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Public hearings actually sounds nice and democratic, if it's not just a simple vote but a proper debate with a requirement to provide objective arguments, where
by drdaeman 2y ago
Public hearings actually sounds nice and democratic, if it's not just a simple vote but a proper debate with a requirement to provide objective arguments, where personal preferences and select issues (like cost of property going down) are explicitly rejected. In such scenario it should be possible to differentiate between NIMBY "I've got my things the way I like it and I want to keep everything just as it is, at least until I decide to sell" and sane "this is actually a bad idea to build and here's a proof why." It requires an independent and unbiased moderator and well thought out protocols (to avoid abuse), though.
- jobs_throwaway 2y agoProblem is, only people with an excess of time on their hands can participate, which is totally undemocratic. Just because a bunch of boomers are retired and have nothing better to do doesn't mean they represent the will of constituents. People with jobs, children, school, etc are effectively not able to participate, which is why we have elections where these things should be decided
- drdaeman 2y agoGood point, thank you! Move it online and make it async (collect the arguments for a set period of time, then debate it over), or that's too weird or possibly exclusive for non-technical folks? (And using traditional mail is probably going to be too slow for anything meaningful) The problem I see with legislative approach (esp. if it's a bureaucracy - unelected officials making decisions), is that they could be biased (e.g. lobbied) too, representing the interests of developers - which can be good in some cases (The Dog in the Manger NIMBY areas), but can be bad in other situations. There must be some middle grounds.