5 ms·

> local objections That's a big component of all this. NIMBYism in this country is becoming a big problem in a lot of ways. Want to build a dense, mixed use

by davidw 4y ago

> local objections That's a big component of all this. NIMBYism in this country is becoming a big problem in a lot of ways. Want to build a dense, mixed use development that is less carbon-intensive than single family suburbia? NIMBYs oppose it. Build a transmission line from your green energy source? NIMBYs, again! Build a solar farm? NIMBYs will try and block it.

Schroedingersat 4y ago
If by NIMBYs you mean paid actors attending council meetings and incredibly loud reactionaries from other places, then yeah. There aren't that many actual NIMBYs for this shit.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > If by NIMBYs you mean paid actors attending council meetings Exactly, most anti-renewable objections are outright fraud by the oil companies, it is groups like 'Citizens for responsible solar' that are recieve fossil fuel donations through shell companies. Theu go and complain that a solar farm will spoint the veiw on somw derelic wasteland and robbing locals of job opportunities ities. There isnt a single local person in those groups.
  - wahern 4y ago
    And what about situations like the following, "‘It’s got nasty’: the battle to build the US’s biggest solar power farm", https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/30/its-got-nasty-the-battle-to-build-the-uss-biggest-solar-power-farm https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/30/its-got-... Unfortunately, I don't think people like Connie Ehrlich are rare, especially considering that you typically don't need much money to be as obstructive as she has. Yes, there are corporate-funded "grassroots" lobbying organizations, but when you look at how this stuff plays out across the country, it's not obvious who is using whom. (Also, from what I've seen following disputes over the years, most "grassroots" organizations that fight projects are fronts created by local citizens--or local citizen, singular--at least in California.) The fundamental problem is that 1) local zoning laws permit too much discretion and 2) are too deferential to public input. These policies were supposed to be empowering to communities, but they're in tension with the principal of rule of law. Rule of law says that a community first makes the rules, then applies them in a principled, arms-length manner to individual cases as they arise. Contemporary zoning policies and procedures permit so much discretion that what we have is a system that effectively makes up the law on a case-by-case basis. It's a system that is fundamentally arbitrary, capricious, and unjust. It's also unconstitutional as a violation of Due Process (even under strict conservative definitions of Due Process), but the Supreme Court is deathly afraid of unleashing a tsunami of constitutional objections to zoning policies so has historically made it very difficult to appeal such cases up to the Federal courts. They usually languish and die in administrative and states courts if they even make it that far, because projects and their developers tend to be time sensitive (you don't spend money, even on lawyers, unless you have a firm time horizon on RoI) and also averse to antagonizing zoning boards.
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      - wahern 4y ago
        > coal mine or a logging operation or a PFS factory or a highway it would still go through Actually, all of those things are just as difficult to do in jurisdictions where the public sentiment is given so much deference. That's why they're usually built in the middle of nowhere, or in jurisdictions which don't effectively grant the public procedural veto powers. (That said, mining and chemical factories in particular tend to facially violate zoning laws, as they should. Places where they're not clearly prohibited will also tend to be places where there aren't many people, and thus new construction would be expected to receive quick approval. Existing factories were usually built away from populations, but sprawl caused populations to encroach, and then you see a lot of tension with upgrades, etc, to the existing facilities.) This is why it's been so difficult to build a high-speed train in California, or why it can take decades to build any form of transportation, including roads, especially in populated areas.
        Schroedingersat 4y ago
        Renewable projects see this kind of opposition even in bumfuck nowhere, and where fossil fuel or highway projects steamroll their way through it, they get bogged down for years.
    - somewhat_drunk 4y ago
      This is just idiot Republicans being idiots.
- lazide 4y ago
  Clearly you haven't dealt with the over 60's crowd-who-has-nothing-better-to-do.
  - theduder99 4y ago
    you'll get there one day
    - lazide 4y ago
      I relish the thought.
