This is probably the one issue that has the biggest online/offline divide. Online, I hear nothing but YIMBY-ism. Is there any centralized online NIMBY advocacy?
nobody thinks they're a nimby. every nimby ever will tell you they aren't against development, they just don't think this project is right for this neighbourhood.
if there was any centralized advocacy, they'd have to confront the fact that they all want development to happen in each other's backyards and it would expose the lie.
Here's where I come out and maybe others end up in the same scenario.
I think it's definitely a good thing to build up more high density housing. I've got no complaints there.
However, a major problem we are having locally is that while that local housing is being built like gangbusters, the infrastructure to support that housing, such as the roads and public transport, hasn't been upgraded in tandem. 10 years ago, I could drive to work in 20 minutes. Today during rush hour it's a 40 to 60 minute affair. It's start/stop traffic through the neighborhood because there's no buses, interstate, etc to service the area where all the growth is happening.
It also doesn't help that promised projects, like new parks, have been stuck in limbo for the last 15 years with more than a few proposals to try and turn that land into new housing developments.
What I'm saying is housing is important and nice, but we actually need public utilities to be upgraded and to grow with the housing increase. It's untenable to add 10,000 housing units into an area originally designed to service 1000.
>because there's no buses, interstate, etc to service the area where all the growth is happening.
right, it'd be great if that stuff could be built to support the housing before the housing gets built. but you can't do that either without people having a fit about wasting money building a road to nowhere, or buses just being for homeless people. the NIMBYism doesn't just apply to housing, it applies to building literally anything. often because people think they can block new housing development by opposing the infrastructure that might support it.
nothing about YIMBY is about opposing infrastructure development. we need to build all the things that humans need to exist - housing, infrastructure, recreation, businesses. build it all.
"we shouldn't build any housing until there's a highway" is just another variant of "i support housing, just not here". opposing housing because there's no bus route is still opposing housing. those are fixable problems.
They are fixable problems that very clearly are not being fixed here.
I might have a different attitude if new bus routes or highways were being built in response to the new housing that's gone in, but like I've said, we've failed to build infrastructure for the massive expansion we've seen in the last 10 years.
Why should I think it's a good thing to build another 1000 units of housing when none of the infrastructure is able to handle the current population? It's not a case of "busses to nowhere" it's a case of "we are filled to the gill and they want to add even more people".
My kid's school, for example, has started paving over the playground and installing trailers in order to accommodate the kids coming in. Instead of building a new school for all the new housing, we have exactly the same schools and school buildings that we had when I first moved here.
And I should say, we have even more housing planned and in construction right now all around me. That's all been approved yet I've not heard or seen a peep about adding another school, bus, etc.
When the new people are actually living in the area and paying property taxes, then there will be enough money to build new schools, pave roads, etc. There's a delay in other words.
None of this should be unexpected. All construction requires permits so you know ahead of time what's being built and almost certainly can just extrapolate out how many new kids will be in the school system based on the current rates.
It's like how a bunch of cities approve new commercial construction but then don't also don't fast-track some residential construction; you're just going to generate traffic because nobody can live close to work.
School financing needs drives a lot of local government decisions. It's an invisible force like gravity. Approving office buildings and retail stores adds tax revenue without adding to school district costs (enrolling students). Approving housing construction means more students to absorb.
The public cannot directly vote to reject the electric company's price increases, or more expensive groceries, or car dealers charging MSRP. Requiring voters to directly approve school taxes or public services is great for cost control. But you get what you pay for with austerity: long waits for service, crowding, short hours, lower quality employees. Voters only approve the school levy when the pain of service cuts exceeds the pain of forking over another $$$/yr in tax. While residents choose politicians, over long periods of time politicians choose what mix of residents can move into the area! Think of downtown areas that are purely zoned for office buildings and parking garages.
Ask your town to implement robhit's municipal bonds. Should be automatic but govt often fails our expectations. Perhaps that is the knowledge lost when term limits kick in.
> However, a major problem we are having locally is that while that local housing is being built like gangbusters, the infrastructure to support that housing, such as the roads and public transport, hasn't been upgraded in tandem.
The correct response is not to shutdown building more housing. It's for you to get involved and petition your local government to build the infrastructure that you desire.
