7 ms·

Attack of the Fifty-Foot NIMBYs

106 points by jmias 14y ago

jawns 14y ago
Also frustrating is when a local municipality lowers the speed limit on a section of highway that runs through it to produce a speed trap, as a way of generating revenue.
- JoeAltmaier 14y ago
  I've wondered if having dendritic, branching neighborhood streets would stop the issue. Main highways would be bigger; all roads leading to neighborhoods would end in cul-de-sac. Only residents and visitors would ever drive into neighborhoods. Its a minima of road-per-house, thus a minima of cost. More greenspace, quieter neighborhoods. This American habit of gridding roads everywhere has a huge impact on quality-of-life, costs a bundle, and stems from what? Some surveyors' sense of symmetry?
guylhem 14y ago
Excellent analysis of the situation - very interesting and could be with other consequences and applications, whenever the minority can be the one to both benefit on, propose, and vote on a change that the majority will have to bear and pay - all the while using a false pretense like safety. The proposed solution to study the consequences could also be returned and simplified - to mesure the impact of the proposed changed on property value and to refuse by default any change that would raise it. (the best way would be to accept changes that increase the global utility, but it might be hard to measure - giving a number to the increased property value would be hard, but giving a number due to lost time due to lower speeds or other inconveniences would be even harder)
- guylhem 14y ago
  Wow that's luck - just when I was browsing around I found the perfect analysis on overcoming bias : senior voters and their healtcare - paid for by the majority, but since seniors vote more, they favour the candidate serving their interest - at the expanse of the majority http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/09/us-politics-of-medicine.html#more-30008 http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/09/us-politics-of-medicin... Very interesting indeed- it seems to be the simplest pitfall of democracy : when the repartition of voters becomes detached from the repartition of the consequences and advantages.
  - edoloughlin 14y ago
    > senior voters and their healtcare - paid for by the majority, but since seniors vote more, they favour the candidate serving their interest - at the expanse of the majority It's difficult to see how this is at the expense of the majority since it's not exclusive: the majority will eventually become members of the beneficial group. I.e., why not have a policy that benefits the elderly since most of us will one day be elderly?
    - prakashk 14y ago
      Also, overall health situation tends to deteriorate as one ages, so seniors as a group would need more healthcare dollars per capita compared to the younger population groups. No wonder healthcare becomes one of the most important issues for seniors.
      - guylhem 14y ago
        No- healthcare is an investment with a negative interest rate, ie you can only try to maintain your capital if you keep investing more and more - with a diminishing return since it ends in death anyway (with the current technology) In this specific case, a better investment strategy is to put the money where you will get the most of it, i.e. on the health of people still young, and reduce the investment as the people age.
        kghose 14y ago
        I don't know about the economic soundness of the argument, but it is so cold hearted that I would immediately emigrate from any country where this was the driving force behind government policy.
        Evbn 14y ago
        And I am so coldhearted that I would emigrate from any country with this policy, when I get old.
        14y ago
AnthonyMouse 14y ago
The analysis is reasonable overall, but trying to distinguish between "good" and "bad" NIMBYs is a pretty serious flaw. You have to put halfway houses and power plants somewhere. Those NIMBYs are still stealing from other people, they're just stealing from the residents of some other place whose residents have less free time or political capital to prevent something that lowers property values from being constructed in their neighborhood. Or they're again stealing from society at large if they prevent such things from being built at all. In either case they create a societal cost by adding the cost of the fight to the cost of building necessary things.
- cturner 14y ago
  The OP and your post have the word 'stealing' in. It's an incorrect use of the word. It's not hard to find respectactable nimby cases. What if someone wanted to pub a pub at the end of your street? You are not a drinker, and you object to the prospect of people stumbling down your street shouting at strange hours, leaving mess on your property and more chance of intoxicated drivers.
  - Turing_Machine 14y ago
    Neighborhood pubs/bars of the sort that are attended primarily by people in the neighborhood are actually beneficial to neighborhood security and quality of life. Anything that gets the people who actually live there out on the street, particularly in the nighttime hours, increases security. Our modern, sterile "city planning" where everything is separated and zoned off into their own areas is a huge factor in the decline of our quality of life. For an extensive treatment of this thesis, see the work of Jane Jacobs.
    - Evbn 14y ago
      Jacobs analysis doesn't extend to public drunkenness.
      - Turing_Machine 14y ago
raldi 14y ago
> Hmmm... anybody have a guess as to what they have in mind? I don't, actually. Anyone wanna clue me in?
- mhb 14y ago
  OK. What they have in mind is that what they think is an accurate representation of what is best for everyone and represents the majority's preference. So no need for further research or polls.
ff0066mote 14y ago
I read the whole article, but stopped taking it seriously at: "a vicious collection of roadblocks" I think it's fine for people to desire quieter neighborhoods in this era of high population density. I don't think that the people in all of those examples were pursuing change for the financial gain.
- rflrob 14y ago
