Why ugly buildings create NIMBYism

Post by downrightmike » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 4:57 PM UTC

PeterStuer wrote: post #5

It is not complicated. People buy a property because they like to live in that location. If you are going to drastically change that environment, you destroy the very reason they liked it so much they made it the biggest purchase of their life.

Post by davidw » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 5:04 PM UTC

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #6

davidw wrote: post #2

I'm skeptical. People seem to complain most of all because 1) they view the function of a city as moving and storing automobiles and anything that might hypothetically get in the way of that is bad ("we should only build these homes if they come with a massive amount of parking and generate no traffic!") or 2) just plain aversion to change, which is more understandable. That doesn't mean we shouldn't push for things…

> 1) they view the function of a city as moving and storing automobiles and anything that might hypothetically get in the way of that is bad ("we should only build these homes if they come with a massive amount of parking and generate no traffic!") Imagine it's a thousand years ago and some cardinal is hearing a dispute between some guild representative and some local lord or something. The parties will invariably ap…

Post by davidw » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 5:09 PM UTC

BenFranklin100 wrote: post #9

I’ve sat through enough city public hearings to know what the author claims isn’t true. People don’t care if the building is gorgeous; they will still oppose it simply because they hate new homes in their neighborhood. If making the building beautiful significantly helped getting through zoning reviews, developers would have figured this out long ago. Aside: the reasons new buildings are bland is because no two peopl…

Post by timschmidt » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 5:12 PM UTC

graemep wrote: post #10

frantathefranta wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think NIMBYism around the world is often "to keep out the poors", they don't have to be black. Slots in my theory that a lot of racism is just classism.

My understanding of racism in the US is that it is more like caste in India than like class in Britain, for example. The big difference is that you are defined by your ancestry so there is little to no mobility. This seems to be confirmed by the way Americans seem to regard someone's race as a fundamental and immutable characteristic, even while intellectually accepting race is just defined by social convention.

Post by PeterStuer » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 5:17 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #17

PeterStuer wrote: post #5

It is not complicated. People buy a property because they like to live in that location. If you are going to drastically change that environment, you destroy the very reason they liked it so much they made it the biggest purchase of their life.

"Destroy" - see, that's the kind of rhetoric we hear when it turns out they're building like a small apartment building or something. Change happens one way or another. If a place has 10 homes and 100 people want to live there, you can either 1) build more homes or 2) see the 10 wealthiest of those 100 people eventually get the housing in that place. Both are pretty significant change, just one is more visible becaus…