IMO, people need affordable housing more than you need a short commute. If you don't like that, do something to improve conditions.
I don't know were you're from but in California that is not the focus of YIMBY advocacy. The entire focus of the California RHNA process is to allocate development capacity in proportion to the existing infrastructure of a place.
I'm not a libertarian. I'm an Idaho native. But really this is just an underscore of why libertarian ideals are dumb. Some government is necessary and those are basic things like public roads and schools.
It may be surprising, but Idaho actually had pretty decent infrastructure throughout my youth. This "defund everything" attitude is relatively new to idaho politics. Idaho's drift into libertarianism started around the tea party era and just slowly has gotten worse since then.
I’m also an Idaho native and you’re spot-on. It’s been sad to see our political zeitgeist rapidly diverge from anything remotely reasonable.
I generally consider myself a YIMBY but I think you make a good point and I found it very uncharitable for the parent comment to characterize it as whining. Who wants to spend 10 hours a week in traffic?
Yeah, I don't think the commentators here realize how fast Idaho has grown. There are some NIMBY attitudes here, but by and large we do just greenlight almost all development.
I'm from south central Idaho and it's really astonishing to see how much growth has happened in both poky and Burley. But basically all the cities I'm familiar with are also operating with roughly the same infrastructure they had when I was a kid, and that's the problem. Idaho isn't upgrading that infrastructure. Instead they keep finding inventive ways to keep cutting taxes and ignoring infrastructure.
Are you suggesting libertarians believe the government should not build infrastructure?
I realize libertarians by nature have unique viewpoints but that feels like a bit of a mischaracterization. In general libertarians support a smaller government that increases focu on areas where societal collaboration is strictly necessary like roads, police, and firefighters while by default opposing government involvement in other areas beyond baseline rule of law (like NIMBY zoning).
I wasn't suggesting such things. But the juxtaposition amuses me. On the one hand, Ammon Bundy says he can do anything he likes, on public land, because freedom. But on the other: zoning. Which are ideologically opposites.
There are a lot of libertarians that would argue against all 3 of these things. They'd solve roads with tolls, police with private militia, and firefighters with private companies.
I agree that libertarian ideology is all over the board and that a broad generalization is impossible. That said the majority, and especially the load majority, are against basically all public spending and taxation. To the point where you'll find prominent libertarians arguing for things like private judicial systems.
The problem is that by being reasonable, you eventually arrive at a government that isn't considered libertarian by most libertarians. That's why I call libertarianism dumb. There are basic requirements and regulations needed. We've had governments without them, particularly in the US.
For example, libertarians have no solution to what the USDA solves. Go read up about the quality of milk in early america before the foundation of the USDA. That was a libertarian government. The best solution I've heard from libertarians is reviews and 3rd party verification that you pay for but, as we can see on amazon, those are very easy to manipulate. The force of law is the only thing that really solves problems like people selling unpasteurized and diseased milk. With raw milk we are already seeing the rollback of the enforcement of those laws and the impact of that rollback [1]
The best method of insuring that is charging developers impact fees, which are then used to perform the upgrades you describe. Impact fees are also the primary target of the very weathy and powerful realty lobby groups -- they will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on political campaigns to elect people who will then save them tens of thousands of dollars by removing impact fees. If you ever wonder why most city councils are composed of developers, this is why.
This works when the developers are doing large redevelopments - it works great in suburbs where the developers are converting farmland, for example, because the total number of projects is low.
But when the "developers" are people replacing single-family homes with duplexes, etc, it gets harder to manage.
Everyone is nimby when it touches the most valuable thing in their life. You'll turn nimby once you buy a house. There's no lie, anyone will be against a landfill or skyscrapers near their house. If you think otherwise, you're lying.
I own a house and I don't give a shit what happens on the lot next to mine. Not my property, not my right to complain. So you're wrong. Also kind of rude for calling people liars when they disagree with you.
What if next door they put in a combination slaughter house and sewage treatment plant? What if they built a gigantic speaker pointed in your direction?
Or made a home for wayward youths who live yelling slurs?
Public polling is very YIMBY too, they are the majority.
