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Why ugly buildings create NIMBYism

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Re: Why ugly buildings create NIMBYism

#31

Post by nitwit005 »

The idea that people object to the removal of old structures because they're more attractive is easy to disprove. People have protested against the removal of structures that even they admit are ugly.

There have been protests against removing rusting oil storage tanks. Our "industrial heritage" apparently.

People just grow to accept the eyesores and start to think of them as part of the local identity. You can find complaints about how ugly the Eiffel tower was when it was built. Symbol of the city now.

Re: Why ugly buildings create NIMBYism

#32

Post by graemep »

davidw wrote: post #13
graemep wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NIMBYism happens in all sorts of places. Not just car oriented cities, or even just cities.

My experience is mostly with the car-oriented city I live in; I can't speak as much to what it might look like elsewhere.

Fair enough, just adding development of new housing in places I know is strongly opposed with the reasons given are things such as strains on existing local services, environmental impacts (e.g. on endangered or protected species), and lots of other things.

I do not think this is all NIMBYism, as I think some reasons are valid. it is also true that you cannot add a lot of population to some places without changing its character, and I do personally like living somewhere where I get recognised in local shops and third spaces and people say hello and/or smile at you on the streets quite often.

Re: Why ugly buildings create NIMBYism

#33

Post by FuriouslyAdrift »

davidw wrote: post #30
FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then the current residents leave before their investments (their homes) lose value and the neighborhood as a whole loses value (or turns into a slum). People vote with their feet and their wallets.

This is not actually a thing that happens because 'someone built an apartment building'.

Never heard of white flight, huh?

Re: Why ugly buildings create NIMBYism

#34

Post by graemep »

willy_k wrote: post #28
graemep wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends what you mean by fuzzy. it is culturally defined and people in different cultures use different definitions. Americans have whole categories not used in, for example, the UK (a very similar culture otherwise) such as "hispanic" which seems to include people I would call "white"? The same with people who are classified as "black" who look white. Americans now seem to use "caucasian" as a synonym for "white" wh…

When I wrote that I had in mind the idea of “mixed race” people. In the US it is very common for someone to identify as half black and half white, or one quarter Irish and three quarters Mexican, and so on. So, nuanced but not fuzzy, in that sense at least. But that is closer to ethnicity than race on second thought.

How do you define ethnicity and race? Apart from the ambiguous areas I do not think we all use the same definitions.

> In the US it is very common for someone to identify as half black and half white, or one quarter Irish and three quarters Mexican, and so on.

That is one of the things I find hardest to understand about American definitions. I would just think of someone like that as American (unless they are significantly culturally not American in some way). I just describe myself as mixed, or as from one of the two countries I am a citizen of (I have lived in both for significant chunks of my life and am influenced by both cultures but have little ancestry from either).

Re: Why ugly buildings create NIMBYism

#35

Post by pseudalopex »

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…

> 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.

I read enough of the article to know what you claimed they claimed was not what they claimed. The 2nd paragraph said Ugliness is probably not a major driver of opposition to development by local people. But there is strong circumstantial evidence that ugliness is sometimes a major driver of opposition among people who live nowhere near the development in question.

Many buildings are not ugly and not gorgeous.

> Aside: the reasons new buildings are bland is because no two people agree on what is ‘beautiful’; second, delays due to zoning and endless regulations already make it difficult for a project to pencil even before spending much money on the facade.

New buildings are bland or ugly because this costs less. Everyone's lists of beautiful buildings would differ by 1 at least could be true but is not relevant. It is impossible to design a building most people would not say is ugly would be relevant but is not true.

Re: Why ugly buildings create NIMBYism

#36

Post by gipp »

A whole lot of people in the comments who clearly didn't read the article, given the great lengths the author went to to distinguish NIMBYism (which most of the comments are about) from "NITBYism," i.e. historic conservationism which the article is actually about. Most of the objections being raised here are also points made in the article.

Of course all that's undermined by the choice to use NIMBY in the headline, which is perplexing.

Re: Why ugly buildings create NIMBYism

#38

Post by pseudalopex »

eigencoder wrote: post #37

A related article on NITBYism and the built environment, but from the perspective of modern finance and how financial instruments may increase the amount of ugly buildings. https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/you-probably-own...

The article required a subscription. And archives did not have it.

Re: Why ugly buildings create NIMBYism

#39

Post by jerlam »

BenFranklin100 wrote: post #19
davidw wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty frustrating to see the downvotes for someone who has actually been to housing hearings, something I doubt most people on this site have taken the time to do. This statement is accurate, too.

You find NIMBYs on Hacker News as well unfortunately.

Also a greater proportion of introverts and misanthropes.

Re: Why ugly buildings create NIMBYism

#40

Post by pseudalopex »

nitwit005 wrote: post #31

The idea that people object to the removal of old structures because they're more attractive is easy to disprove. People have protested against the removal of structures that even they admit are ugly. There have been protests against removing rusting oil storage tanks. Our "industrial heritage" apparently. People just grow to accept the eyesores and start to think of them as part of the local identity. You can find c…

Some people opposed removal of ugly structures because they had other significance does not prove no people opposed construction of ugly structures because they were ugly.
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