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    There are a lot of those, but there are just as many people who have real objections to fossil fuel and highway expansion plans that get steamrolled through with no consultation. They're also not the ones funding faux environmental studies that say replacing the coal plume with some solar panels will kill all the frogs, and they're not living in bumfuck nowhere where suddenly 4x the town's population shows up to object to the wind turbine saying it gave them seizures. The NIMBYism only works if it manufactured and then allowed to work by the people who have actual power over these things (media owners like murdoch and lobbyists). Without that they'd just be tear gassed and told to go around the back alley to the frew speech zones like everyone else.
BitwiseFool 4y ago
Our local library wanted to put in an automated drop-off bin that patrons could drive up to and return books into. It was bitterly contested because the adjacent home owners association was worried about the increased noise and traffic. Keep in mind they were already living next to this library and it already had a parking lot. The city paid to construct a high wall as a compromise. It wasn't terribly expensive, but it wasn't cheap either. I really do think there is such a thing as "over democratizing" our development process. Sometimes you really do just need to tell someone "this is getting built" and they can get bent if they don't like it.
- epistasis 4y ago
  Agreed 100%. You may like this article, that has academic research to back up your thoughts— Not Everyone Should Have a Say; To speed up permitting for energy projects, we’ll need to rethink community input: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/environmentalists-nimby-permitting-reform-nepa/671775/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/environmen... This sort of "participatory democracy," where the most motivated can dominate those with less time, can be traced back to the New Left, which was criticized by social democrats at the time. https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-socialist-citizen https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/a-day-in-the-life-of... And it goes back further to the 30-40s where communists would drag out meetings late into the night in order to thin out the crowd, and then wait until they had a majority for a vote.
  - davidw 4y ago
    Jerusalem Demsas is a fantastic writer. One of the highlights of my year was getting to meet her and say "thank you" at the YIMBYTown conference in Portland.
  - jimmygrapes 4y ago
    The commoner should have a say, unless they oppose the ideas of Those Who Know Best. The bureaucracy is made of Those Who Know Best. The commoner wants Things to be Better but is worried that changes will make their lot worse. The commoner has few choices: find other commoners with reasonably similar concerns and use the power of numbers (and perhaps law) to represent their concerns to The Powers That Be (union, HOA, PAC, gang/mafia/mob/activist, some voters); capitulate to Those Who Know Best and hope Things Will Get Better (other voters, slacktivists, Eternally Online people); or, wait for Someone Else to rectify the concern (Enlightened Centrists, anarchists, 9-5ers, mostly everyone else). Lots of other options and variations are possible, but I can't think of them at this time. I don't have a point, I just wanted to document a stray thought you inspired.
anigbrowl 4y ago
And if they don't exist, they can be manufactured quite cheaply.
everdrive 4y ago
I think you're falsely putting a variety of different people into a single group called "NIMBY" -- people will object to all sorts of measures, and outside of the fact that they have objected they might not necessarily have anything else in common.
- davidw 4y ago
  You're correct that it's not necessarily a single group of people. The broader point is that perhaps the pendulum has swung too far in favor of people who say no to... a wide variety of things, many of which would benefit society.
xkcd-sucks 4y ago
Want to start a backyard steel-smelting campaign? NIMBYs will block it. Want to eradicate sparrows who seem to be eating crops? Environmental review will block it. Want to set up a space launch facility near a village and jettison booster stages over agricultural fields? NIMBYs will block it. Want to operate a pig farm in a residential neighborhood? NIMBYs will block it.
- InitialLastName 4y ago
  This is a weird straw-man of the YIMBY argument. There's a huge (gaping) chasm between blocking heavy industry and grievous environmental damage and standing in the way of your neighbor being allowed to add an ADU to their house.
pstuart 4y ago
Parking lots should be ripe for solar canopies. Every viable roof could have panels. There will always be obstacles but it doesn't mean we should give up trying to make it work.
m463 4y ago
I can still think of reasons to think of local people. What if transmission lines increase the risk of forest fires in specific areas? What if windmills mix with residential neighborhoods? Additionally, what if local people are prevented from putting up solar panels, or prevented from selling their power?