It's just the public input process is a filter that selects for extremely high activation, interest, and agency. So if a democratic vote ruled these decisions, YIMBYism would rule the day, but if you go to the meetings it's NIMBYs who are prevalent.
There are definitely centralized NIMBY groups, like Livable California:
And there are tons of smaller groups that organize locally, far more than YIMBY groups. In my city there are 2-3 people that typically organize a group, give it a new name, make a web page, and act like they have the backing of everybody in the city when they talk even though most people disagree with them. They've been doing it for decades, and have found many tactics to amplify their voice to be much larger than the sum of the individual group members. YIMBYs are far behind on doing this, though they are getting better at it.
When I first joined NextDoor about a decade ago I dared speak up in favor of a plan to allow apartments to be built on a commercial thoroughfare, and the onslaught of a single person in their replies and direct messages was completely overwhelming (If people here think I'm loquacious, well, I have been far bested in that....). That was my first entrance into city politics, and I quickly learned that this person was in charge of a large "group" that mostly consisted of that single person. They had also been doing it for years, with creative group names, the best of which was probably "Don't Morph the Wharf" which even launched lawsuits to prevent changes to the wharf, delaying necessary maintenance and repairs which a few years ago resulted in the front falling off of the wharf. Individuals can have very undemocratic impacts on local politics.
Ish. Polling is very YIMBY. So long as it is exactly what I want in my back yard. With a lot more leeway granted to what should be allowed in someone else's back yard.
Not sure why people think that no one thinks they're a NIMBY. I am. I bought a house in a neighborhood with a particular character and if it turns into a bunch of urban high-rises, I won't like that.
I would make money, since more high rises means higher price per square foot of land, but I wouldn't like having to move. If someone moves into an area that is zoned for particular types of properties, then new zoning is imposed by outside fiat (not a vote of the people who live there) is not appropriate.
my own brand of yimbyism at least respects that. there's nothing wrong with quiet neighborhoods and loud neighborhoods. the sort of things i want to allow in neighborhoods like yours are locally-owned corner stores and cafes and wine bars and walkable development like cut-throughs and bikelanes. part of the problem with the urbanism debates is that no one has quite figured out how to allow "the good stuff" while keeping out "the bad stuff" because as soon as you upzone, like, walgreens and gas stations and corporate high rises are expected to start showing up. IMO this is something of a "social technology" problem: if we can't figure out how to allow healthy development without stopping unhealthy development, that's a problem to solve systematically.
the other issue with urbanism debates is that everyone's version of Yimbyism is different and you end up not trusting any of them because some people really DO think that you should shut up and allow high rises. They have a moral reason for that too---because housing really is at a shortage and costs too much and some people getting their fancy neighborhoods while others have access to nothing is sorta unfair. But that position is basically untenable, if you try to enforce it you just make an enemy of everyone. But it seems to me that the happy medium, the "build good stuff and not bad (carefully)", is an everyone-wins situation (except for a few crotchety people I suppose). That goal is to break the equilibrium of "some (established) people get to govern what happens to almost-everybody" and replace it with something more generally democratic, but without letting in all the repugnance of how the free market will build things if you don't govern it at all.
(this is all very idealistic of course. The problem is that a random anti-development suburban neighborhood that likes being that way has no incentive to let anyone change at all, and is probably basically right that the urbanism program doesn't benefit them at all. I imagine that only really systematic way around that is to end up in a higher-trust version of society where towns are mostly nice, instead of mostly not, so that people actually crave this sort of development instead of reacting negatively to it.)
I don't have a problem with little corner stores, though I don't think they would be very sustainable in most suburban areas. I just drive for 5-10 mins to a grocery store and get pretty much everything I need there.
The bigger issue I have is that people seem to think that suburban areas can be required to be urbanized, but urban areas could never be suburbanized (from a zoning/setbacks/etc. perspective). That is, they don't seem to think that areas can be forced to change, in general. They seem to think that forcing urbanization is fine, but it's a one-way ratchet.
I always find this 'character' argument disingenuous.
The character of the neighbourhood is only invoked for perceived negative externalities. No one complains when the cracked sidewalks get repaved, or fiber internet lines replace slow copper, when increasing affluence mean that houses are better maintained, when a new sewer line allows people to remove septic tanks. That all changes the character of a neighbourhood, but never gets fought.
