Is being a NIMBY a bad thing?

Worthington Alliance for Responsible Development (WARD) is a group of neighbors and residents who promote responsible development. I have more than a decade experience with WARD. They have never opposed any reasonable development. They also figured out a long time ago they needed to be actively involved in local government to ensure irresponsible develop doesn’t get rubber-stamp approval from the city (namely, for 5+ story apartments and 600+ units to be built on a relatively small parcel).

WARD did the responsible thing by starting a PAC. Anyone can review their records and see what kind of political activity they have been involved with (spoiler alert: it’s not much).

In contrast, Building Worthington’s Future (BWF) had a PAC and subsequently closed the PAC so they could incorporate as a 501c4 organization – a nonprofit designation that allows lobbying and political involvement without any political financial reporting.

In recent social media posts, pro-profit development individuals use the term NIMBY - mainly to rally against WARD. I guess NIMBY is supposed to be a bad word. But why?

In this context, we can break down NIMBY into two types.

Type 1 is the NIMBY who wants responsible development and wants to protect their own property against hyperdense housing.

For example, I live in a residential neighborhood with multi-family housing next to me and 2-story apartments adjacent to me, because that’s what my zone allows. Why would I want a 4-story or 5-story building next to mine? It would be inconsistent with the neighborhood.

Type 2 is the NIMBY who wants to protect the zoning map to keep residential areas residential with consistent density within a zone.

For example, why would I want a machine shop or factory or car dealer next to my house? It doesn’t make sense.

So that brings us to the more altruistic question of how much density do we want city-wide, and where do we put it. You can read my articles about these topics on my blogs.