Taking backyard literally, this is exactly the opposite of what is happening. NIMBYs are concerned far beyond their property line. If someone owns land, they shouldn't be blocked from increasing density by someone who doesn't own that land.
It’s simply true by definition that everyone who wants to alter zoning rules - no matter how - is telling other people what should be in their backyard. To suggest otherwise is intellectually dishonest. Your drive to change building rules mostly affects other people.
...but that’s also how our system of government works, so just own it already.
What the OP is pointing out is the doublespeak nature of “YIMBY” as a rallying cry. Just be honest about what you want: unless you truly only care about what you can do with your property, what you really want is for other people to stop fighting development in their backyard, too.
Trying to frame this as a drive for personal choice misses the point of the debate: the other side doesn’t care what you do in your backyard, but they sure as hell don’t want it affecting theirs.
(Nothing I’m saying here is advocating for a side in this argument. If you’re downvoting me reflexively because you think I’m being “NIMBY”, you’re blinded by ideology.)
I do not think that is distinct to YIMBYs. I am forced to live with the externalities of high housing prices (3400 for a 900 sq.ft 2 bed room), lower freedom to utilize personal property (land), high homeless population, and cities you need a car to live in. Both ways will have externalities. I do not think I was dishonest about why anyone would oppose this.
I own property in another city and it is bat shit to me that you can not build freely on your land. The people filing lawsuits about their view or forcing environmental impact studies (when it doesn't matter) need to get smacked back to their property lines. If they don't like it, they can buy the land they want to control. If they don't have enough money for that, tough.
Once again: you’re arguing against something that I’m not saying. In fact, you’re making my point: the changes you want to make affect other people. That’s why they disagree with you.
The “YIMBY movement” starts with a terrible, condescending name that implicitly mocks the other side. It’s as if the GOP changed it’s name to the “anti-libtard party”.
Why should the people with the money and power listen to you when you position yourselves only as opposition to a cartoon version of what they believe?
Also: every city in the world restricts what you can do with property you own. You can’t build a radioactive waste site in your backyard, or a pork rendering plant in your garage. Get over it.
I don't want to build a pork farm, I want some higher density housing so that I pay less in rent. This isn't an extreme thing.
I am also a rich person and have heard some very dumb excuses as to why my colleagues' neighborhoods should stay zoned single family. From traffic to character. In the end, people are just preserving their home values at the expense of others and it is not a sustainable system. That motivation is misguided though, their million dollar plot of land is still going to be worth a million dollars with a duplex on it.
If I'm a homeowner/landowner who wants to build a condo complex on my land to profit from increased demand, zoning laws don't allow me to. On my own land. YIMBY seems accurate to me.
I can build those things on land zoned for those things, as long as I pass safety regulations, pay taxes and registration fees etc. The neighboring foundry can't say "Don't let them build a more efficient foundry next door because it'll change the character of this industrial park." (or if they can, that's a terrible place to do business)
For what it's worth I'm a homeowner and landlord who is strongly in favor of building more housing to bring down the cost of housing. It's not in my immediate economic best interest to see lower rents, but it's what our city needs.
(I own a two-family house in Somerville MA, and we rent out the first floor unit and part of our unit as well.)
You have a point, but I think the idea behind the "My" part is that this group has made a commitment that housing is so important that they're willing to be less picky even about things in their own backyard, in recognition of the seriousness of the problem.
So I’m for more building in the Bay Area and in SF. I’m for a denser SF, denser downtowns and business districts of the many Bay Area cities.
...But, you have s point. Some activists want to steamroll any and everyone. They want to go into residential neighborhoods and remake them into SoMa or Van Ness; they're often not saying, yes build in my SoMa, The Mission BkYd, no, they're saying, hey you over there with the yard, we wanna build over there! There are lots of areas prime for infill. You don’t have to go disturbing traditionally single-family-home neighborhoods and reshape them into your image.
I'm saying don't force people to change the char of their neighborhoods. If it's dense now, don't try to make it into single-family-homes. If it's single-family-homes, don't try to turn it into multi-family-housing units.
People only say that when things go their way, otherwise the claim all kinds of things. Tyranny of majority or it was the boomers' fault, or homeowners interests, among other things.
I'd say that's mostly reasonable, with some exceptions. Some BaRT stations are hemmed in in tight places and it would make things horrible. But overall, generally for a plurality of stations 6-10 in the city, 4-8 in the 'burbs.
If you want to have more people in the same area then the density has to increase somewhere. You can’t increase the number of households without somewhere becoming more dense then it was.
