NIMBY and the Civic Good

Abstract

Policy scholars dedicated to efficient urban and industrial planning have long tried to understand the "NIMBY syndrome" in order to overcome local resistance to controversial land uses. However, environmental policy scholars have begun to rethink the NIMBY syndrome, arguing that the concept is authority-centered and reduces land-use disputes to a moral struggle between rational/civic-minded planners and irrational/self-interested opponents. After describing a struggle over locating homeless services in Seattle, this paper extends this larger critique to disputes over human service facilities and argues that the NIMBY syndrome framework fails to capture the political and ethical complexities of locating human services. A conclusion examines how critical sociologists can still critique imbalances of political-economic power in the planning process without deploying the NIMBY syndrome nomenclature.

An Array of Deficits: Unpacking NIMBY Discourses in Wind Energy Developers' Conceptualizations of Their Local Opponents

“…Such self-interest is seen as of lower value than the higher interests of the ''civic good'' (Gibson 2005) held by developers (''you really believe you're doing something good that's beneficial to the world''-Interview 40: Marketing=PR). Such ''selfishness'' is thus constructed as another form of incorrect knowledge, although here it is politically or ethically incorrect.…”

“…As Gibson (2005) notes, in popular usage NIMBY is a shorthand for any opposition that is regarded as invalid or illegitimate. The illegitimacy of opposition has already been hinted at in the preceding analysis.…”

“…This construction draws on a premise inherent to the NIMBY concept that facilities are needed to provide an important social benefit (see Wexler 1996;Lake 1993;Gibson 2005), in light of which any objections are ultimately of less importance. Opposition was further undermined by the suggestion that any concerns raised about proposed wind farms (e.g., noise, visual intrusion, potential effects on avian populations, health effects, and ineffective energy generation) were disingenuous.…”

“…Calls for research that focuses on the use of ascriptions of NIMBYism in general have been made for some time (e.g., Burningham 2000;Gibson 2005Wexler 1996, and more recently specifically in relation to RET siting, Bell et al indicate that it is ''important to study the discursive use of 'NIMBY' in wind energy politics '' (2013, 124). Similarly, Wright and Nerlich (2006) conceptualize deficit models as ''culturally available interpretative repertoires'' (333) and argue that ''work is .…”

Towards real energy economics: Energy policy driven by life-cycle carbon emission

“…Equivalent carbon emissions from industrial society, primarily caused by the combustion of fossil fuels, have risen to 49 GtCO 2 -eq/yr precipitating a concomitant increase in atmospheric carbon concentration from a preanthropocene level of 280 ppmv to 379 ppmv in 2005(IPCC, 2008a. Greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations at the current level cause a global disequilibrium and even emissions stabilization at these intensities will produce a ~2°C temperature rise (Hansen et al, 2008).…”