by davidw 4y ago

Schroedingersat 4y ago

If by NIMBYs you mean paid actors attending council meetings and incredibly loud reactionaries from other places, then yeah. There aren't that many actual NIMBYs for this shit.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> If by NIMBYs you mean paid actors attending council meetings Exactly, most anti-renewable objections are outright fraud by the oil companies, it is groups like 'Citizens for responsible solar' that are recieve fossil fuel donations through shell companies. Theu go and complain that a solar farm will spoint the veiw on somw derelic wasteland and robbing locals of job opportunities ities. There isnt a single local person in those groups.
- wahern 4y ago
  And what about situations like the following, "‘It’s got nasty’: the battle to build the US’s biggest solar power farm", https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/30/its-got-nasty-the-battle-to-build-the-uss-biggest-solar-power-farm https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/30/its-got-... Unfortunately, I don't think people like Connie Ehrlich are rare, especially considering that you typically don't need much money to be as obstructive as she has. Yes, there are corporate-funded "grassroots" lobbying organizations, but when you look at how this stuff plays out across the country, it's not obvious who is using whom. (Also, from what I've seen following disputes over the years, most "grassroots" organizations that fight projects are fronts created by local citizens--or local citizen, singular--at least in California.) The fundamental problem is that 1) local zoning laws permit too much discretion and 2) are too deferential to public input. These policies were supposed to be empowering to communities, but they're in tension with the principal of rule of law. Rule of law says that a community first makes the rules, then applies them in a principled, arms-length manner to individual cases as they arise. Contemporary zoning policies and procedures permit so much discretion that what we have is a system that effectively makes up the law on a case-by-case basis. It's a system that is fundamentally arbitrary, capricious, and unjust. It's also unconstitutional as a violation of Due Process (even under strict conservative definitions of Due Process), but the Supreme Court is deathly afraid of unleashing a tsunami of constitutional objections to zoning policies so has historically made it very difficult to appeal such cases up to the Federal courts. They usually languish and die in administrative and states courts if they even make it that far, because projects and their developers tend to be time sensitive (you don't spend money, even on lawyers, unless you have a firm time horizon on RoI) and also averse to antagonizing zoning boards.
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    - wahern 4y ago
      > coal mine or a logging operation or a PFS factory or a highway it would still go through Actually, all of those things are just as difficult to do in jurisdictions where the public sentiment is given so much deference. That's why they're usually built in the middle of nowhere, or in jurisdictions which don't effectively grant the public procedural veto powers. (That said, mining and chemical factories in particular tend to facially violate zoning laws, as they should. Places where they're not clearly prohibited will also tend to be places where there aren't many people, and thus new construction would be expected to receive quick approval. Existing factories were usually built away from populations, but sprawl caused populations to encroach, and then you see a lot of tension with upgrades, etc, to the existing facilities.) This is why it's been so difficult to build a high-speed train in California, or why it can take decades to build any form of transportation, including roads, especially in populated areas.
      - Schroedingersat 4y ago
        Renewable projects see this kind of opposition even in bumfuck nowhere, and where fossil fuel or highway projects steamroll their way through it, they get bogged down for years.
  - somewhat_drunk 4y ago
    This is just idiot Republicans being idiots.
lazide 4y ago
Clearly you haven't dealt with the over 60's crowd-who-has-nothing-better-to-do.
- theduder99 4y ago
  you'll get there one day
  - lazide 4y ago
    I relish the thought.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  There are a lot of those, but there are just as many people who have real objections to fossil fuel and highway expansion plans that get steamrolled through with no consultation. They're also not the ones funding faux environmental studies that say replacing the coal plume with some solar panels will kill all the frogs, and they're not living in bumfuck nowhere where suddenly 4x the town's population shows up to object to the wind turbine saying it gave them seizures. The NIMBYism only works if it manufactured and then allowed to work by the people who have actual power over these things (media owners like murdoch and lobbyists). Without that they'd just be tear gassed and told to go around the back alley to the frew speech zones like everyone else.