  > I think it's fine for people to desire quieter neighborhoods in this era of high population density. I don't think that the people in all of those examples were pursuing change for the financial gain. It's fine for people to desire see things (either quiet ,increased property values, or both), but the point of the article as I see it is that they don't necessarily deserve to have them when it comes at the expense of even a mild cost to lots of people.
  - gammarator 14y ago
    "they don't necessarily deserve to have them when it comes at the expense of even a mild cost to lots of people." That argument has been used to justify demolishing inner-city neighborhoods to make way for overhead freeways benefiting suburban commuters.
- natrius 14y ago
  Roadblocks make one part of a neighborhood quieter at the expense of another part. They also make traffic worse, which increases wasted time and pollution. If enough of those policies get implemented, people will find it too hard to get to downtown Palo Alto, and the shops that make it attractive to live there in the first place will suffer. Policymaking based on parochial interests without regard to the effect those policies have on the rest of a city tends to be a bad strategy. Unfortunately, this is the status quo in many cities.
  - jamieb 14y ago
    On the other hand, I live at the bottom of a hill, 100ft from a traffic light. A new development opened up at the top of the hill, and now SUVs barrel down the hill at >50mph, see the green light, and accelerate. The speed limit is 25mph. So when I hear about communities in Palo Alto "viscously" blocking traffic, I wonder if perhaps they are simply attempting to return traffic levels that were present when they bought their houses to raise their children.
kiba 14y ago
Nuclear power plants are dangerous? I thought people might be NIMBY about coal power plants which kill more people each year than do nuclear plants.
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  It's more about property values and image than livability. A grisly murder in a house 30 years ago ("haunted house" effect) doesn't make a difference to people who live there now, but in many states you're required to disclose that detail (because of its effect on resale value).
lnanek2 14y ago
Ah, I'd always wondered what was with all the blocked off roads in California. This explains it.
michaelochurch 14y ago
High house prices are a moral and economic disaster, as the post-2008 recession has shown us. The problem at the root of NIMBY is that real estate prices and behaviors have a few positive-feedback loops: 1. Because real estate "always goes up", and because Americans are delusional in general and seem to have a housing fetish, people have the deluded belief that they aren't paying for housing but investing in something that will always appreciate. This mentality creates bubbles. By the way, we're still in a real estate bubble-- just in a valley of one, and the "star" locations have barely dipped (yet). 2. Because people have absurd quantities (often over 30% of income and 80% of wealth) of their resources invested in housing, they have strong economic incentives toward NIMBYism. If I were going to lose 50c/dollar on 90% of my net worth (assuming I had any, but that's another story... don't work for shitty startups, kids) because of a speed limit change, I'd be pretty pissed too. The real problem is not locational change (necessary) but overinvestment in an asset that is highly sensitive to such change. It's simply not wise to invest 90% of your wealth in an asset whose value can plummet because some piece of shit decides to clear-cut a nearby hill and ruin your view... but some people have no other choice because housing is so stupidly expensive. 3. NIMBYism actually forces property values to stay high. Housing should be worth about $100-125 per square-foot, with about a 50-100% premium for top locations (urban areas) due to increased construction costs and reduced transportation costs (proximity to desirable places). Housing over $250/ft^2 would be an extreme anomaly were it not for outright regulatory corruption (read: NIMBY). However, due to the extreme price inelasticity of housing, even slight scarcities (1-2 percent) cause huge upward movements in prices. Hence the price levels observed in Manhattan and Silicon Valley. The end result of all this is that NIMBYism creates scarcity (due to transportation inefficiency and by retarding new development) that makes houses expensive, and that causes people to be economically extremely sensitive to real estate changes (which are out of their control) which causes more NIMBYism. It's also yet another generational fuck-over of which we're on the losing side, the assholes pulled the ladder up behind them. People also tend to inappropriately overvalue land, given how easily its value can be reduced to near-zero by nearby goings-on over which one has no control. For most land-- a very small set of trophy locations being excepted-- the value is a function of proximity and the fair value can be determined from transportation costs for an average working person in that area, and land would be pretty close to free (in comparison to the construction costs for the house itself) except for the artificial scarcity imposed by NIMBYism. It ends very badly. Bubbles, cultural rot, and urban decay. People associate expensive real estate with success, but the most expensive city (real estate wise) is Luanda, where more than half of the residents are in poverty. Moscow and Sao Paulo aren't cheap, either, even though those cities have massive poverty problems.
Anechoic 14y ago