Go ahead and commit to the bit, lock in on the character in ALL ways: make sure you fight any alteration to any building, any change in the shade of paint should be fought! Your neighbour replacing their front door? Denied! Replacing a concrete driveway with pavers? unacceptable? Replacing incandescent bulbs with LED? Uncharacteristic! Increasing home values changing who can afford to live there? Not acceptable, gotta sell your home for what you paid to maintain the character!
> If someone moves into an area that is zoned for particular types of properties, then new zoning is imposed by outside fiat (not a vote of the people who live there) is not appropriate.
How small are we going to allow the "area" to be defined? Is it one vote per property owner, or one vote per resident? Can we call a block an area? Who decides the arbitrary boundaries? Do people living on the boundary line get to vote for projects in adjacent properties in adjacent jurisdictions?
Just call NIMBYism what it is, selfish justification for control of other people's property. Your position is - explicitly - that other people and property owners should be made less well off for your comfort. "The Character of the Neighbourhood" is a red herring.
HOA restrictions are at least more defensible than non-HOA NIMBYs. HOAs that don’t allow significant rule changes are reasonable, as you can understand up front what you are buying into. The problem is when HOA rules grow way beyond their original scope or become used as weapons in personal feuds.
> No one complains when the cracked sidewalks get repaved, or fiber internet lines replace slow copper, when increasing affluence mean that houses are better maintained, when a new sewer line allows people to remove septic tanks.
Not sure about the other two, but I've seen groups defending repairs of things that had been broken so long they had become "local institutions".
> Go ahead and commit to the bit, lock in on the character in ALL ways: make sure you fight any alteration to any building, any change in the shade of paint should be fought! Your neighbour replacing their front door? Denied! Replacing a concrete driveway with pavers? unacceptable? Replacing incandescent bulbs with LED? Uncharacteristic! Increasing home values changing who can afford to live there? Not acceptable, gotta sell your home for what you paid to maintain the character!
Buy a historical property in some jurisdictions at everything you listed would happen exactly as described, except maybe the sale price.
Doesn't seem disingenuous. Some places still have "character" in a world increasingly turning into the same strip malls and cookie cutter suburbs. In most small to mid size towns in the US, you can't really tell where you're at without reading signs. They all trend towards the same generic look with the same generic stores. Some towns fight this with varying degrees of success. But the Dollar Generals will not be stopped.
One example that springs to mind for me is Pasadena, CA and their trees. They are (or were) very NIMBY about things which would impact their trees. And I can't blame them. It's one of the few areas in the valley with significant shade thanks to their investment and protection of trees. Their roads were planned around mature existing trees instead of cutting them down as is so common. There's no doubt that Pasadena could have more dense housing if they cut down more trees to make room. It also doesn't seem at all disingenuous to feel like that would be a loss for the "character" of the city and a negative for the collective residents due to rising temperatures and loss of shade.
> Some places still have "character" in a world increasingly turning into the same strip malls and cookie cutter suburbs.
A huge reason for this is arguably NIMBYism. The reason that sort of thing exists is because suburbs very intentionally separate commercial from residential, and will not reconsider as things change. As a result, you end up with putting all the stores on busy roads, and they need parking lots since the people live so far away. All of the homes go in rigidly controlled neighborhoods that are both politically and physically difficult to change. Neighborhoods used to have stores interspersed, old ones, and ones in other countries still do. They don't anymore because we cluster buildings by use in North America, and especially in suburbs.
I'm highlighting the picking and choosing aspect.
Wanna keep everything the same? Sure, argue for that, but that isn't what "character" arguments are about. It is about claiming the things that you like as inside an arbitrary sacred protection line, and the things you don't as outside. Claiming maintaining character if you don't fight every single change is a way of painting over selfish interests in the name of the community. There's nothing wrong with selfish interest, but don't try to hide behind a claim that you are doing it for the greater good, or to preserve something indefinable.
E.g. I could just as easily argue that the "character" of a neighborhood is derived from the affordability and diverse socio-economic backgrounds of residents. Therefore densification, infill, reducing parking for transit lanes and other YIMBY efforts in advancement of those characteristics of the neighborhood are about preserving 'character'.