BitwiseFool 4y ago

Our local library wanted to put in an automated drop-off bin that patrons could drive up to and return books into. It was bitterly contested because the adjacent home owners association was worried about the increased noise and traffic. Keep in mind they were already living next to this library and it already had a parking lot. The city paid to construct a high wall as a compromise. It wasn't terribly expensive, but it wasn't cheap either. I really do think there is such a thing as "over democratizing" our development process. Sometimes you really do just need to tell someone "this is getting built" and they can get bent if they don't like it.

epistasis 4y ago
Agreed 100%. You may like this article, that has academic research to back up your thoughts— Not Everyone Should Have a Say; To speed up permitting for energy projects, we’ll need to rethink community input: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/environmentalists-nimby-permitting-reform-nepa/671775/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/environmen... This sort of "participatory democracy," where the most motivated can dominate those with less time, can be traced back to the New Left, which was criticized by social democrats at the time. https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-socialist-citizen https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/a-day-in-the-life-of... And it goes back further to the 30-40s where communists would drag out meetings late into the night in order to thin out the crowd, and then wait until they had a majority for a vote.
- davidw 4y ago
  Jerusalem Demsas is a fantastic writer. One of the highlights of my year was getting to meet her and say "thank you" at the YIMBYTown conference in Portland.
- jimmygrapes 4y ago
  The commoner should have a say, unless they oppose the ideas of Those Who Know Best. The bureaucracy is made of Those Who Know Best. The commoner wants Things to be Better but is worried that changes will make their lot worse. The commoner has few choices: find other commoners with reasonably similar concerns and use the power of numbers (and perhaps law) to represent their concerns to The Powers That Be (union, HOA, PAC, gang/mafia/mob/activist, some voters); capitulate to Those Who Know Best and hope Things Will Get Better (other voters, slacktivists, Eternally Online people); or, wait for Someone Else to rectify the concern (Enlightened Centrists, anarchists, 9-5ers, mostly everyone else). Lots of other options and variations are possible, but I can't think of them at this time. I don't have a point, I just wanted to document a stray thought you inspired.

anigbrowl 4y ago

And if they don't exist, they can be manufactured quite cheaply.

everdrive 4y ago

I think you're falsely putting a variety of different people into a single group called "NIMBY" -- people will object to all sorts of measures, and outside of the fact that they have objected they might not necessarily have anything else in common.

davidw 4y ago
You're correct that it's not necessarily a single group of people. The broader point is that perhaps the pendulum has swung too far in favor of people who say no to... a wide variety of things, many of which would benefit society.

xkcd-sucks 4y ago

Want to start a backyard steel-smelting campaign? NIMBYs will block it. Want to eradicate sparrows who seem to be eating crops? Environmental review will block it. Want to set up a space launch facility near a village and jettison booster stages over agricultural fields? NIMBYs will block it. Want to operate a pig farm in a residential neighborhood? NIMBYs will block it.

InitialLastName 4y ago
This is a weird straw-man of the YIMBY argument. There's a huge (gaping) chasm between blocking heavy industry and grievous environmental damage and standing in the way of your neighbor being allowed to add an ADU to their house.

pstuart 4y ago

Parking lots should be ripe for solar canopies. Every viable roof could have panels. There will always be obstacles but it doesn't mean we should give up trying to make it work.

m463 4y ago

I can still think of reasons to think of local people. What if transmission lines increase the risk of forest fires in specific areas? What if windmills mix with residential neighborhoods? Additionally, what if local people are prevented from putting up solar panels, or prevented from selling their power?