I've been on both sides of public project hearings, representing proponents who want to build or expand a project, and project opponents who want to block or reduce the expansion of a project. NIMBYism is very real, from folks who may just oppose a project on principle unrelated to actual negative effects (I see this a lot on transit projects from folks who are just opposed to public transportation) to folks who may be uninformed. It can be extremely frustrating when I have the facts on my side (and even the experts on the other side agree with me), but there is still opposition based based on "feelings." That said, the public process in general (aside from NIMBYs) is necessary and useful. The most prominent example from my experience is the public opposition marshaled by Cambridge MA against the original "Scheme Z" Charles River crossing plan for the Big Dig. From an engineering point-of-view, it made perfect sense, but it would have been a hideous monstrosity that the city would have been stuck with for 50 years. The opposition made the project go back to the drawing board and resulted in the iconic Zakim bridge. The public process worked. In my own direct experience, there have been times when me or my team missed something on an analysis (we may have mistaken a home for a garage for example) and the public process makes us aware of that so we can properly account for impacts. It works. Yet the process can be hijacked by NIMBY's and if those opponents know who to work the politics, it can cause real problems. The problem is trying to separate the NIMBYs from the legitimate concerns. Planners and public staff have been trying to deal with this for decades with no real progress. If you eliminate the public process, you get the original Boston Central Artery where the state came in, bulldozed entire neighborhoods at pennies on the dollar, and constructed an eyesore that divided the city for decades. With the process, you get the Big Dig where a whole bunch of interests use Section 4(f), NEPA, MEPA, and Army Corp of Engineer regulations to blackmail the project into funding dozens of pet projects. This is definitely an area in need of disruption. If you have ideas, get them out there.
- forensic 14y ago
  Thanks for your comment. One thing I take away from what you said is that the solution to problems like this is BETTER government, not ZERO government. All the libertarians want to use any government problem as an excuse to just scrap the whole government. But you make it clear that the problem is not ALL government, the problem is BAD government, and government CAN be improved.
luser001 14y ago
I actually support "vicious" speedbumps. People regularly drive 40 mph on my road which has official speed limit of 25 mph. Instead of spending money policing main streets, I support draconian camera-driven enforcement on side streets. Make unmarked google-maps-like cars with high quality cameras and software. Park it on streets and watch for traffic. Send tickets remotely to speeders (equivalent to running a red light). Split revenue with the city. Hmm, maybe I should run this by my city council. :)
- TDL 14y ago
  Speed bumps are great up until you need an ambulance or fire truck to get to you quickly.
  - stuaxo 14y ago
    Here (UK) we have speed bumps that are narrow - cars hit the bump, buses ambulances and trucks hit the bump ... though cars in the US are pretty big, so not sure this would work.
    - TDL 14y ago
      The speed bumps that I've encountered in the U.S. typically take up as much of the street as possible. The UK example is interesting, but I think you are right about the cars here in the U.S.
  - dmckeon 14y ago
    If you have lower back issues, each speed bump is painful, no matter how slow you cross it. Also, barriers can make a neighbourhood arms race - street A gets speed bumps; traffic diverts to B & C, who get roundabouts; traffic diverts to D & E, which get pinch points; traffic diverts again, streets F, G, H & I become one-way; wash, rinse, repeat.
  - JoeAltmaier 14y ago
    You can ramp normal speed bumps pretty easily. Hit them at 35-40 and bah-bump you're over them. So its only the 'vicious' ones that have any effect at all.
sehugg 14y ago
I got lost when the author talked about moving the speed limit from 35 to 25 mph would increase property values by $100k. Seriously?
1veteran 14y ago
I love this HTML.* If only all the web could follow this simple way to convey information. CONTENT. Heck, that's what makes HN interesting. It's the lack of web developer fluff. Just text. CONTENT. *But why the reference to tags.js? Javascript is not used.
- dangrossman 14y ago
  It's a web stats program. Tags.js is sending the document URL and referrer back to some server, and injecting a click tracking script into the page.
  - 1veteran 14y ago
    That's assuming the user has js enabled. What I like about this is that it's just one line. No inline script (that would be just bloat for the user with js turned off.)
malandrew 14y ago
Am I the only one that finds it ironic that 90% of the examples of NIMBYism cited in this thread and the example cited in the original article revolve around cars? Cars are the epitomy of an externality and are inherently anti-community and anti-commons. A vehicle that can move at 20mph to 70+ mph and comes in contact with human beings (as opposed to being segregated from them by barriers or being buried underground like a train) can only ever be detrimental to the commons. Everyone with a car wants it to move slowly around their own neighborhood and fast through everyone else's.
- guylhem 14y ago
  I found a good example on seniors healthcare, while reading overcomingbias today. It hasn't been discussed that much in the thread. Maybe that's because of the political link of the issue? Then it's not a bad thing. Yet healthcare is the total opposite of anti-community !
  - malandrew 14y ago
    Yes and no. It's definitely an externality issue where one group robs another via voting power, but it's not NIMBYism because it doesn't involve "backyards"/neighborhoods.
    - guylhem 14y ago
      Define neighborhoods ie proximity on a time scale (age) instead of a geographic scale (backyards) and it seems like the exact same problem : a case where the voting density (voting power) function does not match the impacts function (who pays for what), with the cause of the externality being a proximity preference.
kenko 14y ago
"The origin of the NIMBY ("not in my back yard") is honorable. People would buy a home, planning to live and raise children in reasonable safety, when some agency of government decides to locate a halfway house or nuclear power plant nearby. When that happens, the homeowners' property value is reduced, so much so that they cannot even get their investment out and relocate to a safer place. Local residents needed to band together to fight the intrusion that would take from their assets and distribute the benefit among large numbers of other people." How in the world is that honorable? "No halfway house in my backyard" means "halfway house in someone else's backyard, please" (or "no halfway house at all, please").

