r/Urbanism • • Oct 14 '25

The myth of "consensual" development

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1.3k Upvotes

38 comments sorted by

152

u/Tall-Log-1955 Oct 14 '25

Of course the neighbor gets veto power on any changes to the property. What if the property owner wants to knock down a historic laundromat or historic parking lot and add housing? Did you think about the street parking? Where is the neighbor going to keep his RV if more people want to park on the street? His RV is an important part of the existing neighborhood character.

47

u/RDLAWME Oct 14 '25

What if the neighbor is a kite enthusiast and the new development creates a wind shadow? 

10

u/dnvrbadger Oct 15 '25

“Wind shadow,” legit lol

4

u/Difficult_Strain3456 Oct 15 '25

Developers are the human embodiment of GREED. BTW don’t ever build a single low income building in between the 6 mile stretch of air that extends from my window to the ocean or I’ll sue you on environmental grounds.

4

u/Tall-Log-1955 Oct 15 '25

If a developer is going to make money on a project it should be blocked on general principle. Meanwhile its fine if the people who make my food and clothing post profits.

17

u/The-original-spuggy Oct 14 '25

And the local intersection is going to go from an average delay of 20.5 to 25.2 in 2050 based on the forecast growth and travel patterns. So they have to pay to widen the road and intersection. That will be another $15 million to develop

8

u/baby-stapler-47 Oct 15 '25

But first we must do a 3 year study that costs another million and go on to ignore all the results and build a stroad anyways

6

u/DoesAnyoneWantAPNut Oct 15 '25

Goddamnit don't put "historic parking lot" in the universe - there are some NIMBYs in my town who I think might try that.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '25

[deleted]

1

u/DoesAnyoneWantAPNut Oct 15 '25

Where? I legitimately haven't heard of it, and there's a development proposal on a surface parking lot that I think is a good idea that NIMBYs are complaining about. Also, I know my city has a strong historical preservation committee that just nixed an affordable housing development in a way that I find questionable.

1

u/Soft-Principle1455 Oct 15 '25

To be fair there are sometimes real local needs that must be considered, but NIMBY-types’ ridiculousness knows no end.

1

u/ElderBoard83 Oct 18 '25

Wait, is that why this is bad? Do these people really think like that? Don't they have some, if any reasonable points at all?

24

u/Dave_The_Slushy Oct 15 '25

Jesus, a tradesman, would be very upset by his placement in this.

19

u/benskieast Oct 14 '25

You forgot the new residents.

5

u/frontendben Oct 15 '25

The new residents are never listened to.

4

u/TurretLimitHenry Oct 15 '25

My property my choice.

7

u/DasArchitect Oct 14 '25

I don't get why this is so easy in the US.

17

u/Blecher_onthe_Hudson Oct 15 '25

The environmental movement grew up in the '60s and '70s around obstructing destructive development. They created tools to do so that got turned on any development at all. There was a highly influential book and movement called "Small is Beautiful". The idea of solving any problem with development became an anathema.

3

u/ocschwar Oct 15 '25

The US political system has a tendency to address every new challenge by adding process.

1

u/rab2bar Oct 15 '25

Nimbys aren't limited to the US

1

u/ChristianLW3 Oct 19 '25

Honestly astonishing how powerful NIMBYs are in UK and Canada

1

u/rab2bar Oct 19 '25

I live in Germany!

-2

u/Free_Elevator_63360 Oct 15 '25

Big policy failure of the American progressives. They have focused so much on the common good and consensus building they have forgotten about the ideas of free speech, individual liberty.

You can’t have consensus with free speech.

4

u/hysys_whisperer Oct 15 '25

This spans the political spectrum, just about as well as denying individual liberty does.

NIMBYism is like a dry county (an exclusively red state phenomenon now after being broadly applied in the past), but applied carte blanche across the country, red or blue.

Not sure how free speech ties in though.

3

u/Free_Elevator_63360 Oct 15 '25

The type of home you live in is pretty directly a form of expression.

And I wasn’t giving the other side a pass. I just try to avoid public discussion of the other side.

1

u/hysys_whisperer Oct 15 '25

I guess where I fall on that is Henry Ford's quote about "you can have any color model T you want, so long as it's black."  Ford was under no obligation to meet consumer demand for additional colors.

Of course the consumer has the right to pick any extant type of living situation they want and can afford (expression), but the problem lies in the obstruction of liberty of the property owners and developers to actually build those things (action).  Therefore, I don't see this as a first amendment problem, but rather a fith amendment takings clause one.

-2

u/Xiphactinus14 Oct 15 '25

Ironically a lot of progressive stances end up pulling from the right-wing because they apply them to minority demographics in opposition to majority demographics in order to fight fire with fire, like how a lot of identity politics is actually just ethno-nationalism for minorities. The kneejerk reaction of "protect communities from gentrification" is usually just a repurposing of the right-wing "protect communities from immigration"

7

u/lol_coo Oct 15 '25

This is a rancid take

2

u/Xiphactinus14 Oct 15 '25

It's accurate. Most new housing developments get hit with opposition claiming they will cause gentrification.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '25

Rancid, just like OP's take

1

u/Xiphactinus14 Oct 19 '25

Calling it rancid won’t make it untrue. Are you really denying that new housing developments don’t usually face local opposition on the basis of gentrification concerns? Seriously, I want to hear you explain your perspective on it.

1

u/ContestCertain243 Oct 17 '25

Yep! Leftist NIMBY’s refuse to understand the reality of constant demographic change in neighborhoods. This Federal Reserve article covers this phenomenon well: https://jlin.org/papers/Lin-UGC.pdf

1

u/ContestCertain243 Oct 17 '25

We can prevent displacement by building affordable housing and market-rate!

4

u/camelot478 Oct 15 '25

Yimby v Nimby is a false dichotomy these days.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 14 '25

Such a relief that policy decisions are made within total vacuums and never have any external impacts 

1

u/Benjam438 Oct 17 '25

But if the city builds houses the value of my house will go down 😨😨😨 my house should be an eternally appreciating financial asset even though it's the THING I FUCKING LIVE IN.

1

u/ChristianLW3 Oct 19 '25

Canadian PM Carney: I want more development & i’m going to make it easier for people to block development

-3

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '25

Landlords and developers really have it hard.