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.
Hats off to a Colorado landlord for thinking big. Read about a man who, in the face of housing crises across the country, wants to call the entire state his backyard and simply limit the number of houses allowed to be built in there every year.
Let’s describe each tourist season (summer and winter) as the time that the music is playing, when many admiring out-of-state citizens visit Colorado’s many wonders. But when the music stops, there will only be housing room for so many people. The rest will have to skedaddle home, leaving relieved Colorado citizens with their unspoiled wilderness largely intact. Sort of a housing market version of the childhood game of musical chairs.
But really, when you examine it closely, this NIMBY complaint reduces on a more modest scale to ‘ruining the neighbourhood character’ — a classic and common California outcry that exasperates municipal governments.
But even if it’s not really a new NIMBY, you have to admire it for its breathtaking scale, with the entire state of Colorado as a strictly limited NIMBY backyard.
Read all the grandiose details in WESTWORD: Controversial Initiative Claims To Solve Colorado’s Growing Pains
