NIMBY?

NIMBY?
by SixShutouts66 (2024-02-26 17:33:36)

As best as I can recall, the term NIMBY originally referred to someone who espoused a particular view, but changed that when he was affected by the policy. The term seems to have removed the hypocritical aspect and now refers to someone who opposes a generally approved policy (or at least one advocated by his accuser).

I'm going to play a dirty trick and list some top-level aspects of actions, which most would agree meet the NIMBY criteria, and then include more details that may explain the difficulties in some of these choices.

1. Residents of a middle class Los Angeles neighborhood requested speed bumps be installed to reduce traffic in their area by outsiders

2. Residents of two neighborhoods protested plans to tear down houses for a development, stating that these would change the character of the neighborhood.

3. Local LA businesses requested that a proposed light rail extension use an alternate route though a poorer section of the city

4. Local business owners (near me in Huntington Beach) fought to defeat plans to install a homeless shelter in an industrial park

I'm not saying these pushbacks are all justified, but it's worthwhile understanding the reasons.

1. Modern map software not only can guide you from point A to point B, but they can dynamically determine the fastest route. When freeway congestion was high, the software was rerouting cars onto surface streets to bypass choke points. Drivers were speeding down this affected neighborhood and making it difficult for residents to back onto the street and supposedly endangering children.

2. The two areas fighting the housing project were Inglewood and the Leimert Park area. As background, Los Angeles City (including "South Central") is an Hispanic city. Watts (remember the riots) is about 70% Hispanic and Compton (NWA and other rap stars) is about 50%. Apparently the redistricting commission had difficulty establishing "black majority" districts without oddly-shaped boundaries. (There's been an exodus of African Americans to Lancaster/Palmdale and Corona/Riverside).

Anyway, Leimert Park is now the "soul" of black Los Angeles and protestors want to avoid gentrification and loss of low cost rentals/housing. Whether it's good to preserve racial and ethnic enclaves is another discussion. I'm sympathetic to their view, although it's couched in the same language used by other neighborhoods.

3. The light rail underground expansion would limit access to the area for an extended period of time, and the businesses pushed to move it elsewhere (poor get shafted again?). However, it highlights one of the issue that the owners were faced with a serious financial cost that they weren't being compensated for and were protecting their financial interests.

4.The nearby homeless shelter had a similar issue. Many of the owners of the buildings themselves (not the people renting them) protested because they were faced with renters moving their businesses (lots of vacant buildings nationally) and faced the prospect of owning "unrentable" space in the future.

There's often a fine line between protecting ones financial and other interests and being outright selfish. One of the complaints I hear voiced is that the impacts are not spread evenly and there's a financial impact (when is the 3 story apartment building next to Newsom's house being built?). Maybe it's punishment for ignoring similar complaints of the poor in the past when eminent domain took their property (at below market payments?).

EDIT: My original understanding of NIMBY is that it applied

people were in favor of a policy but then objected when it was going to applied in their town/neighborhood, as in "Yes, I am for subsidized housing, but not anywhere near my tony neighborhood."

EDIT: We are seeing NIMBY with the so-called sanctuary cities who suddenly don't want any more illegal immigrants flooding their city.

My earliest recollection of the term NIMBY is in

conjunction with wind energy off of Cape Cod. I'm sure that wasn't when the term was first invented, but it's what introduced the term to me.

Once upon a time I did a fair amount of zoning / siting work

where I grew up. Nothing better than a small town meeting where everyone wants to have their say about how Joe should use his property. One of my favorites was a client who had done a subdivision right off the interstate. He had zoned a few lots commercial and there was no interest so he hired me to get it rezoned for multi-family so he could buld dupkexes. All kinds of objections because "those people" (actual phrase that was used) would come live in them to move drugs up and down Illinois. The woman who was the loudest about keeping those poeple out of town came up to the Mayor after the meeting to ask if she could put the water and sewer tap fees on a payment plan for her house she wanted to build.

That plaes in comparison to the pleasure I had when I became the expert in getting sites approved for manufactured home communities. Nothing convinces people you are going to ruin their town like a manufactured home project.

I've been familiar with NIMBY for years...

...but only as it refers to people who object to a proposed real estate development that is close to where they live. Some NIMBY movements generate online petitions that get signed by others who live nowhere near the proposed development, so they would be sort of second-order NIMBYs.

The examples you cite all fall within NIMBYism. However, your first paragraph seems to describe actions a bit broader than straight NIMBYism.

The other term known to land planners and zoning people is BANANA: Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone.

The local example (Minneapolis) was the resistance of the

super liberal and tony residential neighborhoods that resisted ordinances that would make denser housing possible.