I have worked for newspapers since 1973 and during that time, as a reporter and columnist, I believe I’ve heard every possible reason why people in suburban and urban areas — more so the former — oppose the construction of multifamily apartments and modest homes priced at affordable rates.
Opponents of affordable housing always say it will bring crime and increased traffic to their nice neighborhoods, burden “their” public schools and disrupt “the character of our community.” Some opponents say that people who cannot afford to live in nice places should not expect access to nice places. We’ve heard it all before.
The NIMBY bingo card (above) appears to have originated in Oregon, but it pretty much tracks with the things I’ve heard at zoning meetings, council meetings and planning meetings over the last 50 years. The idea is to yell, “Bingo!” when you hear all of these sentiments, or others, expressed during the course of a public meeting or government hearing on affordable housing, or a proposal to build bike lanes or put a bus stop in a neighborhood where there had been none. I would add other expressions, such as: “This will bring more crime,” and “We won’t be able to maintain our way of life.”
And I’ve heard worse, too. The late Lou DePazzo, a member of the Baltimore County Council, said this about a program to help some of Baltimore’s poorest families move to the suburbs: “These people need to be taught to take baths and not to steal. … If I were mayor of Baltimore City, believe me, I would be derelict in my duty if I did not send out the worst of the worst.”
Over the last week, I’ve written two columns about efforts to create affordable housing that met with classic NIMBY resistance — one in Anne Arundel County that prevailed, one in Carroll County that has become embroiled in lawsuits over a project at the former Springfield Hospital Center.
Regarding the latter, a speaker opposed to affordable workforce housing said the following at a public hearing in 2022: “Make no mistake … those people can live anywhere with vouchers they bring from any other place and come here. There’s a shortage of housing in many places. That’s why they want this. It’s so attractive to get those people to live in our communities, coming to our schools and our towns. But they’re not the workforce of Carroll County.”
One last thing about affordable housing: Without fanfare over the last 20 years, many low-income Baltimore families have been able to use housing vouchers to move to suburban neighborhoods without the catastrophes predicted. If the findings of researchers like Raj Chetty hold up, the children in those families will enjoy a higher quality of life into adulthood.
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Dan Rodricks 
Amen Brother
You made the point 100%
I’m hearing it (NIMBY) from my neighbors in Lutherville too. I am not the first to say that the farmers, who were here 100+ years ago, might’ve said the same thing as the city people moved here and polluted their streams, complained about the farm smells and noise.
The good news, though, is that some young people are speaking favorably about affordable housing, mass transit and preserving undeveloped space.
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There is an ongoing situation in Fallston, Harford, regarding building 2 apartment buildings (i think 3 story each) near very busy intersections of Rts. 1 and 152.
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Nice neighborhoods are called “nice” for a reason.
Your childish attack on opponents of affordable housing has unfairly labeled them as the bad guys for citing concerns about crime and traffic. But guess what? Those concerns are not imaginary. Affordable housing often means more people, and more people usually mean more everything.
God forbid anyone thinks their neighborhood is just fine the way it is! How dare someone be concerned about their property value – it’s only the biggest investment most people make it their lives. I’ll keep playing my NIMBY card proudly.
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It’s classic bigotry to assume the worst will happen — particularly crime — if people of lower income levels rent an apartment or house near you. As for “more people” and “more everything,” where have wealthier people ever put a limit on housing? There are McMansions spread across land everywhere, in semi-rural areas, causing huge public investments in infrastructure to support it — essentially it’s subsidized housing.
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Perhaps it’s time to return to the basics tenants of Kindergarten:
Sharing is Caring
A fellow commenting on the urgent need for more housing (including Accessory Dwelling Units) used a common Not In My Backyard (NIMBY) concern about ‘more people meaning more of everything’ as if that was a horrific outcome. (he was obliquely pointing to crime and people of color as a typically bigoted response to those with lower incomes)
I, however, like most Yes In My Backyard (YIMBY), people believe that more people lead to more fulfilling, exciting, and richer experiences and opportunities for all of us.
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Without fail, NIMBYs consist of older white homeowners. However, as we have witnessed in the majority-Black Prince George’s County, older, Black homeowners are susceptible to property and wealth hoarding and protectionism as well.
For example, Prince George’s County has totally banned ADUs altogether and is restricting townhouse development as well. What an incredibly ironic outcome considering, almost without fail, that people of color have been systemically discriminated against, denying opportunities for property wealth for generations.
Hoarding land, property, and power is contrary to what we all learned in kindergarten.
Sharing
In fact, wealth by definition, is hoarding – keeping more than you need but read on, there may be a second wealth definition that will make us all happier people
There’s an assumption that changes in the neighborhood will reduce property value without understanding what property value really is. It’s an attempt to place a value that is heavily biased on whether or not a neighborhood is desirable or not so desirable (Location Location) … What’s interesting is our definition of desirable continually changes! For instance, a monolithic group of houses with monolithic groups of people might have been a great marketing gimmick (witness the decades of ads showing single-family suburban homes with white picket fences, a man working and a woman at home caring for her 2.2 children. This scene is far from the reality of today’s households). Many younger people today look at those cookie-cutter suburbs and people with the same backgrounds and incomes and needing a car with distaste and consider a highly diverse neighborhood with diverse housing types and diverse incomes religions and backgrounds as far more desirable. YIMBYs, such as ourselves have fun saying that “characters make up the character of the neighborhood.”
