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.
Once upon a time, not all that long ago, when those of us at affordablehousingaction.org believed the term “affordable housing” actually meant something concrete and useful, we ran a cheerful little series of articles on the weird and wonderful excuses that NIMBYites used to justify manning the neighbourhood battlements and repel all lower income borders.
Since then, we’ve shaded our interest more towards truly affordable housing. For us that means housing for low and no income citizens and includes public/social/council housing.
New construction projects of this kind are limited worldwide (and don’t begin to keep up with need) and we’ve had limited opportunities to look down our noses at NIMBY foolery in relation to very low income housing.
However, we have just discovered a new weirdness in the wonderful world of NIMBY — office workers jealously protecting their parking spots. Read more in Belfast Live: Social housing approved in Belfast city centre despite objections from office workers
