 1960s. Maybe a previous post dealt with this, but it would be useful to have a good definition of a NIMBY that works across time periods. Because merely “opposing the intrusion of stuff that planners think the broader community ought to have as a social good” doesn’t seem to sum it up. Obviously, today’s pro-density, pro-pedestrian planners are on the opposite side from the freeway/renewal planners of two generations ago. But what definition of NIMBY can we come up with that would both INCLUDE the anti-density people you’re writing about and also EXCLUDE the local anti-renewal & anti-freeway campaigners of the 1960s? My gut reaction is that, well, the former group is wrong and the latter is right — thus the former are NIMBYs and the latter aren’t. But that sort of falls flat in defining the term! Help me out, Ryan! Under what conditions does someone’s insistence on keeping their community just as it is become NIMBYism?
July 28th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Interesting I had never thought about the future interested parties that should be at the table. Very interesting thought on what is missing from “public input”.
July 28th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
How do we include new residents in the public input process?
Should urban advocacy groups represent their voices?
July 28th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
There are a few issues here. First, the squeaky wheel, such as seen in Brookland and Tenleytown are the few busybodies who are advocating for the status quo.
They hide behind matter of right tenets because it is the easy way out, despite the changes in our culture as accelerated with the higher fuel prices. Of course, matter of right doesn’t always fit, as with Commerce Bank in Tenleytown.
The other is that the NIMBYs are generally against something. It is always easier to rally people to be against something for a common cause. However, have you tried getting people tom advocate for something that makes rational sense, such as density on a metro stop? It ain’t easy because people say, “well of course” and cannot image why anyone would be opposed.
And the third is indeed the point that Ryan makes, that those unrepresented future residents have no stake. Nor do those future generations of environmentally conscious residents who will complain about our generation the same we we scratch our heads at the generation that actually dropped the bombs in Japan. (I am not equating the two, mind you, just making a point)
July 29th, 2008 at 10:32 am
I’ve been reading up on French tramway systems, which have seen huge growth in the past decade. But apparently, they have a very strong system of public participation and involvement in planning, to the point where routes get significantly changed because of public input. But even with strong public involvement, they keep up a fast pace of system expansion. It would be worthwhile to see how their public involvement process works.
In DC, at least, public involvement heavily favors people with time on their hands. So you spend an entire evening at the first of, say, five public meetings, and you have a suggestion, and you’re told that “those decisions will be made later in the process,” and at the next meeting it’s clear that your suggestion has been ignored and forgotten. So if there are
three or four projects you’re trying to stay involved with, you’re going to spend a lot of your evenings at meetings.
And then at the meetings, it isn’t clear what is and what isn’t on the table. Do they really want public input about anything besides what color of paint to choose? The meetings are usually scripted to avoid coverage of the important topics.
(Interesting point on the French trams–like the US, the French mostly scrapped their streetcars, such that in the 1970s there were only three systems left. And they didn’t start building any modern streetcars until after the San Diego trolley. So they were in the same position as we were, and started building new lines later. But they had a commitment to streetcars, and they’re opening system after system and line after line. And we could have been doing this too!)
July 29th, 2008 at 10:33 am
What I argue in the post is that NIMBYism occurs when a politically unrepresentative minority uses the process to get their way. If a community has consensus about the type of growth they prefer, under our democratic system they by definition control the rules of the game, especially in areas where the zoning authority is held at a local level. If you think what people prefer is not dense enough or not inclusive, you have to go out and change their mind. But they’re not necessarily NIMBYs in a strict sense, just exclusionary perhaps.
July 29th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Maia,
Well said about people against something being more energized than those in favor. My experience with transit activism (leafleting for the Purple Line in both Bethesda and Silver Spring) follows your line of thinking. Most of the people I talk to say something along the lines of, “duh, this makes sense. Why isn’t it already built?” The few (approx. <15%) I run into that are opposed are much more, shall we say, animated in their opposition. They also seem to know less why they’re opposed but they darn show they know they’re opposed. Or, they offer a wide range of contradictory reasons for being against. When I calmly refute or present the counter-point, it is rejected out of hand.
I think this is the main difference between your garden variety NIMBY and the anti-freeway revolts of the 1960’s and ’70s. They didn’t revolt until after some neighborhoods had already been torn down to make way for freeways and concrete Brutalism. (L’Enfant Plaza/SW freeway predates the local freeway revolts) They saw the results of the plans and then revolted. Most NIMBY’s have no such measuring stick and are fighting to save the status quo and/or their own perceptions of the exclusivity of where they live.