NIMBY: Not in My Back Yard. Part of an ongoing collection of articles exploring some of the many ways that a worldwide affordable housing crisis is opposed.
Some of us at affordablehousingaction.org have been considering a move out of our city, because we can no longer really afford the rent. But lo! At last we understand the true danger of building more affordable housing in our city.
Disaster will strike! The Immutable Law of Supply and Demand (Not the widely recognized Theory of Supply and Demand that is daily more and more discredited where housing is concerned) will with absolute certainty cause property values to fall as the market is glutted by inexpensive government-subsidized housing. Bad news for investors. But worse for us, because as our rent falls, we will plummet into sloth.
Sloth! Lounging about the living room in pyjamas, pretending to write meaningful articles for our blog (Wait a second! Isn’t that what we do already?), an affordable housing glut will make us secure in the knowledge that, thanks to our crafty support of affordable housing, we’ve become iron-bound indolents, untouchably lazy, never to be driven from the city as scum like us most richly deserve.
For a grab bag of this and other small-c conservative shibboleths about houses for the undeserving, including “NIMBY because investment success matters more than basic human shelter,” try this article in THE DAILY EVERGREEN: New Affordable Housing Could Be A Disaster For Pullman Market
Disaster! If Pullman, Washington is devastated by affordability, just imagine the crisis in India, where the government is attempting to provide housing for all by 2022. An entire nation, soon to be racked by sloth and indolence. Quick, investors! Buy pyjama futures in the Indian commodity market!
P.S. Did you spot the classic: “NIMBY because statistics show there is no poverty?” What trick was necessary to statistically reduce poverty in a single city by better than 50%? Why, cleverly eliminating ‘students no longer living at home’ from the ‘penniless human beings needing shelter’ category. No point in giving students cheap housing anyway. If they have an inexpensive place to live they’re undoubtedly far too slothful to graduate, and will spend all their limited energy selfishly guarding their occupancy unto old age.