106 points by jmias 14y ago

jawns 14y ago

Also frustrating is when a local municipality lowers the speed limit on a section of highway that runs through it to produce a speed trap, as a way of generating revenue.

JoeAltmaier 14y ago
I've wondered if having dendritic, branching neighborhood streets would stop the issue. Main highways would be bigger; all roads leading to neighborhoods would end in cul-de-sac. Only residents and visitors would ever drive into neighborhoods. Its a minima of road-per-house, thus a minima of cost. More greenspace, quieter neighborhoods. This American habit of gridding roads everywhere has a huge impact on quality-of-life, costs a bundle, and stems from what? Some surveyors' sense of symmetry?

guylhem 14y ago

Excellent analysis of the situation - very interesting and could be with other consequences and applications, whenever the minority can be the one to both benefit on, propose, and vote on a change that the majority will have to bear and pay - all the while using a false pretense like safety. The proposed solution to study the consequences could also be returned and simplified - to mesure the impact of the proposed changed on property value and to refuse by default any change that would raise it. (the best way would be to accept changes that increase the global utility, but it might be hard to measure - giving a number to the increased property value would be hard, but giving a number due to lost time due to lower speeds or other inconveniences would be even harder)

guylhem 14y ago
Wow that's luck - just when I was browsing around I found the perfect analysis on overcoming bias : senior voters and their healtcare - paid for by the majority, but since seniors vote more, they favour the candidate serving their interest - at the expanse of the majority http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/09/us-politics-of-medicine.html#more-30008 http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/09/us-politics-of-medicin... Very interesting indeed- it seems to be the simplest pitfall of democracy : when the repartition of voters becomes detached from the repartition of the consequences and advantages.
- edoloughlin 14y ago
  > senior voters and their healtcare - paid for by the majority, but since seniors vote more, they favour the candidate serving their interest - at the expanse of the majority It's difficult to see how this is at the expense of the majority since it's not exclusive: the majority will eventually become members of the beneficial group. I.e., why not have a policy that benefits the elderly since most of us will one day be elderly?
  - prakashk 14y ago
    Also, overall health situation tends to deteriorate as one ages, so seniors as a group would need more healthcare dollars per capita compared to the younger population groups. No wonder healthcare becomes one of the most important issues for seniors.
    - guylhem 14y ago
      No- healthcare is an investment with a negative interest rate, ie you can only try to maintain your capital if you keep investing more and more - with a diminishing return since it ends in death anyway (with the current technology) In this specific case, a better investment strategy is to put the money where you will get the most of it, i.e. on the health of people still young, and reduce the investment as the people age.
      - kghose 14y ago
        I don't know about the economic soundness of the argument, but it is so cold hearted that I would immediately emigrate from any country where this was the driving force behind government policy.
        Evbn 14y ago
        And I am so coldhearted that I would emigrate from any country with this policy, when I get old.
        14y ago

