Comment by darkwater
14 days ago
It's this really YIMBY or actually YIYBY ? It's difficult to tell checking the whole website.
Edit to be more explicit: are the people that sent/asked to send the 2 letters to the City Council residents of Rancho Palos Verdes?
If you're going to invent the term YIYBY are you willing to acknowledge far more NIYBY than NIMBY behavior?
I'm not saying I'm favor of NIMBY - it depends on what's actually going on - but I would expect that there might be a lobby of constructors, rather than citizens looking to lower house prices, behind such an effort.
Barring eminent domain, YIYBY is impossible. It's always YIMBY.
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.
> 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?
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>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.
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More housing in the next town over helps everyone looking for a house in the surrounding towns. We all share a backyard called earth.
I don't know, does new housing or municipal services get built in anyone's literal backyard? So it's not Your or My Backyard, really.
NIMBYism has always been about nosy people obstructing progress.
"in my/your backyard" is a very old and pretty common idiomatic phrase that refers to the general area you live in (neighborhood, town, city, etc).
It should really be called NIYBY-ism.
Literal NIMBY-ism, where the backyard is one's own property, is just straightforward property rights. They want to control other people's property and tell them what they can and can't do with it. That's basically communism.
It's actually about people not wanting the largest investment of their life to change in ways they don't like.
Two comments about this... - "Housing as investment" might not be the best policy - Side effect of above, people have strong incentive to ignore all the negative externalities caused by that policy (ie, sprawl and lots of car mileage when society would better with more compact towns)
Trying to find the amendment in the bill of rights that guarantees your investment will go up. Can you point it out to me?
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"House as investment" is a terrible outcome of the North American housing market.
“I invested a lot of money in something and my ROI is literally more important than anything else.”
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Casting shadow on their backyard. Bringing noise to their street. Ultimately, lowering the value of their property.
The key problem of US housing is that a house is seen as an investment vehicle, which should appreciate, or at least appreciate no slower than inflation. Keeping prices high and rising can't but go hand in hand with keeping supply scarce.
Ultimately, lowering the value of their property.
Is this regularly true? IME, in Northern VA, land values have always increased with infill development. Thinking specifically of Arlington in the Courthouse/Ballston/Clarendon strip in the 90s and 00s. And now Reston.
Traffic and noise concerns might be legitimate, but I'm not buying the loss of value argument.
It's actually land that appreciates, which is why we should have a high land value tax and eliminate this extremely awful incentive.
If there's enough demand to build denser housing near your house, and that's allowed, your land is automatically worth more.
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Definitely YIYBY.