In my neighborhood there is an abandoned supermarket that's been empty and blighted for 9 or 10 years and yard signs all over protesting the owner's plan to build a mixed use apartment building. As if the abandoned, blighted supermarket and parking lot is an improvement! I often wonder if the apartment had been there and a crazy developer had announced plans to tear down the apartment building to build a blighted parking lot, whether the same people would have put up signs protesting THAT.
This piece along with a proposed MD sate law (Housing Expansion and Affordability Act of 2024) have me thinking about how people react to change. There are some elements of what I call "toxic nostalgia" for days gone by, but I think it's a more fundamental counterintuitive issue of allowing incremental change. The NIMBY-YIMBY argument always sets up to be binary; nothing or large scale change. I don't think either extreme is healthy for places. If we allow easy smaller change it will be more incremental and easier to accept, but you have to allow that. The question is how to implement this? This is an area that I have some cognitive dissonance with the bottoms up approach as that often bogs down with the NIMBY arguments. But then again the other end of the spectrum by imposing affordable housing anywhere (the proposed MD law) is a top down blunt instrument that will likely have unintended consequences. I keep coming back to making as much incremental stuff by right so that there is very low friction for both implementation and resistance. But residents and our legislators have a huge disdain for by right development and even when there is development that is by right, there are multiple required input sessions that bog things down. Ultimately, I like how you framed this, basically just take a deep breath and relax, the world won't come to an end. Maybe another way to put it is "pearl clutchers go home!" ;-)
While I agree with the premise here, the unfortunate pattern that I've seen is that the attitude of not caring can apply equally to both positive and negative developments. I've seen freeway projects that have been vigorously opposed during the planning phase come to be accepted as vital infrastructure once they are built and people start driving on them. We've seen a few freeway removal projects recently, but many simply replace the highway with a wide boulevard. Admittedly, buildings and highways are not the same thing, but it's important to see how eventual acceptance of controversial projects can work both ways.
Periodically I chime in to suggest that YIMBY-NIMBY dynamics can differ widely across the country. What's true of the I-95 corridor or the Bay Area might not always be true of smaller places in the interior. In my hometown tons of classic mid-century architecture that people treasured has been demolished in recent years to build generic glass boxes that have been a loss for everyone in the community except developers, while the former buildings remain fondly remembered. I agree that the changes on the photos you posted from Twitter are for the better, but a significant chunk of the time these projects can be about replacing something charming and historic with the parking lots and generic low-slung stores.
Love this post (and the development)
In my neighborhood there is an abandoned supermarket that's been empty and blighted for 9 or 10 years and yard signs all over protesting the owner's plan to build a mixed use apartment building. As if the abandoned, blighted supermarket and parking lot is an improvement! I often wonder if the apartment had been there and a crazy developer had announced plans to tear down the apartment building to build a blighted parking lot, whether the same people would have put up signs protesting THAT.
This piece along with a proposed MD sate law (Housing Expansion and Affordability Act of 2024) have me thinking about how people react to change. There are some elements of what I call "toxic nostalgia" for days gone by, but I think it's a more fundamental counterintuitive issue of allowing incremental change. The NIMBY-YIMBY argument always sets up to be binary; nothing or large scale change. I don't think either extreme is healthy for places. If we allow easy smaller change it will be more incremental and easier to accept, but you have to allow that. The question is how to implement this? This is an area that I have some cognitive dissonance with the bottoms up approach as that often bogs down with the NIMBY arguments. But then again the other end of the spectrum by imposing affordable housing anywhere (the proposed MD law) is a top down blunt instrument that will likely have unintended consequences. I keep coming back to making as much incremental stuff by right so that there is very low friction for both implementation and resistance. But residents and our legislators have a huge disdain for by right development and even when there is development that is by right, there are multiple required input sessions that bog things down. Ultimately, I like how you framed this, basically just take a deep breath and relax, the world won't come to an end. Maybe another way to put it is "pearl clutchers go home!" ;-)
While I agree with the premise here, the unfortunate pattern that I've seen is that the attitude of not caring can apply equally to both positive and negative developments. I've seen freeway projects that have been vigorously opposed during the planning phase come to be accepted as vital infrastructure once they are built and people start driving on them. We've seen a few freeway removal projects recently, but many simply replace the highway with a wide boulevard. Admittedly, buildings and highways are not the same thing, but it's important to see how eventual acceptance of controversial projects can work both ways.
Periodically I chime in to suggest that YIMBY-NIMBY dynamics can differ widely across the country. What's true of the I-95 corridor or the Bay Area might not always be true of smaller places in the interior. In my hometown tons of classic mid-century architecture that people treasured has been demolished in recent years to build generic glass boxes that have been a loss for everyone in the community except developers, while the former buildings remain fondly remembered. I agree that the changes on the photos you posted from Twitter are for the better, but a significant chunk of the time these projects can be about replacing something charming and historic with the parking lots and generic low-slung stores.