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Comment by sethherr

8 hours ago

You clarified it wasn’t “never change NIMBYism” - was it a case of just changes I don’t like NIMBYism?

As I understand it, NIMBYism is "don't ever build anything anywhere in the neighborhood/town", not "don't build in this one spot we all really like". As I said, there are tons of other buildings going up over town.

  • Exactly. The "my" in "my backyard" can apply to everyone therefore nothing gets built. The alternative is everything gets built. There has to be a middle ground, which is what zoning laws are meant to accomplish. We have buildings and multi-family housing going up in our town too, but we also have historically-protected buildings on the main street that require some more work if you want to do stuff with them. This is a good balance.

    • Zoning laws accomplished what they were intended to do, which was to enforce economic and racial segregation by preventing new affordable housing from being built near areas of opportunity. I don't think anybody working on housing affordability thinks this is a good balance, and the trend is sharply towards rolling these rules back. Apropos this particular thread I think it's notable that the most popular way of accomplishing that is to remove home rule authority for municipalities on zoning minimums and re-vesting that power exclusively in the state, which can't be mugged by local special interest groups spawn camping public comment opportunities.

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  • It's literally "don't build on this one spot I really like". It's in the name!

    • I didn't know that the acronym was NITOSIRL. Sure seems like a weird way to spell NIMBY, but who am I to judge?