Every now and then I force myself to read a bit of NIMBY hysteria to remind myself what an uphill struggle I have, for example this vile outpouring in Saturday's Telegraph.
It's difficult deciding which of the commenters is the most misanthropic, but I'd guess this one:
The role of Government should be to stop such people wrecking the lives of others (1). And don't give me rubbish that it doesn't. More people crowded into an area (2) increases pollution (3), social tension (4), traffic (5), demand for services (6).
The upshot is that such development makes it easier to for the government to foist its social engineering disease (7) and reckless immigration (8) on everyone. Stifle supply of homes and you help the fight against population growth (9).
People who sell off their gardens are worse than the bankers involved in the credit crunch (10). I've met a lot of them - arrogant thoughtless types who trample over everyone (11).
OK, *deep breath*...
1. The NIMBYs are wrecking the lives of others - including the lives of their own children - by forcing them to pay twice as much for a house as it costs to build.
2. Houses don't make an area more crowded, people do. So what would happen if the number of houses in every village, town and city increased by ten per cent? People would just spread out a bit. If anything it would be less crowded, seeing as of how ninety per cent of the UK population is crammed on to about five per cent of the surface area.
3. Nope. If people were allowed to choose where to live, the chances are, they'd choose somewhere closer to where they work or their children's schools. Journey times would be shorter, pollution would go down.
4. Nope. If people didn't have to fight and scrimp and save to buy a measly little house, we'd be all the happier for it. People wouldn't have to worry about immigrants driving up the price of houses (I'm not even sure whether they do, but let's just assume they do). Social tension would go down.
5. See 3.
6. Houses don't create demand for services, people do. And who provides services? Er ... people. So even if liberalising planning laws led to more people living in a geographically defined area (which is not a necessarily the case, see 2), there'd also be more teachers, more coppers, more nurses etc living in that area. For example, London is ten per cent of the UK population and ten per cent of the schools and ten per cent of the hospitals.
7. The NIMBYs have their own special brand of social engineering, it's called "keeping the next generation within a few pence of bankruptcy".
8. WTF does that have to do with anything? These people would be NIMBYs even if there were a complete freeze on immigration.
9. So, when the government does it, it's "social engineering" (subtext: boo!) but then the NIMBYs quite coldly and deliberately say that the next generation shouldn't be troubling itself with getting married, buying a house (God forbid a new one!), starting a family; what they should be doing is vastly overpaying for the privilege of living in a one-bedroom flat so that they can devote their lives to servicing the needs of the established home-owner, that's not "social engineering" is it? These NIMBYs, the same people who wail about the "pensions timebomb"? Who is going to pay your pension, pray tell?
10. What sort of a comparative is that? These NIMBYs ought to be bloody grateful for the bankers who played a large part in driving up property prices to their current ridiculous level, but no, there's no concept of loyalty or gratitude or fairness on Planet Nimby.
11. Yeah right, and the NIMBYs are the sensitive, caring types who will always put their own interests last? NIMBYs don't even want their own children or grandchildren to be able to afford a house, let alone somebody else's.
And ... *exhale again*.
But It's Not A Person...
1 hour ago
9 comments:
"And while we appreciate the need to expand our housing stock, and to provide more affordable housing for young families, no one can be pleased at this result except the developers."
They're as bad as communists, aren't they? Maybe they should find a new Eisenstein to make a movie showing the Honest Proletariat Home Owner being oppressed by the Fat Cat Property Developer*
In 50 years, the total spending on food has gone down from something like 30% to close to 15%. That's where where the cars, plasma TVs, iPods, Laptops and foreign holidays come from. And it's bloody marvellous.
If only we could get people to imagine an even better future. One where we'd all sit around drinking wine as good as Chateau Latour with our dinner, or driving cars as good as a DB9 because we'd taken so much spending out of housing by liberating the price of land and leaving more in our pockets to buy better things or to develop better ways to give us Latour and DB9s.
Or you know, give us all the option to just live quite well and hardly work at all if that's what we wanted to do.
Thank christ we never had to get the permission of people to start the industrial revolution or to start building computers. We'd still be dying before we got to the age of 40.
Nothing to do with graditude, fairness etc, it's just their ego's.
They believe they made a shrewd investment and their brains conjure up the rest to keep them happy.
Guess what! wv - holly! no joke - merry Xmas!
"...there'd also be more teachers, more coppers, more nurses etc living in that area. "
Given the often woeful performance of all three of those groups, hidebound as they are by politically correct idealogy, and in threall to central direction, I'm not sure that's actually a plus point...
"For example, London is ten per cent of the UK population and ten per cent of the schools and ten per cent of the hospitals."
Not sure if London schools are brilliant example of why over crowding is not a problem. I went to one and I know what I am talking about.
MW,
Nice to see you have a Rant and a Fisk!
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They do have a point about overcrowding. To which, of course, the answer is to let towns and cities expand naturally into the countryside. The NIMBYs wouldn't like that though - they all live in the villages in the green belt.
By the way, it's the Telegraph not the Times.
OC, S_L, AC1, thanks.
JM, hmmm, that's sort of a side-issue.
Anon, I never said London schools were brilliant. If schools are better for being in the countryside, then let's build more schools and houses in the countryside AFAIC.
AC, first comment, agreed. Second comment, oops, I have amended.
There's loads of neo-Malthusianism in the papers article:
2) There's not enough land to house everyone! Really. I wonder what all that empty green stuff is then ?
4) More immigrants = more people making things = more wealth. i.e., wealth is produced faster than population grows by miles. It is never a fixed amount divided by the ever increasing population
Twats! Anyone see Attenborough on Horizon the other day. He was saying more or less the above. Wonder if he is a NIMBY ? He should be fired for blaming the young and poor for poverty and climate change(if its real) rather than antagonising the powerful interests that pay him and give him knighthoods
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