6 ms·

Should have stuck with the second paragraph. The connection between redlining and NIMBYism is somewhere between dubious and risible. But "give up their lifest

Should have stuck with the second paragraph. The connection between redlining and NIMBYism is somewhere between dubious and risible. But "give up their lifestyle to accommodate new residents" and "not in my backyard"? Same thing. You can howl offense all you want; the shoe fits.

throwawaysea 5y ago
They aren’t the same thing. One has the positive connotation of preserving something good. The other has a negative connotation of preventing something, when that isn’t where the motivation comes from. It is a subtle but significant difference that tries to paint people who like the life they’ve built with a caricature, just like other modern pejoratives such as “Karen”.
- techsupporter 5y ago
  You know what? I don't care if the NIMBYs get their feelings hurt. I'm past the point of caring. Your username says "sea" in it which reminds me of Seattle, where I live. Where, even on the very good salary of a technology industry employee, I am just about priced out of. How can it be that someone who makes a "modest six figure income," to quote a person running for office in Seattle right now, is continually under the threat of a $3,000-or-more monthly bill to rent a place where a car is not required? My spouse cannot drive; I strongly prefer not to. Should be easy to find a place where someone can live and be transit-dependent, what with all of this transit expansion projects? Yet, for some inexplicable reason, we're spending billions of dollars to build a mass transit system that is either solely next to a freeway or goes through areas of the city that are next to golf courses and single-family housing. So, yeah, I don't really care about "preserving something good" when that "good" is turning into a MEDIAN house price of just short of ONE MILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS and yet neither myself nor another family member--who also works in tech and has a salary that would be monumentally great everywhere in the country except here--can feel secure about the cost of living. It sucks.
  - soheil 5y ago
    And how ironic to use a throwaway to deny its existence.
  - dcow 5y ago
    Maybe move to a different city where people aren't clueless?
    - techsupporter 5y ago
      We probably will, now that my employer has made noises about allowing remote work from anywhere. My spouse is a citizen of an EU country where my employer has an office so we might just move there. If the NIMBYs want everybody who wasn't alive the last time housing prices were "cheap" in Seattle to GTFO, I suppose that's the only thing we can do. Because there's no damn way I'm scrimping and saving to pay seven figures to someone whose sole contribution to that property was that they were born before I was and got there first to stand in the way of everyone else.
      - btmiller 5y ago
        I’m not sure I understand. I recently saved and strategized and worked hard to buy a not-cheap house in Seattle. Who said I was entitled to specifically what I worked hard to get? I’m very fortunate to have what I want, and by no means is it my right to be exactly where I am in the structure that I want.
        samatman 5y ago
        Perhaps I can help. Some of the sticker price of your not-cheap house is the quality of the house itself, and its desirable location. Some is a cynical campaign to prevent owners of land from building more housing on land which, again, they own, through political maneuvering. I would assert that your right to buy what you want implies their right to build what they want on the land they have bought, within reasonable limits, that the zoning regime in big West Coast cities is nothing resembling reasonable, and that we should change it so that those cities can have more, cheaper housing. If you disagree, that's fine, that's democracy, but I consider you a NIMBY, an authoritarian busybody who handwaves about "neighborhood character" to disguise the fact that they feel entitled to prevent a lot owner from putting up a four-story building with eight condos in it.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

throwawaysea 5y ago

They aren’t the same thing. One has the positive connotation of preserving something good. The other has a negative connotation of preventing something, when that isn’t where the motivation comes from. It is a subtle but significant difference that tries to paint people who like the life they’ve built with a caricature, just like other modern pejoratives such as “Karen”.

techsupporter 5y ago
You know what? I don't care if the NIMBYs get their feelings hurt. I'm past the point of caring. Your username says "sea" in it which reminds me of Seattle, where I live. Where, even on the very good salary of a technology industry employee, I am just about priced out of. How can it be that someone who makes a "modest six figure income," to quote a person running for office in Seattle right now, is continually under the threat of a $3,000-or-more monthly bill to rent a place where a car is not required? My spouse cannot drive; I strongly prefer not to. Should be easy to find a place where someone can live and be transit-dependent, what with all of this transit expansion projects? Yet, for some inexplicable reason, we're spending billions of dollars to build a mass transit system that is either solely next to a freeway or goes through areas of the city that are next to golf courses and single-family housing. So, yeah, I don't really care about "preserving something good" when that "good" is turning into a MEDIAN house price of just short of ONE MILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS and yet neither myself nor another family member--who also works in tech and has a salary that would be monumentally great everywhere in the country except here--can feel secure about the cost of living. It sucks.
- soheil 5y ago
  And how ironic to use a throwaway to deny its existence.
- dcow 5y ago
  Maybe move to a different city where people aren't clueless?
  - techsupporter 5y ago
    We probably will, now that my employer has made noises about allowing remote work from anywhere. My spouse is a citizen of an EU country where my employer has an office so we might just move there. If the NIMBYs want everybody who wasn't alive the last time housing prices were "cheap" in Seattle to GTFO, I suppose that's the only thing we can do. Because there's no damn way I'm scrimping and saving to pay seven figures to someone whose sole contribution to that property was that they were born before I was and got there first to stand in the way of everyone else.
    - btmiller 5y ago
      I’m not sure I understand. I recently saved and strategized and worked hard to buy a not-cheap house in Seattle. Who said I was entitled to specifically what I worked hard to get? I’m very fortunate to have what I want, and by no means is it my right to be exactly where I am in the structure that I want.
      - samatman 5y ago
        Perhaps I can help. Some of the sticker price of your not-cheap house is the quality of the house itself, and its desirable location. Some is a cynical campaign to prevent owners of land from building more housing on land which, again, they own, through political maneuvering. I would assert that your right to buy what you want implies their right to build what they want on the land they have bought, within reasonable limits, that the zoning regime in big West Coast cities is nothing resembling reasonable, and that we should change it so that those cities can have more, cheaper housing. If you disagree, that's fine, that's democracy, but I consider you a NIMBY, an authoritarian busybody who handwaves about "neighborhood character" to disguise the fact that they feel entitled to prevent a lot owner from putting up a four-story building with eight condos in it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]