4 ms·

Long & interesting...but a pretty good tl;dr; is: "NIMBY's are why we can't build any major infrastructure any more".

polycaster 3y ago
For every other non-native speaker like me, lmgtfu: NIMBY (/ˈnɪmbi/, or nimby), an acronym for the phrase "not in my back yard", is a characterization of opposition by residents to proposed infrastructure developments in their local area, as well as support for strict land use regulations.
- crazypyro 3y ago
  In simple terms, people want airports, but nobody wants an airport near their house.
  - anonzzzies 3y ago
    And the state really shouldn’t care about these few. Probably rich enough to move but don’t want because blah blah.
    - arrowsmith 3y ago
      "Few"? Almost no-one wants to live next door to an airport.
      - codeulike 3y ago
        I think they meant: For any given site, theres proportionally 'few' people that would be disadvantaged
        anonzzzies 3y ago
        Yep. You cannot just put them just anywhere, so if a location has been found and some people don’t like it, well, that happens. Like others said; everyone wants to fly but they don’t want the bad side. Fine but it happens.
      - egeozcan 3y ago
        But almost everybody wants access to one. This is coming from someone who lived a a kilometer away from the main airport of Istanbul at the time[0], for a long time. I was really disappointed when it was closed as the benefit of access was 100x better than the noise cost. Of course, everybody has different priorities and getting a huge noise source in your backyard after you decide to call a piece of land your home would be frustrating. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atat%C3%BCrk_Airport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atat%C3%BCrk_Airport - used to be a very busy airport.
        ghaff 3y ago
        Eh. As someone who used to travel a lot living 50 miles from the airport was a bit of an inconvenience but certainly one I could live with. Just took a bit longer to get to the airport. I wouldn't have wanted to live next to it.
        arrowsmith 3y ago
        Yeah me too, I live an hour's drive from my nearest airport and that's more than close enough - mainly because that airport is London Heathrow, meaning I can catch a flight to basically anywhere in the world from it. Living close to a small, poorly-connected airport would be far less convenient than living further away from a major airport.
      - jojobas 3y ago
        If this was true, areas around airports would have been non-residential or at least stupidly penalized in land value. They don't seem to be. In fact when you live close to an airport you stop caring, perhaps not unlike smoke alarm chirps but without danger to your life.
      - theultdev 3y ago
        The people who work at them do.
  - rob74 3y ago
    ...same as with major roads, train lines, power lines, power plants (including but not limited to nuclear and wind), affordable (i.e. high density) housing etc. etc.
    - Symbiote 3y ago
      Not all of that. Railways are relatively quiet and very useful, someone living near one will might well use it very frequently.
      - monknomo 3y ago
        I have lived near a freight railway, and I assure you they are not quiet
        Symbiote 3y ago
        I lived near several 80%-passenger railways in England, and they are not silent but they are quieter and less annoying than roads. Most of the trains were electric, including the freight trains.
        monknomo 3y ago
        US experience is different, with big diesels and primarily freight. I'd rate them as similarly annoying to a divided highway, but I suppose it depends on the region and the specifics
        Symbiote 3y ago
        There are a million train spotter videos on YouTube, and given the audience I'm unlikely to find one filmed in someone's back garden. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-wyR316550 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-wyR316550 (The navy blue trains with yellow 'noses' are high-speed commuter trains, the dark blue, gold and white ones are the high-speed trains to France, the plain white ones are normal-speed commuter trains to London.) I think the continuously welded rails are the biggest improvement, as they remove most of the "clackety-clack". Instead you get the "hiss", but that's only noticeable from really close.
  - jojobas 3y ago