Another interesting bias we see too often is homeowners considering themselves as somehow more deserving than others because they believe they have worked harder or smarter. The truth is many have come into the cash from higher-paying jobs, an inheritance, or help from parents to be able to afford a home
Where does that leave people who have chosen a career of hard-working service at lower incomes? Our teachers, our janitors our trash collectors our landscaping crews our food service workers? Are they lazy? Not deserving the right to live near you because of their backgrounds?
I’ve even heard where renters are told their votes and voices shouldn’t count as much as a homeowner’s! That’s interesting, because it goes all the way back to our racist, past where the “landed gentry”, meaning only white men with property, had any real rights in our country.
Consider the millions of folks with diverse backgrounds who work extraordinarily long days at jobs at extraordinarily low wages. Should they be penalized and not be allowed to live in your neighborhood?
And speaking of allowed, who gets to make the rules, and what is allowed? Women, people of color, and indigenous people were all locked out for centuries and in fact, were considered property. Women had to ask men to sign up for credit cards and were banned from voting. Yet today we allow women to live and own homes in NIMBY zones (Single Family areas) don’t we? Do you see how backward that feels even stating that?
Perhaps the ‘childish attack on opponents of affordable housing’ comes from the housing musical chairs game we are forced to play.
That is, we have a limited number of chairs and more people arriving in the room to play the game every day.
More people are coming and will keep moving in. That’s a fact. From your perspective, Those people should go to another room to play chairs but all the rooms have the same shortage of chairs. So from a NIMBY perspective, you have grabbed your chair and are clinging to it, unwilling to even get up when the music stops much less play the game at all, knowing full well, that the value of that chair increases as the number of people enter the room. What a sad-looking and behaving kindergartner you are by not sharing.
Meanwhile, open-minded, welcoming, and enterprising people of all backgrounds are getting together to create more chairs. Perhaps even share their own chair. They will figure out how to make room at the table and welcome newcomers with open arms. You on the other hand, and most NIMBYs for that matter, become angry, isolated, and non-welcoming. You believe in the value of scarcity knowing that will increase the value of the sticks and bricks you have gathered around yourself by not sharing them. Another lesson from kindergarten you failed to learn – Caring
Here’s another perspective to consider: There is abundance if we allow ourselves to care and share.
From that abundance, we all benefit as the melting pot of our country demands and desires, people from all walks of life to increase our collective quality of life.
Elderly homeowners won’t be around much longer So the question remains: Exactly why are they fighting to hold onto something that they will have to give up soon anyway? Perhaps to give legacy benefits to their kids who didn’t earn them?
Consider Clint Eastwood in the wonderful movie Grand Torino. A bitter angry man, he eventually learned that opening himself up to people of different backgrounds and cultures actually enriched his life far more than his home, his isolation, or his car. His cold angry heart became full of warmth, understanding, giving, and love.
Perhaps realizing that you want to live on an isolated, gated, surveilled island with ‘like-minded people’ while working hard to keep others out is what NIMBYs desire most. That seems incredibly sad indeed.
Where will the folks that trim your grass, serve your coffee, clean your house, wipe your elderly bottom, or teach your kids live? Where?
There’s a wonderful song by Chumbawamba called The Good Ship Lifestyle that sums NIMBY and the acts of exclusion perfectly:
“This is the Good Ship Lifestyle
I fly my very own flag
TV dinners for one
At the captain’s table
Repel all the boarders!
Draw the curtains tighter!
Where’s the crew? There is no crew…
This is the Good Ship Lifestyle
Sail away from the world”
Another lesson not learned from Kindergarten – Let others sit at your cafeteria table (unless you loved being part of a mean-girl clique that tolerated bullies)
When I was community president of over 7,000 homes we made a point of creating a Welcoming Committee that would deliver a welcome package of gifts, area recourses, and introductions to neighbors and our community benefits and events. NIMBY’s abhor sharing their community benefits and resources. YIMBYs Share and Care
So, in many ways, you are willingly and eagerly joining a culturally, impoverished, fearful, angry NIMBY clique.
There is a much better definition of Wealth that many discover, far too late in life:
It’s the quality, depth, and diversity of our relationships and shared humanity that lead to the richest lives.
By sharing our chairs or creating new ones, new people can sit at our collective table. We all benefit by passing the bread the butter the wine and beer and good cheer as we sing joyously within the mutuality of humanity.
Come, stop the fearful scowling, and join us. It’ll be eye-opening and lots more fun.!
Signed
A proud, Yes In My Backyard lover of humanity.
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One thing to remember is that many of us homeowners live in subsidized housing. The mortgage deduction is a subsidy. The only people who do not get sudsidies are renters who pay the market rate.
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