AnthonyMouse 14y ago

The analysis is reasonable overall, but trying to distinguish between "good" and "bad" NIMBYs is a pretty serious flaw. You have to put halfway houses and power plants somewhere. Those NIMBYs are still stealing from other people, they're just stealing from the residents of some other place whose residents have less free time or political capital to prevent something that lowers property values from being constructed in their neighborhood. Or they're again stealing from society at large if they prevent such things from being built at all. In either case they create a societal cost by adding the cost of the fight to the cost of building necessary things.

cturner 14y ago
The OP and your post have the word 'stealing' in. It's an incorrect use of the word. It's not hard to find respectactable nimby cases. What if someone wanted to pub a pub at the end of your street? You are not a drinker, and you object to the prospect of people stumbling down your street shouting at strange hours, leaving mess on your property and more chance of intoxicated drivers.
- Turing_Machine 14y ago
  Neighborhood pubs/bars of the sort that are attended primarily by people in the neighborhood are actually beneficial to neighborhood security and quality of life. Anything that gets the people who actually live there out on the street, particularly in the nighttime hours, increases security. Our modern, sterile "city planning" where everything is separated and zoned off into their own areas is a huge factor in the decline of our quality of life. For an extensive treatment of this thesis, see the work of Jane Jacobs.
  - Evbn 14y ago
    Jacobs analysis doesn't extend to public drunkenness.
    - Turing_Machine 14y ago

raldi 14y ago

> Hmmm... anybody have a guess as to what they have in mind? I don't, actually. Anyone wanna clue me in?

mhb 14y ago
OK. What they have in mind is that what they think is an accurate representation of what is best for everyone and represents the majority's preference. So no need for further research or polls.

ff0066mote 14y ago

I read the whole article, but stopped taking it seriously at: "a vicious collection of roadblocks" I think it's fine for people to desire quieter neighborhoods in this era of high population density. I don't think that the people in all of those examples were pursuing change for the financial gain.

rflrob 14y ago
> I think it's fine for people to desire quieter neighborhoods in this era of high population density. I don't think that the people in all of those examples were pursuing change for the financial gain. It's fine for people to desire see things (either quiet ,increased property values, or both), but the point of the article as I see it is that they don't necessarily deserve to have them when it comes at the expense of even a mild cost to lots of people.
- gammarator 14y ago
  "they don't necessarily deserve to have them when it comes at the expense of even a mild cost to lots of people." That argument has been used to justify demolishing inner-city neighborhoods to make way for overhead freeways benefiting suburban commuters.
natrius 14y ago
Roadblocks make one part of a neighborhood quieter at the expense of another part. They also make traffic worse, which increases wasted time and pollution. If enough of those policies get implemented, people will find it too hard to get to downtown Palo Alto, and the shops that make it attractive to live there in the first place will suffer. Policymaking based on parochial interests without regard to the effect those policies have on the rest of a city tends to be a bad strategy. Unfortunately, this is the status quo in many cities.
- jamieb 14y ago
  On the other hand, I live at the bottom of a hill, 100ft from a traffic light. A new development opened up at the top of the hill, and now SUVs barrel down the hill at >50mph, see the green light, and accelerate. The speed limit is 25mph. So when I hear about communities in Palo Alto "viscously" blocking traffic, I wonder if perhaps they are simply attempting to return traffic levels that were present when they bought their houses to raise their children.

kiba 14y ago

Nuclear power plants are dangerous? I thought people might be NIMBY about coal power plants which kill more people each year than do nuclear plants.

