We're All Complicit in Change—Now What?

Scott Doyon talks about people's reaction to the redevelopment of a beloved tavern in his city: "Reacting in oh-so-predictable knee-jerk fashion to the usual melange of click-baity headlines, insufficient detail, and news posts missing the nuance of the story, people went nuts."

"Evil developers! No respect for history! Density, density, density! No matter, I thought. The story will get clarified and people will come to recognize that, rather than a curse, what we’re witnessing is a blessing that will not only help endow the tavern’s next century, it will replace an acre of asphalt car storage with both people and neighborhood-serving commercial enterprise. In short, it will deliver all the things people keep saying they want."

"But I was wrong. Even as the story’s details got ironed out, people were still angry in ways I just couldn’t fathom."

Doyon goes on to talk about NIMBYs' frozen-in-amber delusion and how to navigate through to placemaking.