I'll also point out that your example seems to concern public preservation of nature, not restrictions on private property. There's a stronger argument there since it is a public good. Raising a stink about your neighbor wanting to build an inlaw suite, or - god forbid - a few townhomes, or multifamily housing on their lot is a whole other thing.
> I could just as easily argue that the "character" of a neighborhood is derived from the affordability and diverse socio-economic backgrounds of residents. Therefore densification, infill, reducing parking for transit lanes and other YIMBY efforts in advancement of those characteristics of the neighborhood are about preserving 'character'.
If you argue that the character of a neighborhood is based on all of those things, then keeping them the same would maintain the character. What you seem to advocate is for changing them, which is then changing the character.
> Raising a stink about your neighbor wanting to build an inlaw suite, or - god forbid - a few townhomes, or multifamily housing on their lot is a whole other thing.
If someone builds an apartment complex on land near mine, the builder it is not my "neighbor". The builder is an LLC that owns the land. They do not live there and do not care if traffic gets awful, crime goes up, or quality of life of the pre-existing neighbors gets worse. That's because they aren't our neighbor. They're an LLC.
>If you argue that the character of a neighborhood is based on all of those things, then keeping them the same would maintain the character. What you seem to advocate is for changing them, which is then changing the character.
You totally missed what they're saying, which is that "character" is a nebulous term and can mean anything one wants it to be. For example, it could be argued that you're the one changing the neighborhood by refusing any change, and causing people to be priced out, thus changing the neighborhood's "character".
>If someone builds an apartment complex on land near mine, the builder it is not my "neighbor". The builder is an LLC that owns the land. They do not live there and do not care if traffic gets awful, crime goes up, or quality of life of the pre-existing neighbors gets worse. That's because they aren't our neighbor. They're an LLC.
Why would a builder ever be a neighbor? Your neighbors are the people that live in the complex, and they would indeed care if traffic gets awful. Not wanting to suffer through traffic is a major reason one would pick an apartment complex near one's job.
Ultimately NIMBY's want to control property they do not own to the detriment of others. If you don't want an apartment complex next to your house, then consider buying that land and not building an apartment complex.
GP refers to a "neighbor wanting to build...multifamily housing on their lot". That's referring to the land owner as a neighbor, which I would not do in the case of an LLC. I would refer to the tenants as neighbors, as you say, but GP wants to use that warm and fuzzy term to describe the company that builds the apartment complex.
Ultimately it is selfish interest. Either because they literally have money invested or they are "losing" their childhood. But it's not disingenuous. It's how they actually feel. The area losing its "character" is an accurate description of that. It doesn't matter if I think or you think the mixed use zoning would vastly improve things long term. Doesn't matter how many studies are shown. Things will necessarily change in ways many people don't want and many times there are actual downsides for existing residents to make way for the new. Especially during transition periods.
None of these are arguments from me against new development or pushing past NIMBYs where they become intractable. But if development in Pasadena can maintain as much existing green space as possible and commit to building out more, it would be a lot palatable to the "natives". And I think it would lead to better results for future residents as well. I think it's okay that people want to live in a neighborhood full of quaint small family businesses and resist the Subway and the McDonald's and the Dollar General. But that's "NIMBY" too so where do you draw the line? We live in a capitalist society after all, and the only thing preventing these large mega-corporations from being absolutely everywhere are the few NIMBY willing to say no to it with the little power they have over their slice of the world.
I'm not saying the feelings are disingenuous or that you can't object on personal grounds.
I'm saying that using 'character' as a catchall for things you personally don't like is disingenuous. It's hard to argue against since it can't be defined.
Don't like multi-story infill? fine. Argue against that specifically and provide reasons that don't rely on something indefinable. Personal feelings about specific issues are a fine reason for arguing since those can be dealt with. I can argue that parking is or isn't an issue and can be mitigated. I can't really argue that the neighborhood isn't losing its character.
I can do the same thing by invoking "problematic" which carries social connotation in the same way that "character of a neighborhood" carries social meaning. If I say an argument is "problematic" you can't really rebut in any meaningful way because you don't even know what I mean. If I say an argument is using false premises or invalid logic, there is a discussion to be had.