michaelochurch 14y ago
It's more about property values and image than livability. A grisly murder in a house 30 years ago ("haunted house" effect) doesn't make a difference to people who live there now, but in many states you're required to disclose that detail (because of its effect on resale value).

lnanek2 14y ago

Ah, I'd always wondered what was with all the blocked off roads in California. This explains it.

michaelochurch 14y ago

High house prices are a moral and economic disaster, as the post-2008 recession has shown us. The problem at the root of NIMBY is that real estate prices and behaviors have a few positive-feedback loops: 1. Because real estate "always goes up", and because Americans are delusional in general and seem to have a housing fetish, people have the deluded belief that they aren't paying for housing but investing in something that will always appreciate. This mentality creates bubbles. By the way, we're still in a real estate bubble-- just in a valley of one, and the "star" locations have barely dipped (yet). 2. Because people have absurd quantities (often over 30% of income and 80% of wealth) of their resources invested in housing, they have strong economic incentives toward NIMBYism. If I were going to lose 50c/dollar on 90% of my net worth (assuming I had any, but that's another story... don't work for shitty startups, kids) because of a speed limit change, I'd be pretty pissed too. The real problem is not locational change (necessary) but overinvestment in an asset that is highly sensitive to such change. It's simply not wise to invest 90% of your wealth in an asset whose value can plummet because some piece of shit decides to clear-cut a nearby hill and ruin your view... but some people have no other choice because housing is so stupidly expensive. 3. NIMBYism actually forces property values to stay high. Housing should be worth about $100-125 per square-foot, with about a 50-100% premium for top locations (urban areas) due to increased construction costs and reduced transportation costs (proximity to desirable places). Housing over $250/ft^2 would be an extreme anomaly were it not for outright regulatory corruption (read: NIMBY). However, due to the extreme price inelasticity of housing, even slight scarcities (1-2 percent) cause huge upward movements in prices. Hence the price levels observed in Manhattan and Silicon Valley. The end result of all this is that NIMBYism creates scarcity (due to transportation inefficiency and by retarding new development) that makes houses expensive, and that causes people to be economically extremely sensitive to real estate changes (which are out of their control) which causes more NIMBYism. It's also yet another generational fuck-over of which we're on the losing side, the assholes pulled the ladder up behind them. People also tend to inappropriately overvalue land, given how easily its value can be reduced to near-zero by nearby goings-on over which one has no control. For most land-- a very small set of trophy locations being excepted-- the value is a function of proximity and the fair value can be determined from transportation costs for an average working person in that area, and land would be pretty close to free (in comparison to the construction costs for the house itself) except for the artificial scarcity imposed by NIMBYism. It ends very badly. Bubbles, cultural rot, and urban decay. People associate expensive real estate with success, but the most expensive city (real estate wise) is Luanda, where more than half of the residents are in poverty. Moscow and Sao Paulo aren't cheap, either, even though those cities have massive poverty problems.

Anechoic 14y ago

I've been on both sides of public project hearings, representing proponents who want to build or expand a project, and project opponents who want to block or reduce the expansion of a project. NIMBYism is very real, from folks who may just oppose a project on principle unrelated to actual negative effects (I see this a lot on transit projects from folks who are just opposed to public transportation) to folks who may be uninformed. It can be extremely frustrating when I have the facts on my side (and even the experts on the other side agree with me), but there is still opposition based based on "feelings." That said, the public process in general (aside from NIMBYs) is necessary and useful. The most prominent example from my experience is the public opposition marshaled by Cambridge MA against the original "Scheme Z" Charles River crossing plan for the Big Dig. From an engineering point-of-view, it made perfect sense, but it would have been a hideous monstrosity that the city would have been stuck with for 50 years. The opposition made the project go back to the drawing board and resulted in the iconic Zakim bridge. The public process worked. In my own direct experience, there have been times when me or my team missed something on an analysis (we may have mistaken a home for a garage for example) and the public process makes us aware of that so we can properly account for impacts. It works. Yet the process can be hijacked by NIMBY's and if those opponents know who to work the politics, it can cause real problems. The problem is trying to separate the NIMBYs from the legitimate concerns. Planners and public staff have been trying to deal with this for decades with no real progress. If you eliminate the public process, you get the original Boston Central Artery where the state came in, bulldozed entire neighborhoods at pennies on the dollar, and constructed an eyesore that divided the city for decades. With the process, you get the Big Dig where a whole bunch of interests use Section 4(f), NEPA, MEPA, and Army Corp of Engineer regulations to blackmail the project into funding dozens of pet projects. This is definitely an area in need of disruption. If you have ideas, get them out there.