    People buy homes near existing airports with very small discounts for the inconvenience.
- codeulike 3y ago
  what does lmgtfu mean?
  - magnio 3y ago
    For every other non-native speaker like me, ttbomk: lmgtfu, let me Google that for you.
    - codeulike 3y ago
      Can you do an eli5 of what ttbomk means?
      - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
        "To The Best Of My Knowledge". (I had to Google it, too.) Or was that an ironic reply?
        polycaster 3y ago
        afaict that was serious
  - richardwhiuk 3y ago
    Let Me Google That For U (usually LMGTFY)
- bradley13 3y ago
  Your definition is accurate, but I think it is incomplete. The stereotypical NIMBY doesn't want something in their backyard, but they still want the advantages of it existing. They want it to be place in someone else's backyard. People opposing airport construction still want to fly. They just want someone else to have the noise.
  - Gare 3y ago
    > People opposing airport construction still want to fly. Maybe they do in America. But in Europe there's not much need/want of frequent flying for the average citizen.
    - bradley13 3y ago
      In 2022 (according to Statista) there were around 500 million passenger-flights, compared to the 800 million in the US. Accounting for population differences, that means that Europeans fly around half as often as USAians. Yes, that is less, but it is still a lot.
  - floxy 3y ago
    >People opposing airport construction still want to fly. In this age of big data, is there a way to quantify this? My gut feeling is that this is a very heavily Pareto-like distribution, with maybe say 5% of the population accounting for 90% of the passenger miles or flight segments. With the majority of the people flying a handful of times (or less) in their life. And even then, "want" is probably a strong qualifier, since I'd also think the majority of the flight miles are for business travel. You may "want" to keep your job, so you have to fly sometimes. If we had to drastically curtail flying in the future, I'm guessing that not too many people are going to regret missing out on the business meetings to Detroit in January, compared to say, vacations in Florida.
- deathanatos 3y ago
  > as well as support for strict land use regulations. Perhaps superficially, but no, not necessarily. A large part of the NIMBYism seen in places like SF is opposition to projects that do conform to land use regulation. The entire "by-right" movement is that, if the proposed project is legal (it meets zoning, codes, etc.), then it should be permitted to build. NIMBYs opposed that. YIMBYs mostly aren't opposed to land use regulations, either. (Wanting to change the zoning of an area, or changes the specifics of the regulations is not "against land use regulations", or treating them any less strictly.)
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
II2II 3y ago
The term NIMBY is thrown around too much. Yes, there are far too many cases where NIMBYism is taken too far. On the other hand, there are legitimate cases. I lived in a small, fly-in community for a while. I was very close to the airport, and some people had houses within a few hundred meters of the runway. There was noise, but it was managable because there were only a handful of flights per day (none at night) and there were no jets (the airport could handle them, but it was only intended for emergencies). But that is not the type of airport people are talking about here. They are talking about large airports with constant traffic during most hours of the day and night, with the planes typically being larger and much louder. These are the sort of airports that people can expect a significant loss in the quality of life from. I would expect people to be vocal about it.
- revlolz 3y ago
  In my experience as soon as the airport grew to the next stage. Local enforcement agencies begin staging out of the airport and then everyone gets to hear when the sheriff deputy's are getting their night flight hours in. I'm in agreement with you, calling someone a nimby for not wanting an airport near them is unreasonable.
- ghaff 3y ago
  Yeah, NIMBY gets used way too much for I want something and screw anyone who has negative externalities as a result.
revlolz 3y ago
