And the NIMBY of the Century Award Goes to….

12 Replies to “And the NIMBY of the Century Award Goes to….”

1. yes, they forgot to mention “boycott new people” as that’s what they imply by “stop overpopulation”

2. Hmmm… I think the main point in this sign can be valid, though it doesn’t really work with the other points.

   If you want to prevent sprawl, getting rid of transit might not be a bad idea. Of course this would only be true if you built a huge amount of in-city housing, and provided a good local transportation system.

   But then if you’re boycotting new buildings, I’m not sure where all of these non-commuting workers will live. I suppose we can cram them all into the “old Seattle” houses, but then we’ll really have problems with “overpopulation”.

3. I totally recognize the link between old buildings and new people.

   New people come with new buildings because new buildings are sexy. Old buildings keep pants on.

4. No. the point of transit is definitely to destroy neighborhoods.

5. This is, unfortunately, a rather widespread sentiment in cities experiencing increasing density and economic change. There was the backlash against Manhattanization in San Francisco in the 1970s, for instance. And there’s certainly a suspicion toward new developments by the pissing and moaning classes even in Vancouver (where high-density has been the norm around Coal Harbour and False Creek for almost a century!).

   There are a lot of people in Seattle who, basically, wish that it was still, say, 1985 and that Seattle was a barely discovered white-bread funky (relative) backwater like Portland – with the accompanying lower densities. Please ignore Portland’s rail system and the Pearl for the sake of my argument because a lot of them do. To them, new apartment buildings and condos and Sound Transit stations represent a loss rather than a transformation of the area’s essential character.

6. That’s a great point cjh. Its sad for them, I’m sure, to loose their idea of the city. But change will happen either way, I just wish they would put their energy to making sure it changes for the better.

7. And by high-density in Vancouver, I mean either job or residential. Areas of former job density have, after their end or decline of their industries been converted to high-density residential areas (like False Creek) that still maintain high job densities.

   Anyhow, Capitol Hill is already dense by American standards and should have been served by rapid transit 20 years ago (taken the 7 or 9 lately?), so opposition to LINK there has always seemed a little… weird.

8. Better than the signs that were up before TRAX started in Salt Lake City-“Light Rail Kills Children”
   Some irony is that the one business who was the biggest pusher of these signs and was in located next to the line went out of business within a year.

9. I am rather proud of one of my friends: he did not like what Seattle was becoming, so he moved to Portland. Why whine when you can get on with your life?

10. Oh, the “light rail kills children” thing was a favorite argument of an acquaintance of mine in ’98-’99. Seriously, her opposition to LINK boiled down to “what if a ball rolled across the tracks, the child will never hear an electric train coming.”

11. How much do you want to bet the Mossback wannabe nut who posted that sign
    a) moved here from somewhere else
    b) lives in a building constructed after 1910
    c) has offspring

    “Raise the drawbridge” people might as well be spending their time fighting things like death and gravity.

12. Anonymous Ryan said:

    “I am rather proud of one of my friends: he did not like what Seattle was becoming, so he moved to Portland.”

    Shit, please take him back! Portland needs NIMBYs like Seattle needs rain. We’re having enough trouble with implementing density – you guys have it easy!

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