I agree that "problematic" is vague. But you have to be a bit dense to not understand what people mean when they say they want to preserve the character of a neighborhood. That means they generally liked it the way it was when they moved in, and they want it to stay largely that way, especially when it comes to zoning changes.
The word problematic differs because it can be applied to any type of thing (not just neighborhoods/zoning) and has no hints as to what it might mean. Everyone understands that people who move somewhere generally want it to stay that type of place. This is why people complain about gentrification, urbanization, and all other types of neighborhood change. They chose to live in that place because that was the kind of place they wanted to live.
I don’t have to be dense to raise my eyebrows at “character”.
It has been invoked in plenty of examples in the name of preventing other cultures and skin colors from a neighborhood, among other less defensible reasons. My parents weren’t sold a house because the seller thought “a good Christian family” would be better suited to the character of the neighborhood. That’s not a rare story. Ask some of your visible minority friends. So if you want others to assume what “character” means, you don’t get to be upset when people assume that your motives are rooted in something ugly. If that isn’t you, don’t be surprised when you find yourself standing shoulder to shoulder with a person like that.
That’s why I prefer if people elaborate what exactly they are objecting to. It keeps you from providing cover for assholes (or exposes you for one), and allows a conversation about what changes might actually be welcome.
Raise your eyebrows all you like! Just don't tell me (a visible minority, as you so eloquently put it) to consult a visible minority.
The notion that a word is poisonous because it is used by people who use it in a different way is silly. According to this logic, democrats should not advocate for "progressive" policies because some of the people who call for progressive policies are actually calling for the confiscation of private property.
It's like saying that vegetarianism is poisonous because Hitler was rumored to have been vegetarian. It's like ad hominem, but dumber.
Reductio ad absurdium is a logically valid ment technique to expose a fallacious argument. Since you aren't attacking my premises - is it safe to say that you accept the fallacy in your argument?
/s
I get what you're saying about my comment. But I stand by NIMBYism being essentially a selfish restriction on other's property rights, and 'character' arguments being window dressing for that.
> 'character' arguments being window dressing for that.
You think people don't care about what their neighborhood is like? Given the extraordinarily high costs of moving (thousands in moving costs, tens/hundreds of thousands in realtor fees, weeks of time and disruption, tens of thousands annually in property taxes if basis is reset), it is very understandable that people would care about their neighborhood not being drastically transformed (suburb to high-rises).
When I read the HN thread [1] about how upset people get by people in neighboring apts playing the TV too loud or smoking, it reinforced how much I don't want my neighbor's property to be transformed into an apt complex.
> You think people don't care about what their neighborhood is like?
I'm not saying that at all. I haven't said anything like that. I'm saying that people care so deeply that they come up with horseshit to justify personal wants as community needs instead of just saying it.
I'm saying - repeatedly - that 'character' is a term that is so nebulous as to mean whatever anyone wants it to mean. In my sibling comment that you also responded to I pointed out that I can use the "character" of a neighborhood to justify infill, densification, and transit lanes as easily as I can use it to argue against the exact same things. It can, and is, weaponized for really petty gripes.
I'm not arguing that you shouldn't argue for or against changes that affect you. I'm arguing that "character" is a virtuous shield that people use to hide behind the argument of "I personally don't want this, but can't come up with a reason that sounds better than personal preference". The problem with "character of the neighborhood" is that you can't really argue against something that is so loosely defined.
Your complaint about apartments can just be straightforward, you can say that you are concerned with the possible nuisances that can come with dense housing, and you don't trust the current enforcement or rules to allow you to enjoy your property peacefully. That is a perfectly valid reason to oppose something.
> Your complaint about apartments can just be straightforward, you can say that you are concerned with the possible nuisances that can come with dense housing, and you don't trust the current enforcement or rules to allow you to enjoy your property peacefully. That is a perfectly valid reason to oppose something.
Great, that's one of the things I wouldn't want. But I also don't want to live in a city, which is why I didn't move to one. The other aspects of city life (noise all the time higher crime rates, etc.) are what many suburbanites are referring to when they talk about the character of their suburban neighborhoods. It's not hard to grasp, and there's significant overlap in what individual people mean. That's why "character" is used as a shorthand.