The data the author presents spells out that aircraft are still twice as loud as passenger cars at their quietest. The majority of traffic through smaller municipal airports is very loud propeller aircraft. I don't believe it makes anyone a nimby to not want a freaking airport nearby. I don't think anyone should have to live with such disturbances without voting and ample regulations. It should be incredibly difficult to get airports built. The commerce benefits to the town/city come at the direct expense of health and quality living of residents. The article fixates on noise pollution, but what about exposure to cancerous chemicals? Actual pollution from emissions? Traffic consequences? It's not just some affluent boomer's view or lawn getting impacted. Personally, I never want to live in vicinity of an airport ever again in my life.
thaumasiotes 3y ago
It's a strange piece. Most of the obstacles to airport construction that it describes are nullified by the other obstacles that it also describes. Airports can't handle the liability they incur because imposing airport noise on housing is a regulatory taking. But also, if you build an airport at such a remove from the city that no housing suffers, housing gets built out toward the airport. Except of course, it's not a taking if you were there first. If the housing comes to the airport, there's no liability. Also, airports don't work without being close to their city. When they tried to build Mirabel airport 35 miles from Montreal, it withered and died from being too far away. This is transparent nonsense; 35 miles is not even a long distance. The airport you use if you live in Santa Cruz is SFO, more than 60 miles away. (There is a closer airport in San Jose, which doesn't go to convenient locations.) It takes a long time to travel between any major airport and its city. HKG is separated from Hong Kong by the ocean. A 40 minute drive to the airport is considerably better than is typical now! If Mirabel withered and died from being 35 miles outside Montreal, that can only be because Montreal's air transport needs were already met.
- michael1999 3y ago
  Agree. 35 miles was a reasonable buffer for anticipated growth. Mirabel died because immigration patterns shifted from Montréal to Toronto as a result of the FLQ and the 1980 secession referendum.
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  > HKG is separated from Hong Kong by the ocean. Most would say the Victoria Harbour. Do you say that Manhattan is separated from Brooklyn by the ocean? No.
bradley13 3y ago
Sure, this is classic NIMBYism. I understand: we live in a very quiet area, and would certainly oppose something that would dramatically change that. However, what I do not understand are the people who move next to an existing airport, and then complain about the noise. We used to live near a major, international airport. Planes flew overhead. That noise was implicitly factored into the price we paid, and we certainly had zero room to complain. But lots of people did anyway, soaking up lots of time and money that would have been better spent elsewhere.
- acdha 3y ago
  When I lived in San Diego, I worked near the military airport now known as MCAS Miramar. My coworkers and I were honestly stunned by the people who sued after moving in nearby claiming that they had no idea the place they filmed Top Gun would be that noisy.
  - throwaway2037 3y ago
    A better idea: Tear down the old MCAS Miramar and build housing and parks. Rebuild the airbase in Nevada or the California desert. Yes, it was bad planning to allow so many residences to be built near an airbase, but too late to undo it now.
    - acdha 3y ago
      You’re welcome to lobby your congress members for that but until the military says they’re moving it’s a mistake to buy a house there if you can’t live with the noise.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  This is called “coming to the nuisance”[1] and in most jurisdictions the complainers have no case. I’m sure it doesn’t stop them from trying though. Reid-Hillview airport[2] in San Jose has been there since the 1930’s, long before anyone who currently lives there, yet is constantly under attack by residents and threatened with closing. 1: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/coming_to_the_nuisance https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/coming_to_the_nuisance 2: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid–Hillview_Airport https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid–Hillview_Airport

