Comment by dghlsakjg
21 days ago
I always find this 'character' argument disingenuous.
The character of the neighbourhood is only invoked for perceived negative externalities. No one complains when the cracked sidewalks get repaved, or fiber internet lines replace slow copper, when increasing affluence mean that houses are better maintained, when a new sewer line allows people to remove septic tanks. That all changes the character of a neighbourhood, but never gets fought.
Go ahead and commit to the bit, lock in on the character in ALL ways: make sure you fight any alteration to any building, any change in the shade of paint should be fought! Your neighbour replacing their front door? Denied! Replacing a concrete driveway with pavers? unacceptable? Replacing incandescent bulbs with LED? Uncharacteristic! Increasing home values changing who can afford to live there? Not acceptable, gotta sell your home for what you paid to maintain the character!
> If someone moves into an area that is zoned for particular types of properties, then new zoning is imposed by outside fiat (not a vote of the people who live there) is not appropriate.
How small are we going to allow the "area" to be defined? Is it one vote per property owner, or one vote per resident? Can we call a block an area? Who decides the arbitrary boundaries? Do people living on the boundary line get to vote for projects in adjacent properties in adjacent jurisdictions?
Just call NIMBYism what it is, selfish justification for control of other people's property. Your position is - explicitly - that other people and property owners should be made less well off for your comfort. "The Character of the Neighbourhood" is a red herring.
> make sure you fight any alteration to any building, any change in the shade of paint should be fought!
You are now describing an HOA, which overlaps with NIMBYs.
HOA restrictions are at least more defensible than non-HOA NIMBYs. HOAs that don’t allow significant rule changes are reasonable, as you can understand up front what you are buying into. The problem is when HOA rules grow way beyond their original scope or become used as weapons in personal feuds.
> No one complains when the cracked sidewalks get repaved, or fiber internet lines replace slow copper, when increasing affluence mean that houses are better maintained, when a new sewer line allows people to remove septic tanks.
Not sure about the other two, but I've seen groups defending repairs of things that had been broken so long they had become "local institutions".
> Go ahead and commit to the bit, lock in on the character in ALL ways: make sure you fight any alteration to any building, any change in the shade of paint should be fought! Your neighbour replacing their front door? Denied! Replacing a concrete driveway with pavers? unacceptable? Replacing incandescent bulbs with LED? Uncharacteristic! Increasing home values changing who can afford to live there? Not acceptable, gotta sell your home for what you paid to maintain the character!
Buy a historical property in some jurisdictions at everything you listed would happen exactly as described, except maybe the sale price.
Doesn't seem disingenuous. Some places still have "character" in a world increasingly turning into the same strip malls and cookie cutter suburbs. In most small to mid size towns in the US, you can't really tell where you're at without reading signs. They all trend towards the same generic look with the same generic stores. Some towns fight this with varying degrees of success. But the Dollar Generals will not be stopped.
One example that springs to mind for me is Pasadena, CA and their trees. They are (or were) very NIMBY about things which would impact their trees. And I can't blame them. It's one of the few areas in the valley with significant shade thanks to their investment and protection of trees. Their roads were planned around mature existing trees instead of cutting them down as is so common. There's no doubt that Pasadena could have more dense housing if they cut down more trees to make room. It also doesn't seem at all disingenuous to feel like that would be a loss for the "character" of the city and a negative for the collective residents due to rising temperatures and loss of shade.
> Some places still have "character" in a world increasingly turning into the same strip malls and cookie cutter suburbs.
A huge reason for this is arguably NIMBYism. The reason that sort of thing exists is because suburbs very intentionally separate commercial from residential, and will not reconsider as things change. As a result, you end up with putting all the stores on busy roads, and they need parking lots since the people live so far away. All of the homes go in rigidly controlled neighborhoods that are both politically and physically difficult to change. Neighborhoods used to have stores interspersed, old ones, and ones in other countries still do. They don't anymore because we cluster buildings by use in North America, and especially in suburbs.
