NIMBYism served a purpose once, says Scott Doyon, preventing all sorts of heinous projects from being built. But eventually, it became about stopping ALL change. Doyon has some recommendations for changing course.
Scott says that redirecting NIMBYs is firstly about regaining trust:
"You don't have to be a dyed in the wool treehugger, preservationist ideologue or evangelical New Urbanist to acknowledge that, more often than not, the past fifty years of growth and development has resulted in a downward trade. That is, what we've built has been inferior to whatever was lost."
So given that, why should locals trust the development process at all? Doyon explains that there are developers and city planners doing excellent work now and NIMBYs need to learn to "cowboy up and accept that that person is now your ally. Not your enemy."
Thanks to Hazel Borys
Read the full story: NIMBY Nation: Mad as hell and I don’t blame ‘em. For now.
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