For every other non-native speaker like me, lmgtfu: NIMBY (/ˈnɪmbi/, or nimby), an acronym for the phrase "not in my back yard", is a characterization of opposition by residents to proposed infrastructure developments in their local area, as well as support for strict land use regulations.

crazypyro 3y ago
In simple terms, people want airports, but nobody wants an airport near their house.
- anonzzzies 3y ago
  And the state really shouldn’t care about these few. Probably rich enough to move but don’t want because blah blah.
  - arrowsmith 3y ago
    "Few"? Almost no-one wants to live next door to an airport.
    - codeulike 3y ago
      I think they meant: For any given site, theres proportionally 'few' people that would be disadvantaged
      - anonzzzies 3y ago
        Yep. You cannot just put them just anywhere, so if a location has been found and some people don’t like it, well, that happens. Like others said; everyone wants to fly but they don’t want the bad side. Fine but it happens.
    - egeozcan 3y ago
      But almost everybody wants access to one. This is coming from someone who lived a a kilometer away from the main airport of Istanbul at the time[0], for a long time. I was really disappointed when it was closed as the benefit of access was 100x better than the noise cost. Of course, everybody has different priorities and getting a huge noise source in your backyard after you decide to call a piece of land your home would be frustrating. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atat%C3%BCrk_Airport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atat%C3%BCrk_Airport - used to be a very busy airport.
      - ghaff 3y ago
        Eh. As someone who used to travel a lot living 50 miles from the airport was a bit of an inconvenience but certainly one I could live with. Just took a bit longer to get to the airport. I wouldn't have wanted to live next to it.
        arrowsmith 3y ago
        Yeah me too, I live an hour's drive from my nearest airport and that's more than close enough - mainly because that airport is London Heathrow, meaning I can catch a flight to basically anywhere in the world from it. Living close to a small, poorly-connected airport would be far less convenient than living further away from a major airport.
    - jojobas 3y ago
      If this was true, areas around airports would have been non-residential or at least stupidly penalized in land value. They don't seem to be. In fact when you live close to an airport you stop caring, perhaps not unlike smoke alarm chirps but without danger to your life.
    - theultdev 3y ago
      The people who work at them do.
- rob74 3y ago
  ...same as with major roads, train lines, power lines, power plants (including but not limited to nuclear and wind), affordable (i.e. high density) housing etc. etc.
  - Symbiote 3y ago
    Not all of that. Railways are relatively quiet and very useful, someone living near one will might well use it very frequently.
    - monknomo 3y ago
      I have lived near a freight railway, and I assure you they are not quiet
      - Symbiote 3y ago
        I lived near several 80%-passenger railways in England, and they are not silent but they are quieter and less annoying than roads. Most of the trains were electric, including the freight trains.
        monknomo 3y ago
        US experience is different, with big diesels and primarily freight. I'd rate them as similarly annoying to a divided highway, but I suppose it depends on the region and the specifics
        Symbiote 3y ago
        There are a million train spotter videos on YouTube, and given the audience I'm unlikely to find one filmed in someone's back garden. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-wyR316550 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-wyR316550 (The navy blue trains with yellow 'noses' are high-speed commuter trains, the dark blue, gold and white ones are the high-speed trains to France, the plain white ones are normal-speed commuter trains to London.) I think the continuously welded rails are the biggest improvement, as they remove most of the "clackety-clack". Instead you get the "hiss", but that's only noticeable from really close.
- jojobas 3y ago
  People buy homes near existing airports with very small discounts for the inconvenience.
codeulike 3y ago
what does lmgtfu mean?
- magnio 3y ago
  For every other non-native speaker like me, ttbomk: lmgtfu, let me Google that for you.
  - codeulike 3y ago
    Can you do an eli5 of what ttbomk means?
    - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
      "To The Best Of My Knowledge". (I had to Google it, too.) Or was that an ironic reply?
      - polycaster 3y ago
        afaict that was serious
- richardwhiuk 3y ago
  Let Me Google That For U (usually LMGTFY)
bradley13 3y ago
Your definition is accurate, but I think it is incomplete. The stereotypical NIMBY doesn't want something in their backyard, but they still want the advantages of it existing. They want it to be place in someone else's backyard. People opposing airport construction still want to fly. They just want someone else to have the noise.
- Gare 3y ago
  > People opposing airport construction still want to fly. Maybe they do in America. But in Europe there's not much need/want of frequent flying for the average citizen.
  - bradley13 3y ago
    In 2022 (according to Statista) there were around 500 million passenger-flights, compared to the 800 million in the US. Accounting for population differences, that means that Europeans fly around half as often as USAians. Yes, that is less, but it is still a lot.
- floxy 3y ago
  >People opposing airport construction still want to fly. In this age of big data, is there a way to quantify this? My gut feeling is that this is a very heavily Pareto-like distribution, with maybe say 5% of the population accounting for 90% of the passenger miles or flight segments. With the majority of the people flying a handful of times (or less) in their life. And even then, "want" is probably a strong qualifier, since I'd also think the majority of the flight miles are for business travel. You may "want" to keep your job, so you have to fly sometimes. If we had to drastically curtail flying in the future, I'm guessing that not too many people are going to regret missing out on the business meetings to Detroit in January, compared to say, vacations in Florida.
deathanatos 3y ago
> as well as support for strict land use regulations. Perhaps superficially, but no, not necessarily. A large part of the NIMBYism seen in places like SF is opposition to projects that do conform to land use regulation. The entire "by-right" movement is that, if the proposed project is legal (it meets zoning, codes, etc.), then it should be permitted to build. NIMBYs opposed that. YIMBYs mostly aren't opposed to land use regulations, either. (Wanting to change the zoning of an area, or changes the specifics of the regulations is not "against land use regulations", or treating them any less strictly.)

