But Brian, why do we assume that house owners have strong economic interests at all behind their nimby-ism? I know I'm a NIMBY by nature (luckily I don't live in a place where it would matter), but my stance does not depend on my economic understanding of things (which is weak). It's pure visual preference. I'm not planning to sell my re…
But Brian, why do we assume that house owners have strong economic interests at all behind their nimby-ism? I know I'm a NIMBY by nature (luckily I don't live in a place where it would matter), but my stance does not depend on my economic understanding of things (which is weak). It's pure visual preference. I'm not planning to sell my real-estate. But should the "historical milieu saving" restrictions in my part of town be lifted and new high-rises get built around my house, I would be forced to sell and move to another place, losing a lot of value (whatever it is - costs of moving, having to live father away from workplace, loss of the garden that I've been cultivating for many years and that is just starting to reach maturity). I'd have to move because my visual preferences for the surroundings are very strong. A large percentage of the people inhabiting this part of town are like me - they came for the romantic surroundings (it's not extremely beautiful, but it's kind of romantically old and slummy). They would all have to go. The cost of apartments is not what they care about when they discuss building restrictions.
I have no idea why you think you would lose your garden. If it’s on your property you would still have your garden.
The only thing you would lose with some moderate upzoning is the ability to control your neighbor’s property (which you should have never had to begin with). Your post is 100% strawman. Cringe.
No-no, I actually honestly would probably sell my garden along with the apartment and find another place in a romantic neighborhood (I wouldn't have money to buy a new place and also keep the garden). But I don't mean that just whatever new building gets built would be too much for me. It would have to a number of houses quite big and really ugly, visible from my yard, to drive me out. I'm a bit confused why you don't believe it? Wouldn't you move away if you neighborhood got too ugly for you to tolerate?
I wouldn't like that garden any more. When I look around in the garden, I can see the big picture, which includes the surrounding ugly structures. The picture will turn ugly. I would lose a great part of my interest in gardening there, knowing that this scene will never look pretty again.
I suspect you generally don't look at visual scenes as whole large pictures, right? You will take them apart and concentrate at different parts separately. This is a totally good and legitimate way of doing it, but I suspect that neither of us can easily switch from being large-picture viewer to a separate part viewer, or vice versa.
Why do you expect to have control over other people's property, just to satisfy your aesthetic preferences? You can move away if you don't like what your neighbors are doing.
The thing is that I do have such control - my town council's architecture department has a strong ideal of keeping historical parts of town intact and recognizable as historical parts (e.g. can't build larger than other buildings in the area, old buildings can be demolished only if they're not mendable any more, etc). If inhabitants of the area don't like a new building project they can offer arguments why it should be changed, and a committee of architects will decide the result. If I didn't have such control over my neighbors I would absolutely have to move, with large costs to myself. Since I can, I use my control. Also, my neighbors and the town council have similar control over me. Should I decide to build another house on my plot and rent it out, they may object and ban it. Now, should our town suddenly become insanely popular, everybody trying to move in, like SF, the town council may decide to overrule the architects and sacrifice the historical town parts to fit more people. Then I would lose my control over neighbors, they'd lose their control over me. The current situation, however, doesn't necessitate such a measure.
All I wanted to say was that economic considerations may not dominate NIMBY sentiments, at least not everywhere. These can be esthetic, or a yearning for peaceful traffic for young kids to safely move around on their own, or whatever.
Sounds like 'might makes right'; not a great system.
I agree with you that NIMBYs are primarily concerned with neighborhood character instead of property values, and I think survey evidence would prove this.
About the 'might' question, we all in the neighborhood have equal might and the town council is mightier above us all. I'm sure you generally agree that it's a good system when inhabitants of a place, e.g. a dorm room or a Mars colony, agree on some basic rules everybody should follow and then enforce these? I wouldn't call this 'might makes right'.
If the environment was to change drastically (e.g. our population grew 100-fold) then keeping these rules would become silly and they'd be changed.
