I've put this week's Fun Online Poll on Xmas Pantomimes on hold for the time being to turn my attention to more serious matters.
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There's been lots of a-whoopin' and a hollerin' in Home-Owner-Ist circles over the Lib-Cons' new idea to allow NIMBYs to block all new development in their area. They disguise this affront to 'free market liberalism' as 'direct democracy'.
But why stop there? If 'local people' (i.e. homeowners) are allowed to prevent other people from building houses or starting up particular types of business, why not apply the same logic to cars? The people who complain most bitterly about all the traffic are car drivers, and one of the NIMBY mantras is that 'more housing will put pressure on parking spaces'. So why not make people apply to their local Neighbourhood Committee before they are allowed to buy a car and hence use a parking space?
The restrictions on new residential construction hit young couples hardest -buying your own home is all part of 'settling down' and a precursor to having children - so why not cut to the chase and make women apply to the Neighbourhood Committee for permission to have a baby? Don't NIMBYs always wail on about "Pressure on local schools?" Wouldn't reducing the number of children help relieve that pressure?
And having gone that far - deciding what type of businesses can be carried on, whether people are allowed to own the means to commute to other towns and how many children there should be - why not go the whole hog and allow the Neighbourhood Committes to decide what sort of education, training or job young people 'in their area' are allowed to do?
This is a dark and dangerous road - so cast your vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.
Cross posted at HPC.
Tuesday, 14 December 2010
[Intermission] The New Localism
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17 comments:
Yes, we went into this today. Zoning is quite bizarre in the UK.
"The people who complain most bitterly about all the traffic are car drivers, and one of the NIMBY mantras is that 'more housing will put pressure on parking spaces'. So why not make people apply to their local Neighbourhood Committee before they are allowed to buy a car and hence use a parking space?"
Closer to reality than you might think. One idea for some of the proposed new eco towns is that drivers will have to pay a toll to take their car out of the newly built housing estates.
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/Car-tolls-option--at.4259486.jp
http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/2366786.ecotown_map_includes_toll/
"-buying your own home is all part of 'settling down' and a precursor to having children -"
Come on Mark, that's pure Home-Ownerist propaganda - the young couple could always rent. Or are you being ironic?
JH, you mean the one I commented on?
QG, where it gets really nasty is when the NIMBYs make common cause with the Greenies.
B, it's not 'propaganda', it's a tradition in this country among the middle class (in the US American sense of 'middle class'). And a fine tradition it is too. The question is, is this tradition still for the benefit of the young couple, or have the Home-Owner-Ists just co-opted it as a way of squidging ever more money out of them?
Clearly I voted 'none of the above' and then got the Message.
Thing is, it's all right being libertarian, but it's not so much fun being one in isolation. If my neighbours were as libertarian as I am then they'd think responsibly about developments they propose on their land and how it might affect their neighbours. It's the 'responsibility' side of freedom.
Apply this and then 'planning controls' become a sort of dispute resolution system, as opposed to a bureaucratic rationing system.
It seems to me that this is missing, or been taken out of, 'localism'. For political advantage no doubt.
You libertarians are making light of this, as in the old expression "like the crackling of thorns under a pot." Given the kind of braindead authoritarians who go into local politics you could easily find yourself in an area run by popularly elected Islamic nutters or English Defence League nutters who would attempt to shut anything down they did n't like the looks of.Frinton, which does n't have either group ,has no pubs; Hampstead does n't have any chip shops.
The problem with local politics is dilution of talent: there are not that many able people about.It is best to let the talented ones have a large ambit. 0therwise you get penned in with the local delusionists.Letting local people run anything that affects me that I can't avoid is really frightening.
DBCR, Erm, Frinton does have a pub now (I am pretty sure), and what's more the 'gates' have gone and the high street is a shadow of its former Edwardian glory.
In any event I disagree about the shortage of local talent (!) if you see what I mean. The very disengagement from national politics might be reversed if people woke up to the fact that if they didn't take part they would end up with an Islamofascistnationalfrontgreenery council.
L, that's true. Luke 6:31 "Do unto others" and all that.
DBC, Ecclesiastes 7:6, nice one. Frinton is indeed a graveyard with lights (Walton on the Naze is where the fun people hang out).
I'm all in favour of 'local democracy', but what the Lib-Cons are fobbing off on us as 'local democracy' is merely 'the tyranny of the vocal minority'. It's a question of what the voting rules are. If it says "You can build what you like unless at least 51% of those who turn out to vote object" leads to quite a different result to "You can build what you like unless 51% of everybody eligible to vote object".
The ideal unit for local democratic decisions is of course the individual or the household, see what L says.
BDCR 'Complicated' just doesn't do justice to democracy.
DBC, don't blame me for 'majoritarianism'. That's the whole point of the Fun Online Poll, to ask where it will all end. But I still doubt that yer average elected police commissioner will be an extremist one way or another - in which I might be proved wrong.
S/he does n't have to be an extremist: just has to keep in with them.
Pickles is a genius. NIMBY's are the most stupid people ever to have lived.
Pickles is claiming to give power to the locals. Who have no money or buying power in reality.
Neither do the local authorities.
So the local constituents, without power will avail nothing, no matter how much spin you put on it.
Meanwhile Pickles has cemented the real power more solidly for his real constituents. The developers and land owning elites.
Have you notice how they bypass the local arena and lobby directly with parliament and above for housing numbers. And always get it!!! If they get denied permission they simply hire a more expensive lawyer and always win on appeal at enormous cots to the local authority and tax payer.
Nice one Jabba. Society in decline is your motto.
Nice one NIMBY's. You have once again chosen not to think.
RS - Surely you aren't implying that Pickles is gerrymandering the electorate? What, like 'right to buys' the last time they were in? No, surely not.
Lola:
Not sure if its that. Just that the locals will never have power until they can grasp hold of the purse strings no matter how much they object.
So we can only be critical of NIMBY's because they are cutting off their own nose.
Voted 'none of the above'; nearly voted no.1 until remembering that the nicest and most pleasant parts of most places is where they grew organically and without control resulting in leafy victorian inner cuburbs with just a few more modern buildings usually the result of bomb damage.
James Higham mentioned zoning. Since 'O' levels I've always considered Zoning to be the reason why state controls are THE reason for traffic congestion with the infantile insistance that you will live in these areas and work in those areas and play somewhere else.
B, thanks, exactly.
There's been lots of a-whoopin' and a hollerin' in Home-Owner-Ist circles over the Lib-Cons' new idea to allow NIMBYs to block all new development in their area.
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