forensic 14y ago
Thanks for your comment. One thing I take away from what you said is that the solution to problems like this is BETTER government, not ZERO government. All the libertarians want to use any government problem as an excuse to just scrap the whole government. But you make it clear that the problem is not ALL government, the problem is BAD government, and government CAN be improved.

luser001 14y ago

I actually support "vicious" speedbumps. People regularly drive 40 mph on my road which has official speed limit of 25 mph. Instead of spending money policing main streets, I support draconian camera-driven enforcement on side streets. Make unmarked google-maps-like cars with high quality cameras and software. Park it on streets and watch for traffic. Send tickets remotely to speeders (equivalent to running a red light). Split revenue with the city. Hmm, maybe I should run this by my city council. :)

TDL 14y ago
Speed bumps are great up until you need an ambulance or fire truck to get to you quickly.
- stuaxo 14y ago
  Here (UK) we have speed bumps that are narrow - cars hit the bump, buses ambulances and trucks hit the bump ... though cars in the US are pretty big, so not sure this would work.
  - TDL 14y ago
    The speed bumps that I've encountered in the U.S. typically take up as much of the street as possible. The UK example is interesting, but I think you are right about the cars here in the U.S.
- dmckeon 14y ago
  If you have lower back issues, each speed bump is painful, no matter how slow you cross it. Also, barriers can make a neighbourhood arms race - street A gets speed bumps; traffic diverts to B & C, who get roundabouts; traffic diverts to D & E, which get pinch points; traffic diverts again, streets F, G, H & I become one-way; wash, rinse, repeat.
- JoeAltmaier 14y ago
  You can ramp normal speed bumps pretty easily. Hit them at 35-40 and bah-bump you're over them. So its only the 'vicious' ones that have any effect at all.

sehugg 14y ago

I got lost when the author talked about moving the speed limit from 35 to 25 mph would increase property values by $100k. Seriously?

1veteran 14y ago

I love this HTML.* If only all the web could follow this simple way to convey information. CONTENT. Heck, that's what makes HN interesting. It's the lack of web developer fluff. Just text. CONTENT. *But why the reference to tags.js? Javascript is not used.

dangrossman 14y ago
It's a web stats program. Tags.js is sending the document URL and referrer back to some server, and injecting a click tracking script into the page.
- 1veteran 14y ago
  That's assuming the user has js enabled. What I like about this is that it's just one line. No inline script (that would be just bloat for the user with js turned off.)

malandrew 14y ago

Am I the only one that finds it ironic that 90% of the examples of NIMBYism cited in this thread and the example cited in the original article revolve around cars? Cars are the epitomy of an externality and are inherently anti-community and anti-commons. A vehicle that can move at 20mph to 70+ mph and comes in contact with human beings (as opposed to being segregated from them by barriers or being buried underground like a train) can only ever be detrimental to the commons. Everyone with a car wants it to move slowly around their own neighborhood and fast through everyone else's.

guylhem 14y ago
I found a good example on seniors healthcare, while reading overcomingbias today. It hasn't been discussed that much in the thread. Maybe that's because of the political link of the issue? Then it's not a bad thing. Yet healthcare is the total opposite of anti-community !
- malandrew 14y ago
  Yes and no. It's definitely an externality issue where one group robs another via voting power, but it's not NIMBYism because it doesn't involve "backyards"/neighborhoods.
  - guylhem 14y ago
    Define neighborhoods ie proximity on a time scale (age) instead of a geographic scale (backyards) and it seems like the exact same problem : a case where the voting density (voting power) function does not match the impacts function (who pays for what), with the cause of the externality being a proximity preference.

kenko 14y ago

"The origin of the NIMBY ("not in my back yard") is honorable. People would buy a home, planning to live and raise children in reasonable safety, when some agency of government decides to locate a halfway house or nuclear power plant nearby. When that happens, the homeowners' property value is reduced, so much so that they cannot even get their investment out and relocate to a safer place. Local residents needed to band together to fight the intrusion that would take from their assets and distribute the benefit among large numbers of other people." How in the world is that honorable? "No halfway house in my backyard" means "halfway house in someone else's backyard, please" (or "no halfway house at all, please").