NIMBY needs a lot of defending

NIMBY stands for Not In My Backyard. It’s often employed as a shaming tool to portray those unwilling to turn their neighborhoods over to developers as selfish or even racist. It’s a weapon in efforts to plow through zoning laws put in place to preserve a sense of community and the comfort of continuity.

Some peddlers of builders’ interests try to blame the defense of neighborhoods on snotty liberals. This boobery reached a pinnacle in a Wall Street Journal piece titled “How Zoning Ruined the Housing Market in Blue-State America.” Yoni Applebaum writes that “three generations of progressive reformers ... have created a regulatory regime in much of the country that has made it extraordinarily difficult to build new housing where it is needed most.”

He goes on: “When we stop building homes where people want to live, Americans lose the chance to move toward opportunity.” How’s that for a guilt trip?

But let us deconstruct. Why are blue states places of opportunity and, by implication, red states are not? Texas would reject that claim, though it should be noted, its fastest-growing cities — Houston, Dallas and Austin — consistently vote Democratic. 

Perhaps movers and shakers care about rules that enforce a quality of life. Perhaps they value colleges, public transportation, cultural institutions. 

The very expensive blue-state cities are expensive for reasons other than zoning restrictions. San Francisco is hemmed in by water on three sides. Four of New York City’s boroughs are on islands, with only The Bronx attached to the continent. Neither has wide prairies to spread housing out into. 

Despite zoning, the skies over Manhattan are now filled with cranes helping construct enormously tall buildings. Lots of them are for new apartments, few of which anyone would call “affordable housing.” And the buildings they are taking down are often the five-story walk-ups or low industrial buildings where blue-collar people actually live and work. Zoning can help preserve walk-ups with fire escapes as well as historically significant town houses.

The walk-ups not only provide something approximating affordable housing, but they also rent street-level storefronts to toy shops, florists and dry cleaners that contribute to the quality of urban life. Yet the developers trying to change the rules hide their motives by slapping the NIMBY label on their defenders.

The notion that we must provide housing “where people want to live” is an interesting one. I’d like to live in Palm Beach. Where’s my affordable condo?

A billion people probably want to live in New York City. Shall we hire a developer to build a forest of giant towers on that underutilized piece of land called Central Park? 

And what about Paris? Imagine how “affordable” the City of Light would become if you leveled all those 18th-century mansions in the 7th Arrondissement and put in 30-story apartment houses. Such an argument would be laughed out of the room in France. But they get a respectful hearing in this country.

Look. Not everyone can afford to live in Santa Monica — or wants to sacrifice other material desires to pay for housing there. But this is a big country. There are wonderful towns and cities across the heartland with low house prices and good schools. 

Johnny Carson made Canarsie a punchline on “The Tonight Show.” But wanna-be New Yorkers feeling priced out of other parts of town have been moving to this polluted, blue-collar corner of Brooklyn and fixing the modest houses. 

The long-time neighbors want to preserve the blue-collar charm. Developers who want to tear it all down will undoubtedly throw out the NIMBY label to bring the preservationists to heel. The locals can tell them to pound sand.

Follow Froma Harrop on X @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at [email protected]. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2025 CREATORS.COM