It’s tough. My inner progressive is “fuck those NIMBYs, people need affordable housing!” But I also bike past two different sets of affordable housing twice a week for soccer.
One is near our soccer field and playground. The playground is mostly kid free these days as there are all sorts of needles and other paraphanalia strewn about. Meanwhile, there are usually people smoking hard drugs right by the pitches. Most of us don’t leave our bikes at the parking rack as you can come back to a stripped bike or having had the spokes kicked, presumably as punishment for locking our bikes.
The other one is a little out of the way of most people. The street by it is still littered with refuse and drug paraphanalia and for some reason, they seem to occasionally move rocks into the street (as I painfully learned one day when not paying enough attention.)
If I had kids, I’m not sure I’d want that around my kids either. I know people who live in the same area as one, in what is otherwise a nice part of town. Some of the girls are afraid to go outside alone at night in their own neighbourhoods, and frankly I don’t blame them. I’m a scaryish looking dude and keep my head on a swivel, headphones off whenever I visit.
I don’t know what the answer is but I don’t blame the NIMBYs for feeling like they do.
This is a lopsided take. NIMBY isn’t aimed at just affordable housing or section 8 - it’s aimed at ANY development, thus limiting the housing supply. It also targets any effort to change zoning. We need more medium density housing. Something like 90% of the country is R1 single family detached which is the worst thing for the environment ever.
In my parents neighborhood, there was a plan on building 8 story buildings right next to single houses.
Off course we need higher density housing to reduce housing shortage… In this case, people fought back to keep the previous rule (4 story high max) and the old 2-story buildings were replaced by 4s ones. To recoup the loss, these appartments were made super high-end and are now empty because they can’t sell.
All in all, I’m torn that i fought to keep a “gradual” increase in height, but also the promoter kind of didn’t do this for the right reasons and would probably have created 8-story high end appartments…
You have a very balanced take, it’s refreshing.
Poverty and drug addiction is a very difficult problem I believe can be tackled by UBI and safe injection centres together.
I have the same gripes about the Montreal Metro, I think it’s unsafe outside of commute hours because of the drug users and homeless people who take shelter within. It’s not their fault, it’s a societal problem, but the end result nonetheless is that people get assaulted frequently on the metro.
Being poor is expensive, both for the individual and for society, and studies show that if you give someone $200, they’ll spend it on food and drugs. If you house someone, they’ll feel like they have no autonomy and go back to the streets. If you give them $25k a year with no strings attached, most will try to find housing they like, buy food they like and solve their addiction and mental health issues, and go on to live fulfilling lives.
And, best of all, if done and funded correctly, employers get to save $25k a year on employee paychecks as it’ll be presumably garnered off of corporate taxes for all of society to enjoy. Unfortunately, companies are “people” and would protest against this as it’ll end up being slightly more expensive in the short term.
Pushing poor people away just makes them someone else’s problem.
I don’t think you have jumped to conclusive outrage enough to be posting on Lemmy
My bad! Next time I will end my thought by deciding one of the two (NIMBYs or those needing affordable housing) should be eradicated.
How about just more housing till the supply pressure makes it affordable? 🤔
These boomers…
Gen Xers are part of it now
It’s not just the boomers tho, a lot of people are so selfish lately.
For the past 10 years there has been a large field across from where I work. Not a nice bit of nature, just a crappy looking bit of lumpy grass a mowed a couple of times a year. About 5 years ago an investor bought the land and wanted to develop it.
They hired an architect that designed a stunning looking building, super modern, fully environmentally neutral in construction and in the future, with excellent insulation, heat pumps using the ground and solar on top. It looked beautiful as well, with a very interesting design and a lot of green. Part of the roof was to be a garden, not for people but just for plants. Plants had places to grow all over the building, which was designed to easily maintain the plants not to overgrow the building and not damage it. The intent was for commercial use of the building.
So the investors took their plans to the local council and they were super happy. It cleaned an unused bit of land, they would get income from the use of the building and attracting businesses is always a good thing. So they gave the permit and said go right ahead.
However as soon as the permit was published the local community went nuts. They organized and didn’t want the developer to spoil their bit of land. They complained about all sorts of things, almost everything highly exaggerated or complete nonsense. Anyone that actually looked at the plans the architect made could see they really took a lot of things into account. But the local community organized, got everyone riled up, held protests, blanketed the area with flyers etc. This community is pretty mixed in terms of ages and such.
So the council pulled the permit and told the developer they couldn’t do it. This led to the developer sueing the council and that’s still in court, the developer invested millions to get to that point with support of the council. With the local community the way it is, the project isn’t going to happen, so it will probably cost the council and thus the community a lot of money.
So with that canceled a new developer came around and said they wanted to use the plot to build housing. There is a huge shortage of housing in the area, so they got an immediate go. As predicted the community went apeshit again, not in my backyard and all that. The council was not amused and shut that shit down right away. Refusing housing isn’t a thing they are willing to do, nor should they. Unless someone has a valid claim, like it being unsafe or having too big environmental impact or something, it’s going to happen. The local community don’t have shit and the developer did things like environmental impact studies, checked for archeology etc. The faces of the ringleaders was priceless when the council shut them down. This whole not in my backyard bullshit needs to stop and I’m happy the council did the right thing.
Construction started beginning of this year, so that shitty piece of grass is finally going to be useful. Other then for people’s dogs to poop on that is.
Other then for people’s dogs to poop on that is.
Dog owners… Don’t get me started!
But good to see some common sense. These cloens will never organize for anything else… But god forbid there is more housing for people to live in. Rheeeeee
Here’s a simple suggestion – Stop cramming more houses into places where there are already tons of people.
Can’t be a problem with NIMBY-ism, if you’re in nobodies back yard at all!
The whole point of cars and personal transportation is that you can fill all of these empty places with your housing, and these people can drive to where they want to go on their own schedules. It’s not that hard.
We don’t need to cram another 10k houses onto the golf-course where people like the fact that they can’t spit out of their back window and hit their neighbors house.
Better yet - Mandate city-centers for every [X] population so that the people don’t have to drive half way across the state for their job too.
The best housing is the housing you can afford. Would I like to live in a ten million dollar mansion with dino nuggies dispensers? Sure, but I can’t afford that, so I don’t. We will never ever ever get to affordable housing and affordable living with single family homes and car dependent sprawl.
Just offering the solution. If you don’t like it, you can KEEP not getting housing. I moved out into the woods to be able to afford the house that I have. The fact that you won’t even posit that as an OPTION is telling. You want it your way, or no way. Well guess what…you’re not getting it your way, so you’re gonna have nothing.
Car-dependent sprawl only happens when the ONLY thing you’re building is housing. If you use zoning laws to ensure that you get enough businesses in the area, then it’s not car dependent any more and you’re just beginning your own little city in a place where there isn’t one already.
You don’t have to start in an ALREADY established city.
