NIMBY and anti-housing groups often rely on symbolic language. Greedy developers, luxury apartments, etc. But why do so many of them roll out the word "village"? The answer is surprisingly simple: these people don't really like cities. 🧵 https://buff.ly/4gUzvY2 - ThreadSky

jonobri.com • 62 days ago

NIMBY and anti-housing groups often rely on symbolic language. Greedy developers, luxury apartments, etc. But why do so many of them roll out the word "village"?

The answer is surprisingly simple: these people don't really like cities. 🧵
https://buff.ly/4gUzvY2

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Comments

ethangilbert.bsky.social•62 days ago

By far the most convincing theory of NIMBYism as it ties together the "fear of change" and "homeowners are the issue" theories together neatly and comprehensively.

jonobri.com•62 days ago

People who become NIMBYs almost always, at some point in their lives, made the choice to move into the low-rise area that they're now fighting to retain.

A bad tax system and a restrictive planning system has given them an upper-hand in that fight.

jonobri.com•62 days ago

There is of course no reason that low-rise areas should remain low-rise. Ideally, you would let land value dictate what gets built, facilitated by a permissive and flexible planning system.

Under such a system, growing demand for an area would be met by growing supply.

jonobri.com•62 days ago

Under the system we have, though, NIMBYs have next-to-no exposure to land prices. The home is exempt from land tax in most jurisdictions.

This means there are no direct costs for holding expensive land, and no direct costs felt by residents fighting for restrictive zoning.

jonobri.com•62 days ago

The result is this: the government running a discount and protection racket based on the tastes of wealthy people lucky enough to move in at the right time.

Contrary to old wisdom, this isn't really about property values. It's about preferences. They just don't like cities.

jonobri.com•62 days ago

Similar to what we've seen in the case of NYC's congestion pricing, land tax would require people to bear the costs of their preferences. For some, the tax would be worth paying for the benefits of inner-city low-density living.

For many, it would not.

jonobri.com•62 days ago

To be clear, it is fine to have preferences! For instance, I would like to live in Melbourne and also nearby a beach that is actually good. But it turns out it is not possible to have both of these things, and so I have made a tradeoff.

sterow.bsky.social•61 days ago

There are a few ideas worth unbundling in this thread.

The first is the contention about NIMBY’s conception of community. I wrote a whole book about how people picture their own ideal of community. It’s very complex! But there’s really only an assertion on that point.

sterow.bsky.social•61 days ago

The second is the idea that growing demand leads to growing supply. That’s obviously true to a point. However I think the YIMBY publications massively overstate this - the inner city neighbourhoods they talk about are highly fragmented into tiny parcels. Their scope for huge yields is minimal.

jonobri.com•61 days ago

Minimum lot sizes are not an engineering constraint; they are a regulatory choice.
https://bsky.app/profile/urbanistfromwhk.bsky.social/post/3lerz72gxgc23

sterow.bsky.social•61 days ago

That’s just simply flat out not true though. There are lots of inherent constraints you hit when building on lots like that.

jonobri.com•61 days ago

Let me be more precise: the minimum lot size is not zero, but it is certainly much smaller than most planning schemes enforce.

sterow.bsky.social•61 days ago

My point though is that there are lots of problems with building on sites that small that are nothing to do with planning, and would greatly limit the frequency of such buildings getting built. The subdivision pattern matters a lot.

northmelb.bsky.social•61 days ago

Every 120m2 single story workers cottage in inner Melbourne could easily become 4+ stories if not for restrictive heritage and design controls and lack of imagination.

sterow.bsky.social•61 days ago

No, that's very tricky if you want multiple dwellings. Have to get light in, lifts eat space, can't have parking which means limits your market, etc, etc. As I said to O'Brien, there's a reason you don't see many examples of this form in commercial areas with few planning barriers.

northmelb.bsky.social•61 days ago

Phoenix tower in Flinders St seems to be bright enough and doesn't seem too bothered by lack of on site parking.

sterow.bsky.social•61 days ago

No parking is much more marketable in the CBD (and has been a planning requirement for decades). And the height here, and the CBD location, make a form viable that’s much harder elsewhere.

Don’t know the layout and not been inside so can’t comment on the light. But those layouts are hard.

sterow.bsky.social•61 days ago

On the land tax, owners do have some exposure through rates, though I accept it is limited. But are we truly suggesting getting rid of a land tax exemption for the PPR? That would surely mean only those with substantial cashflow could stay as owner occupiers, and force out many long term… (cont)

northmelb.bsky.social•61 days ago

Yes, replace stamp duty with annual land tax for PPR. If you can't pay immediately (casflow poor) your land tax debt just gets paid when the property is sold.

sterow.bsky.social•61 days ago

…owners who are cash poor. I’m not a tax expert, but a land tax that hits owners of multiple properties strikes me as highly progressive. A tax that creates a cash burden on owner occupiers based on the value of their PPR, however, strikes me as likely to have significant collateral damage.

jonobri.com•61 days ago

You’d phase it in, obviously, but the outcomes of taxes on PPR seem good to me: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4880480

kirby3000.bsky.social•61 days ago

the idea is to phase stamp duty out and phase land tax in.

danielbowen.au•61 days ago

Spotted this variation recently: "Our small township".
(It's Ormond... a small township with a 6 lane road through the middle of it.)

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