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People have rich sets of conflicts. Many of them don't fit into a political narrative. But politics is a convenient dividing line that exists, to people try to
by throwaway5752 6y ago
People have rich sets of conflicts. Many of them don't fit into a political narrative. But politics is a convenient dividing line that exists, to people try to fit new information to the model they understand.
Trying to fit attitudes towards zoning and development into a broader political philosophy seems unproductive. "NIMBY" itself has become an insult, rather than any sort of productive and well defined word. Is historical preservation of a building that prevents further development related to political philosophy? Is zoning and capacity planning indicating a lack of infrastructure for a certain number of new people in a given area a political philosophy? Is a rich person deciding they don't want their scenic view disrupted by a new large building or wind farm related to a political philosophy? Ecologists objecting to a new suburban development because it disrupts wildlife? Do they even have consistent motivations? Are they all NIMBYism?
My point is that NIMBYism is a word that makes people stupider immediately. It is a nam shub to stop critical thinking on a varied, unrelated issues and creates a binary divide where one does not really exist.
- tjr225 6y agoAgreed. NIMBYs and YIMBYs exist across the political spectrum. This article seems to attempt to make the divide deeper along political lines.
- AgentME 6y agoThere are different reasons one would be NIMBY. The article specifies "left-NIMBY" because it's specifically trying to address a specific set of reasons that are commonly associated with a subset of the left.
- tjr225 6y agoOh dang, for some reason I thought the article was titled “The Left-YIMBY Canon.” Guess I’ve got egg on my face and I even read the dang thing.
- graeme 6y agoThe article pretty clearly said it was talking about a pretty specific set of beliefs belonging to an urban type of NIMBY. I’m sure you’ve seen this on forums for example: “ Allowing private developers to build market-rate housing results in the construction of “luxury” housing instead of “affordable” housing.” “In addition to lining the pockets of developers, this “luxury” housing raises rents in an area, leading to gentrification and displacement.” From the article. And the title of the article says canon, because these are taken as axiomatic. If someone wants a particular wetland or beautiful historical building preserved, that’s one thing. But there are people who truly believe that building housing raises rents! It’s crazy and widespread. The article is describing that.
- cgrealy 6y ago> But there are people who truly believe that building housing raises rents! Except that is not an accurate description of their position. If a developer is given free reign as to what they can build, they will naturally build the most profitable thing they can on the land they have available. I doubt anyone would dispute that? The idea here is that the most profitable thing tends to be more upmarket than the locals can typically afford. The area gets gentrified and rents go up. I am nowhere near an economist, but that doesn't immediately seem wrong to me. There are plenty of real world examples where this has happened. A socialist would say that if the market fails to provide solutions for core needs of people (health, housing, etc) it is up to the government to provide those. Some things are simply either unprofitable or not suited for a profit driven approach (e.g. private prisons where the companies running them are actively incentivised to see repeat offenders). You can argue that having the government build low cost housing is not the correct solution, but I think the propostion that some housing raises rents is actually not that crazy.
- astrange 6y ago> If a developer is given free reign as to what they can build, they will naturally build the most profitable thing they can on the land they have available. I doubt anyone would dispute that? There is no such thing as luxury housing[1], and developers in the US are given nothing like free reign, so this doesn't happen - they don't build special gold-plated apartments for rich people. The most profitable building for the landowner would typically have more units, because that means more people will buy/rent units from them. And of course, the developer is not necessarily the landowner, and so they might be paid a flat rate anyway. [1] What actually happens is developers call their buildings "luxury" because it sounds good, but they're lying.
- anonymoushn 6y agoWhen someone who lives in another state and has no interest in the affairs of San Francisco tells me it's racist to build apartments in a Filipino neighborhood if those apartments would cast a shadow on a basketball court at sunset on the hottest days of the year, I have a really hard time coming up with a belief system to attribute to them that isn't obviously wrong. At the very least it seems like they don't have a very good idea of whether a person who's playing basketball in the hotter part of the day on the hottest day of the year would like some shade or not. If someone complains that we cannot build housing because there is not enough infrastructure and someone else complains that we cannot build additional infrastructure because the current residents do not need it, they may both have coherent belief systems, but some trouble is afoot that need not be.
- cameldrv 6y agoPart of the issue is that both can be true. Because of the lack of housing, you have to pay very high construction wages, and construction costs are astronomical.
- maxerickson 6y agoThe article is addressing a set of people with particular political postures, the ones in the bullets points right at the beginning of the link.
- kelnos 6y ago> "NIMBY" itself has become an insult NIMBY has always been a pejorative. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, because the article itself goes into the various things that NIMBYs stand for and the things they care about.