Not many people consider themselves a nimby even if they are. I was talking with my mom about how I'll never be able to afford a house and she agrees with me it's insane then says that she voted against allowing apartments near her house because it will bring in more crime, she wasn't connecting the dots.
There's also a lot of them because many people live in cities.
Also many online communities driven by user moderation are controlled by folks with a lot of time to participate and skewed against certain segments of society. Online views often skew wildly from real life.
I've basically given up trying to find community online. Talking with real people is so much more rewarding and less frustrating.
The urbanists are vocal online because of something they're unsatisfied with in their life - if you talk to them and dig into it, they're complaining about a lack, a lack that they think would be filled if they could just afford to live in NY or Europe (because they assume everyone in NY lives like Friends or something).
If instead of trying to solve loneliness through urban development they dedicated their efforts to "touching grass/concrete" and got to know their community - suddenly they'd discover they have the power to urbanize - but do they still have the desire?
Yes, there are plenty. They don't call themselves NIMBY though. Usually it's stuff like opposing gentrification, protecting the environment/green spaces, or protecting historical areas. The net effect is NIMBY.
I totally get it. People don't like change - I certainly don't. Especially when it changes the neighborhood you're living in.
It’s not “centralized” (because as the sibling comment noted, nobody thinks they’re a NIMBY, they just want to stop development in their town), but some of it happens on Facebook and NextDoor. I think a lot more happens face-to-face at the sort of activities that older and retired people hang out at though.
Oh they're all over Nextdoor and local mailing lists and Facebook groups. They organize in small local communities though, different model from yimby types who band together in cross-regional interest groups instead.
YIMBYs in my area are almost exclusively terminally online young adults who are bitter that they can't afford to live precisely where they like with their single 20-something income, and basically want to make desirable areas more affordable (aka less desirable) so they can move in. The worst of them are openly hostile to anyone who made the apparent mistake of choosing to live in an upper income area.
I am pretty much in favor of people being able to do what they want with their properties, as long as they are responsible for any externalities the changes create, and I still largely find these groups insufferable (in case you couldn't tell from the paragraph above).
NIMBYs are mostly people who have other things to do with their day than agitate to make their neighborhood worse (where worse is a change from the status quo, which they presumably are at least okay with given they live in the neighborhood), so you don't hear much from them most of the time.
In short, there is no need for advocacy for the status quo unless someone is attempting to modify it, as it just continues on by default.
This is amusing, because the usual NIMBY argument I hear is about "gentrification", i.e. it makes the neighborhood better and that's bad.
terminally online young adults who are bitter that they can't afford to live precisely where they like
More accurately: they would like to live in a particular location, the owner of that location would like to sell or rent it to them, but a third party wants to forcibly prevent that transaction.
> This is amusing, because the usual NIMBY argument I hear is about "gentrification", i.e. it makes the neighborhood better and that's bad.
Change is bad as far as existing residents are concerned, which is why external YIMBYs are particularly annoying. I live in a pretty nice area so gentrification isn't really possible, and the people who want to live there but can't afford to are the ones agitating for change.
> More accurately: they would like to live in a particular location, the owner of that location would like to sell or rent it to them, but a third party wants to forcibly prevent that transaction.
No, the accurate description in CA (and YIMBYs are trying to replicate this elsewhere) is that a group of people collectively decided how land can be used in their area, and people who disagree are going over their head to change the rules.
Why don't we let people who like living in dense housing build and live in dense housing? And leave those who don't in peace? Right now we only do the second one but make the first one illegal.
Sure, we do let people do that. The thing that's objectionable is when a suburban neighborhood is rezoned by people who live hundreds of miles away, and developers get the green light to build towers there. Why do people who don't live in a place think they're entitled to change the zoning of that place?
What's to stop them from saying that it should now be zoned for industrial, and a chemical treatment plant can open up next door to a school? It's the same line of thinking.
When someone buys land, they should be allowed to do whatever they want to do to it, subject to the zoning laws that were in effect at the time of purchase, or passed by a majority of voters in that area after purchase.
