Yule Heibel's Library tagged nimbyism →  View Popular, Search in Google

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Strengthening property rights, however, would more closely align private costs and private benefits. A group of NIMBY neighbors forced to buy a property in order to limit development on it would only make the purchase if they felt very strongly about doing so and, in particular, if they felt the benefits to them of blocking the development were worth the cost of the land in question.

But wait, you might argue: what if the potential developer stands to make billions by building on a particularly lucrative piece of land? How then could neighbors hope to buy the land to keep it un- or underdeveloped? It would obviously be much more difficult for NIMBY groups to halt development in such cases, but generally speaking, that’s a good thing. When land values are very high because development potential is very high, that suggests that demand is very high. And in such cases, the cost of blocking that high demand is also quite high. It is in precisely these cases that the economy is most harmed by NIMBYs who face low costs in restricting development.
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Susan Sontag chatting with Philip Johnson in NYC's Seagram Building. Johnson makes NIMBY noises about how his view will be blocked when a surface parking lot across the way finally gets redeveloped. Too funny. (This video is from ...?, the 60s.)

video philip_johnson susan_sontag seagram_building nyc architecture nimbyism

Backed by a recent announcement by Dalton McGuinty (that "the province will limit the endless NIMBY wrangling that accompanies its every attempt to introduce environmental measures"), Hume takes aim at Toronto NIMBYs and blasts away. No holds barred, great stuff:
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The NIMBY response has become a given, a default position, an automatic reaction, a cliché. It's the same whether we're talking about highrise condos in north Toronto, narrowing Jarvis St. from five lanes to four, constructing a streetcar right-of-way on St. Clair Ave., rehabilitating the Wychwood Barns or trying to slow global warming to save the planet and this sorry ass of a city.

Many residents assume that to live in a neighbourhood confers the exclusive right to decide what should or shouldn't happen in it. In some cases, NIMBY opponents of homes for unwed mothers and the like have claimed the right to say who can live next door. The sense of entitlement behind such an attitude could sink a battleship.
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So true.

nimbyism toronto christopher_hume cities environment

Ryan Avent argues a perspective against NIMBYism here, which never occurred to me before: that "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." He continues as follows:

"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."

Got that? In ciites, you should plan for optimal density (because that's ecologically efficient, too), but the NIMBYs will argue against density, and they will make those who want to move into the neighbourhood pay the additional cost of keeping density *below* optimal levels. As Avent puts it, "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."

nimbyism urban_development density affordability the_bellows ryan_avent

"The debate about the availability of housing in Los Angeles and the city's development policies has been testy but long overdue." An interesting article by Yaroslavsky that initially makes the reader think that he's advocating a sort of nimby-istic "pulling up the drawbridges" mentality, but if the reader perserveres to read the entire piece, it seems his suggestions are really LA-specific. They're not necessarily in conflict with infill development; development around transit routes & hubs; and creation of density in areas that really need it (in our case, downtown). He does bring in late 80s experiences, however, which make you wonder if things haven't irrevocably moved beyond thel contexts he's referencing.

urbanplanning urban_design density los_angeles neighbourhoods nimbyism smartgrowth eco_density affordable_housing

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