Ask HN: History of NIMBYism?
Eurasian cities are quite dense compared to North American ones. They are also much older. I am wondering if old cities also went through phases of increasing spread over a geographic area before filling in.
The effect would be magnified by the affordable automobile. But it might be universal for people to resist urbanization in their immediate vicinities, as a Tragedy of the Commons-type situation.
As a corollary, I think that in 200 years it is entirely possible that North American cities will be much denser, though maybe never as dense as Eurasian ones (again due to being primarily built after the automobile).
Or, perhaps it's possible that NIMBYism is an old phenomenon that is now accessible to the masses due to democracy. I am sure that aristocrats and oligarchs lived near fewer people than peasants. But now, everyone has a little more politicaly power, and will gladly use that to live more like aristocrats. But the effects of aristocrats doing it was much lesser.
Is there anyone who knows of any scholarly material that covers this?