5 ms·

Barring eminent domain, YIYBY is impossible. It's always YIMBY.

munk-a 9mo ago
YIYBY is the concept of wanting it nearby to your residence but not having to suffer any of the direct consequences - imo it's a good thing to acknowledge but generally indistinguishable from NIMBYism. You want the benefits but aren't willing to pay the costs.
- triceratops 9mo ago
  > YIYBY is the concept of wanting it nearby to your residence but not having to suffer any of the direct consequences How does that work exactly?
  - WarmWash 9mo ago
    There is a large forest near your local community. You and others often walk in the forest and kids play there. Its calming and has been there forever. The state wants your community to turn it into apartments, but obviously the community is icey about it. Then activists from another city dozens of miles away, who have never cared for your town or really been to it, show up at Town Hall meetings and are scheduling meetings with town councilors to push for building the apartments. Those out of town people jumping into your community to dictate change are the YIYBY people. If the apartments are built, they'll put another feather in their cap while walking around the forest near their home.
    - pixl97 9mo ago
      > large forest near your local community. Who owns the forest and why do you think you get to say if people build on it or not?
      - mothballed 9mo ago
        It's a pretty core element of democracy, that if the majority says they get to do a violence against you for a certain behavior, then they get to do that. It might be immoral but it's the current religion of this area of the world *. * But muh republic -- spare me, the zoning fiasco shows the current constitutional limits on democracy doesn't stop it.
      - WarmWash 9mo ago
        The town, a democratic institution for which you are a tax paying constituent, owns the forest.
        iamnothere 9mo ago
        Are these out of town people, who surely can’t vote in local elections, somehow forcing the town to sell the forest to developers? If so then that is the problem. Local zoning shouldn’t have an impact on whether or not a city-owned forest (or a park, or vacant land) is forcibly sold and developed. That’s a different problem. If someone already owns the forest, then they should get to build on their land.
        WarmWash 9mo ago
        >Are these out of town people, who surely can’t vote in local elections, somehow forcing the town to sell the forest to developers? If so then that is the problem. They are "forcing" in the same way billionaires "force" politicians to lower taxes on them. I think the term you meant to use is "lobbying", which is in fact what these YIYBY groups would be doing. They are lobbying a random town that they are no part of to cut down their forest and build apartments.
        iamnothere 9mo ago
        Lobbying (through letters and meetings) is legal free speech. If they are engaging in kickbacks or other quid pro then that’s illegal. Lobbying can’t force the town to sell the forest.
    - triceratops 9mo ago
      Why would they cut down the forest to turn it into apartments? It's more economical to bulldoze existing single-family homes and do it there. The roads are already built, you'd just need to upgrade utilities and so on. There are people living in those single-family homes who would gladly take the opportunity to sell their land for higher than market value but are prevented from doing so. It's more common for forests to be cut down because dense housing is illegal, so cities have to keep expanding outwards.
  - munk-a 9mo ago
    It's like a thirty minute city. You want those services nearish to you but never so close that they'd effect property value. "Nobody" wants to live next to a high school - your house might be TP'd, but you want a good school within bus range, "Nobody" wants to live next to a super market, they have large parking lots and are "undesirable" but you want to be able to drive half a dozen blocks to it. I've never thought of the B in NIMBY as literally meaning backyard - it figuratively means "near enough to effect me" but people still want it within reach - so the ultimate NIMBY dream would likely be to live in an island of placid suburbia surround by a ring of vital services that are just far away enough that you don't need to see them every day. (There's also, I think, a separate environmental NIMBYism but that's a really strange concept and usually more of a deliberate misinterpretation by people with an agenda to push - I'm more concerned with city service NIMBYism around public transit, food availability, hospitals, etc...)
    - triceratops 9mo ago
      Is that what YIMBY activists do? Live exclusively in SFHs and make everyone else build apartments?
- pixl97 9mo ago
  >to pay the costs Which costs? Driving 30 miles in heavy traffic because density is not allowed close to you? Paying excessive taxes because of huge oceans of SFHs? Having to own a car because public transportation doesn't work in low density? There is no free lunch, only which costs you're going to pay.
  - munk-a 9mo ago
    Personally, I find NIMBYism completely irrational and am a dedicated urbanite - I love being able to walk to my local grocery store and have a hospital within two blocks of me. I'm definitely not the right person to advocate against your stance.
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
bee_rider 9mo ago
I think the back yard in all of these initialism is not limited to the person’s private back yard property. NIMBY seeks to prevent the development of nearby properties to preserve some sort of “neighborhood character,” so the “back yard” is actually the whole neighborhood (and I think part of the negative connotation of that phrase is that they are treating shared spaces like their own personal yard). Then, YIMBY seeks to allow their neighborhoods to be developed. If we’re going to extend it to “YIYBY” and “NIYBY,” we should apply the same logic, right? Rather, I think YIYBY mostly doesn’t make sense because YIMBY people are trying to convince people that they should allow development in their neighborhood. Zoning rules… I mean, they have difference policies for changing them, but YIMBY activists aren’t usually manually and unilaterally changing them for other people. Ultimately the decision making process is probably (depending on local regulation of course) “yes or no in our back yards,” when you get down to the details.