I'm highlighting the picking and choosing aspect.
Wanna keep everything the same? Sure, argue for that, but that isn't what "character" arguments are about. It is about claiming the things that you like as inside an arbitrary sacred protection line, and the things you don't as outside. Claiming maintaining character if you don't fight every single change is a way of painting over selfish interests in the name of the community. There's nothing wrong with selfish interest, but don't try to hide behind a claim that you are doing it for the greater good, or to preserve something indefinable.
E.g. I could just as easily argue that the "character" of a neighborhood is derived from the affordability and diverse socio-economic backgrounds of residents. Therefore densification, infill, reducing parking for transit lanes and other YIMBY efforts in advancement of those characteristics of the neighborhood are about preserving 'character'.
I'll also point out that your example seems to concern public preservation of nature, not restrictions on private property. There's a stronger argument there since it is a public good. Raising a stink about your neighbor wanting to build an inlaw suite, or - god forbid - a few townhomes, or multifamily housing on their lot is a whole other thing.
> I could just as easily argue that the "character" of a neighborhood is derived from the affordability and diverse socio-economic backgrounds of residents. Therefore densification, infill, reducing parking for transit lanes and other YIMBY efforts in advancement of those characteristics of the neighborhood are about preserving 'character'.
If you argue that the character of a neighborhood is based on all of those things, then keeping them the same would maintain the character. What you seem to advocate is for changing them, which is then changing the character.
> Raising a stink about your neighbor wanting to build an inlaw suite, or - god forbid - a few townhomes, or multifamily housing on their lot is a whole other thing.
If someone builds an apartment complex on land near mine, the builder it is not my "neighbor". The builder is an LLC that owns the land. They do not live there and do not care if traffic gets awful, crime goes up, or quality of life of the pre-existing neighbors gets worse. That's because they aren't our neighbor. They're an LLC.
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Ultimately it is selfish interest. Either because they literally have money invested or they are "losing" their childhood. But it's not disingenuous. It's how they actually feel. The area losing its "character" is an accurate description of that. It doesn't matter if I think or you think the mixed use zoning would vastly improve things long term. Doesn't matter how many studies are shown. Things will necessarily change in ways many people don't want and many times there are actual downsides for existing residents to make way for the new. Especially during transition periods.
None of these are arguments from me against new development or pushing past NIMBYs where they become intractable. But if development in Pasadena can maintain as much existing green space as possible and commit to building out more, it would be a lot palatable to the "natives". And I think it would lead to better results for future residents as well. I think it's okay that people want to live in a neighborhood full of quaint small family businesses and resist the Subway and the McDonald's and the Dollar General. But that's "NIMBY" too so where do you draw the line? We live in a capitalist society after all, and the only thing preventing these large mega-corporations from being absolutely everywhere are the few NIMBY willing to say no to it with the little power they have over their slice of the world.
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This is an excellent example of reductio ad absurdum. Well done!
Thank you.
Reductio ad absurdium is a logically valid ment technique to expose a fallacious argument. Since you aren't attacking my premises - is it safe to say that you accept the fallacy in your argument?
/s
I get what you're saying about my comment. But I stand by NIMBYism being essentially a selfish restriction on other's property rights, and 'character' arguments being window dressing for that.
> 'character' arguments being window dressing for that.
You think people don't care about what their neighborhood is like? Given the extraordinarily high costs of moving (thousands in moving costs, tens/hundreds of thousands in realtor fees, weeks of time and disruption, tens of thousands annually in property taxes if basis is reset), it is very understandable that people would care about their neighborhood not being drastically transformed (suburb to high-rises).
When I read the HN thread [1] about how upset people get by people in neighboring apts playing the TV too loud or smoking, it reinforced how much I don't want my neighbor's property to be transformed into an apt complex.
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46848415
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