If you're talking about CA's state laws, you're right that they supersede local laws. You'll notice that I used the word "should" in my comment, indicating a normative view. I think CA's state legislators have passed many laws that were unwise, including several that voters have had to undo via constitutional amendments.
While I would place state laws passed by popular vote above local laws passed by popular vote, I would say that laws passed by representatives, without much awareness of voters that this was their intention, should not necessarily be put above local laws passed by voters themselves.
A Reddit-style reply feels apropos here: "That's just like...your opinion man."
And in this case "local laws passed by voters themselves" are one of the causes of the state's housing crisis. I think the state has a legitimate interest in overriding local laws here.
Like if you don't want high density in your neighborhood, buy all the houses. Form a neighborhood association and buy every house that's put up for sale. When selling properties, include covenants restricting resale to a developer, or giving the association first right of refusal. Spend your own money. Don't use state violence to achieve private ends.
Is it wrong? If I try to build an apartment building on land I legally own in violation of a zoning law voted in before I was born, by people who never paid a cent for my land, the sheriffs department pays me a visit.
And that would be totally unfair if the law was kept secret, and then sprung on unsuspecting property owners.
But we all know that's not the case. Prospective purchasers are well aware of zoning laws. Same reason you can't build a fuel refinery on your tidy plot of R1 land. It would put existing owners, who have a reliance interest in existing zoning laws being respected, in an awfully unfair position.
Is it demand for condos or is it demand for reasonably-priced housing and condos are the only even remote possibility?
I've met a few people who really loved condo living but almost every one would have taken the single family home next to the condo building if it had been even remotely similar in price.
Those are the same thing? Not sure what youre asking, there is limited space, people recognize that having a SFH involves tradeoffs, just as most other things in life do.
People who are living like that are being invaded by high density people who want to live in high density in their communities. They want to take over and force people out.
And generally they just want to flip. Find somewhere cheap and make it expensive to make money by lowering everybody's quality of life and calling it progress.
How do you "force" people out? The existing owners have to sell land, and once they do the new owners have as much right to decide as the other residents. Are there thugs going door to door forcing sellers to sign papers?
Allowing higher density construction doesn't mean higher density must get built there. That's still up to the property owner to decide. True freedom.
> Property taxes...causing people who own to be priced out
That's an important price signal that the land is under-utilized. If we actually allowed denser residential then those people could sell their land to a condominium or townhouse developer in exchange for a new unit and some cash. They get to stay in the same place, their property taxes stay roughly the same, and they get to enjoy the cash. While everyone else also benefits from more housing. Win-win-win.
It's an ironic comment because this article mostly talks about California, which is already one of the most expensive places to live and the most NIMBY. Every other state in the US is generally cheaper to live in. The places that are cost as much as California are just as NIMBY and heavily influenced by Californians (Hawaii) or is the cultural and financial center of the country (NYC).
> Look up property taxes, cost of living expenses, and overheads like parking, schools, etc.
I currently live in an arguably not very dense city, in the suburbs. I pay thousands of dollars in property taxes. I must own two cars to serve the whole family, for things as basic as going grocery shopping. My HOA is almost a thousand dollars a year. A couple years ago I had to replace the roof, at a cost of several thousands of dollars.
I had none of these problems when I was living in a more dense city, and on top of that, I could actually walk to the nearest coffee shop.
> Is NYC the cheapest place to live in the country?
NYC is dense because it appeals to more people, and the more people that move to the city, the more expensive it gets, precisely because there are not enough homes.
Are you assuming that less dense cities are more desirable to live in? Is Anchorage a more appealing city to live in than NYC?
I can't speak for him but the reason I want to live somewhere where I split wood at the end is so that I can expire either from want of heat when I become incapable of splitting, or so that the exertion causes me to keel over and expire in nature when it's time.
Yes, of course you're safer. If your system is working as desired, updates can only break it. This is just Engineering 101, but for whatever reason, all logic is abandoned on the topic of security updates.
It's just because they're trained on the internet and the internet has a lot of fanfiction and roleplay. It's like if you asked a Tumblr user 10-15 years ago to RP an AI with built-in censorship messages, or if you asked a computer to generate a script similar to HAL9000 failing but more subtle.
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