But Brian, why do we assume that house owners have strong economic interests at all behind their nimby-ism? I know I'm a NIMBY by nature (luckily I don't live in a place where it would matter), but my stance does not depend on my economic understanding of things (which is weak). It's pure visual preference. I'm not planning to sell my real-estate. But should the "historical milieu saving" restrictions in my part of town be lifted and new high-rises get built around my house, I would be forced to sell and move to another place, losing a lot of value (whatever it is - costs of moving, having to live father away from workplace, loss of the garden that I've been cultivating for many years and that is just starting to reach maturity). I'd have to move because my visual preferences for the surroundings are very strong. A large percentage of the people inhabiting this part of town are like me - they came for the romantic surroundings (it's not extremely beautiful, but it's kind of romantically old and slummy). They would all have to go. The cost of apartments is not what they care about when they discuss building restrictions.
Your definition of "economic" is too narrow.
Right, but I think the host was talking about this narrow meaning of economic ignorance.
Maybe NIMBYs would let up if architects stopped designing ugly projects
They would, at lest in a large part, I'm sure. The situation with ugly projects is a great mystery of our time.
I have no idea why you think you would lose your garden. If it’s on your property you would still have your garden.
The only thing you would lose with some moderate upzoning is the ability to control your neighbor’s property (which you should have never had to begin with). Your post is 100% strawman. Cringe.
No-no, I actually honestly would probably sell my garden along with the apartment and find another place in a romantic neighborhood (I wouldn't have money to buy a new place and also keep the garden). But I don't mean that just whatever new building gets built would be too much for me. It would have to a number of houses quite big and really ugly, visible from my yard, to drive me out. I'm a bit confused why you don't believe it? Wouldn't you move away if you neighborhood got too ugly for you to tolerate?
How does the sight of other buildings inhibit your ability to garden?
I wouldn't like that garden any more. When I look around in the garden, I can see the big picture, which includes the surrounding ugly structures. The picture will turn ugly. I would lose a great part of my interest in gardening there, knowing that this scene will never look pretty again.
I suspect you generally don't look at visual scenes as whole large pictures, right? You will take them apart and concentrate at different parts separately. This is a totally good and legitimate way of doing it, but I suspect that neither of us can easily switch from being large-picture viewer to a separate part viewer, or vice versa.
Why do you expect to have control over other people's property, just to satisfy your aesthetic preferences? You can move away if you don't like what your neighbors are doing.
The thing is that I do have such control - my town council's architecture department has a strong ideal of keeping historical parts of town intact and recognizable as historical parts (e.g. can't build larger than other buildings in the area, old buildings can be demolished only if they're not mendable any more, etc). If inhabitants of the area don't like a new building project they can offer arguments why it should be changed, and a committee of architects will decide the result. If I didn't have such control over my neighbors I would absolutely have to move, with large costs to myself. Since I can, I use my control. Also, my neighbors and the town council have similar control over me. Should I decide to build another house on my plot and rent it out, they may object and ban it. Now, should our town suddenly become insanely popular, everybody trying to move in, like SF, the town council may decide to overrule the architects and sacrifice the historical town parts to fit more people. Then I would lose my control over neighbors, they'd lose their control over me. The current situation, however, doesn't necessitate such a measure.
All I wanted to say was that economic considerations may not dominate NIMBY sentiments, at least not everywhere. These can be esthetic, or a yearning for peaceful traffic for young kids to safely move around on their own, or whatever.
Sounds like 'might makes right'; not a great system.
I agree with you that NIMBYs are primarily concerned with neighborhood character instead of property values, and I think survey evidence would prove this.
About the 'might' question, we all in the neighborhood have equal might and the town council is mightier above us all. I'm sure you generally agree that it's a good system when inhabitants of a place, e.g. a dorm room or a Mars colony, agree on some basic rules everybody should follow and then enforce these? I wouldn't call this 'might makes right'.
If the environment was to change drastically (e.g. our population grew 100-fold) then keeping these rules would become silly and they'd be changed.