YIYBY is the concept of wanting it nearby to your residence but not having to suffer any of the direct consequences - imo it's a good thing to acknowledge but generally indistinguishable from NIMBYism. You want the benefits but aren't willing to pay the costs.

triceratops 9mo ago
> YIYBY is the concept of wanting it nearby to your residence but not having to suffer any of the direct consequences How does that work exactly?
- WarmWash 9mo ago
  There is a large forest near your local community. You and others often walk in the forest and kids play there. Its calming and has been there forever. The state wants your community to turn it into apartments, but obviously the community is icey about it. Then activists from another city dozens of miles away, who have never cared for your town or really been to it, show up at Town Hall meetings and are scheduling meetings with town councilors to push for building the apartments. Those out of town people jumping into your community to dictate change are the YIYBY people. If the apartments are built, they'll put another feather in their cap while walking around the forest near their home.
  - pixl97 9mo ago
    > large forest near your local community. Who owns the forest and why do you think you get to say if people build on it or not?
    - mothballed 9mo ago
      It's a pretty core element of democracy, that if the majority says they get to do a violence against you for a certain behavior, then they get to do that. It might be immoral but it's the current religion of this area of the world *. * But muh republic -- spare me, the zoning fiasco shows the current constitutional limits on democracy doesn't stop it.
    - WarmWash 9mo ago
      The town, a democratic institution for which you are a tax paying constituent, owns the forest.
      - iamnothere 9mo ago
        Are these out of town people, who surely can’t vote in local elections, somehow forcing the town to sell the forest to developers? If so then that is the problem. Local zoning shouldn’t have an impact on whether or not a city-owned forest (or a park, or vacant land) is forcibly sold and developed. That’s a different problem. If someone already owns the forest, then they should get to build on their land.
        WarmWash 9mo ago
        >Are these out of town people, who surely can’t vote in local elections, somehow forcing the town to sell the forest to developers? If so then that is the problem. They are "forcing" in the same way billionaires "force" politicians to lower taxes on them. I think the term you meant to use is "lobbying", which is in fact what these YIYBY groups would be doing. They are lobbying a random town that they are no part of to cut down their forest and build apartments.
        iamnothere 9mo ago
        Lobbying (through letters and meetings) is legal free speech. If they are engaging in kickbacks or other quid pro then that’s illegal. Lobbying can’t force the town to sell the forest.
  - triceratops 9mo ago
    Why would they cut down the forest to turn it into apartments? It's more economical to bulldoze existing single-family homes and do it there. The roads are already built, you'd just need to upgrade utilities and so on. There are people living in those single-family homes who would gladly take the opportunity to sell their land for higher than market value but are prevented from doing so. It's more common for forests to be cut down because dense housing is illegal, so cities have to keep expanding outwards.
- munk-a 9mo ago
  It's like a thirty minute city. You want those services nearish to you but never so close that they'd effect property value. "Nobody" wants to live next to a high school - your house might be TP'd, but you want a good school within bus range, "Nobody" wants to live next to a super market, they have large parking lots and are "undesirable" but you want to be able to drive half a dozen blocks to it. I've never thought of the B in NIMBY as literally meaning backyard - it figuratively means "near enough to effect me" but people still want it within reach - so the ultimate NIMBY dream would likely be to live in an island of placid suburbia surround by a ring of vital services that are just far away enough that you don't need to see them every day. (There's also, I think, a separate environmental NIMBYism but that's a really strange concept and usually more of a deliberate misinterpretation by people with an agenda to push - I'm more concerned with city service NIMBYism around public transit, food availability, hospitals, etc...)
  - triceratops 9mo ago
    Is that what YIMBY activists do? Live exclusively in SFHs and make everyone else build apartments?
pixl97 9mo ago
>to pay the costs Which costs? Driving 30 miles in heavy traffic because density is not allowed close to you? Paying excessive taxes because of huge oceans of SFHs? Having to own a car because public transportation doesn't work in low density? There is no free lunch, only which costs you're going to pay.
- munk-a 9mo ago
  Personally, I find NIMBYism completely irrational and am a dedicated urbanite - I love being able to walk to my local grocery store and have a hospital within two blocks of me. I'm definitely not the right person to advocate against your stance.

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

bee_rider 9mo ago

I think the back yard in all of these initialism is not limited to the person’s private back yard property. NIMBY seeks to prevent the development of nearby properties to preserve some sort of “neighborhood character,” so the “back yard” is actually the whole neighborhood (and I think part of the negative connotation of that phrase is that they are treating shared spaces like their own personal yard). Then, YIMBY seeks to allow their neighborhoods to be developed. If we’re going to extend it to “YIYBY” and “NIYBY,” we should apply the same logic, right? Rather, I think YIYBY mostly doesn’t make sense because YIMBY people are trying to convince people that they should allow development in their neighborhood. Zoning rules… I mean, they have difference policies for changing them, but YIMBY activists aren’t usually manually and unilaterally changing them for other people. Ultimately the decision making process is probably (depending on local regulation of course) “yes or no in our back yards,” when you get down to the details.