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

II2II 3y ago

The term NIMBY is thrown around too much. Yes, there are far too many cases where NIMBYism is taken too far. On the other hand, there are legitimate cases. I lived in a small, fly-in community for a while. I was very close to the airport, and some people had houses within a few hundred meters of the runway. There was noise, but it was managable because there were only a handful of flights per day (none at night) and there were no jets (the airport could handle them, but it was only intended for emergencies). But that is not the type of airport people are talking about here. They are talking about large airports with constant traffic during most hours of the day and night, with the planes typically being larger and much louder. These are the sort of airports that people can expect a significant loss in the quality of life from. I would expect people to be vocal about it.

revlolz 3y ago
In my experience as soon as the airport grew to the next stage. Local enforcement agencies begin staging out of the airport and then everyone gets to hear when the sheriff deputy's are getting their night flight hours in. I'm in agreement with you, calling someone a nimby for not wanting an airport near them is unreasonable.
ghaff 3y ago
Yeah, NIMBY gets used way too much for I want something and screw anyone who has negative externalities as a result.

revlolz 3y ago

The data the author presents spells out that aircraft are still twice as loud as passenger cars at their quietest. The majority of traffic through smaller municipal airports is very loud propeller aircraft. I don't believe it makes anyone a nimby to not want a freaking airport nearby. I don't think anyone should have to live with such disturbances without voting and ample regulations. It should be incredibly difficult to get airports built. The commerce benefits to the town/city come at the direct expense of health and quality living of residents. The article fixates on noise pollution, but what about exposure to cancerous chemicals? Actual pollution from emissions? Traffic consequences? It's not just some affluent boomer's view or lawn getting impacted. Personally, I never want to live in vicinity of an airport ever again in my life.

thaumasiotes 3y ago

It's a strange piece. Most of the obstacles to airport construction that it describes are nullified by the other obstacles that it also describes. Airports can't handle the liability they incur because imposing airport noise on housing is a regulatory taking. But also, if you build an airport at such a remove from the city that no housing suffers, housing gets built out toward the airport. Except of course, it's not a taking if you were there first. If the housing comes to the airport, there's no liability. Also, airports don't work without being close to their city. When they tried to build Mirabel airport 35 miles from Montreal, it withered and died from being too far away. This is transparent nonsense; 35 miles is not even a long distance. The airport you use if you live in Santa Cruz is SFO, more than 60 miles away. (There is a closer airport in San Jose, which doesn't go to convenient locations.) It takes a long time to travel between any major airport and its city. HKG is separated from Hong Kong by the ocean. A 40 minute drive to the airport is considerably better than is typical now! If Mirabel withered and died from being 35 miles outside Montreal, that can only be because Montreal's air transport needs were already met.

michael1999 3y ago
Agree. 35 miles was a reasonable buffer for anticipated growth. Mirabel died because immigration patterns shifted from Montréal to Toronto as a result of the FLQ and the 1980 secession referendum.
throwaway2037 3y ago
> HKG is separated from Hong Kong by the ocean. Most would say the Victoria Harbour. Do you say that Manhattan is separated from Brooklyn by the ocean? No.

bradley13 3y ago

Sure, this is classic NIMBYism. I understand: we live in a very quiet area, and would certainly oppose something that would dramatically change that. However, what I do not understand are the people who move next to an existing airport, and then complain about the noise. We used to live near a major, international airport. Planes flew overhead. That noise was implicitly factored into the price we paid, and we certainly had zero room to complain. But lots of people did anyway, soaking up lots of time and money that would have been better spent elsewhere.

acdha 3y ago
When I lived in San Diego, I worked near the military airport now known as MCAS Miramar. My coworkers and I were honestly stunned by the people who sued after moving in nearby claiming that they had no idea the place they filmed Top Gun would be that noisy.
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  A better idea: Tear down the old MCAS Miramar and build housing and parks. Rebuild the airbase in Nevada or the California desert. Yes, it was bad planning to allow so many residences to be built near an airbase, but too late to undo it now.
  - acdha 3y ago
    You’re welcome to lobby your congress members for that but until the military says they’re moving it’s a mistake to buy a house there if you can’t live with the noise.
ryandrake 3y ago
This is called “coming to the nuisance”[1] and in most jurisdictions the complainers have no case. I’m sure it doesn’t stop them from trying though. Reid-Hillview airport[2] in San Jose has been there since the 1930’s, long before anyone who currently lives there, yet is constantly under attack by residents and threatened with closing. 1: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/coming_to_the_nuisance https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/coming_to_the_nuisance 2: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid–Hillview_Airport https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid–Hillview_Airport