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Comment by jdewerd | Hacker News Reader

The "home is your piggy bank" mentality is the cause and motivating force behind NIMBYism. It's not only in the article, it's prominently in the article.

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I think NIMBYism is a result of a home purchase being more permanent than a rental, and comes with a certain expectation of some peace and quiet for many.

It makes sense people would want to protect against the things they moved to the house to get away from.

I just bought a house a few years ago. There is 1 annoying house in ear shot of me and it’s a rental house that seems to get a new family each year, and no matter the family, it’s the house having parties, and slamming car doors at all hours of the night. It’s not every night, but it’s enough that I noticed. All the houses that are owner occupied aren’t like that.

Inviting more of that around me would make me want to move, and I’d rather not move. If you take away the reason a group of people moved to an area, they are going to find a new area. The previous area will slowly erode, and the new area will grow and thrive.. and then YIMBY people will want to come in and change the new area, and the cycle will start again.

I don’t see my house as a piggy bank. I see it as a means to stop rising rent costs, to stabilize my budget over time, and lower my fixed expenses in retirement. I’m not borrowing against it (the piggy bank), as I don’t want to risk the stable housing.

I'm not convinced.

People don't say no to increased density because they are worried about increased overall housing supply affecting their house value.

They say no mostly because they like the place they are how it is, and they don't see any reason for it to change because the upside doesn't affect them.

And the rest of the time they are saying no due to a direct downside like having a new large building near them that wasn't there before.

I'm not saying that this attitude should be allowed, but let's be honest about the cause of it.

No, let's be honest about the cause of it: it's because they want their housing value to keep going up. The parade of excuses is much less convincing than the plain, obvious, dramatic financial incentive.

Increased density would make their property even more valuable because it would be in a more desirable place in general: more walkable (more people = more businesses in a smaller area), fewer single family homes (the ones that were removed to build higher density housing, so that = more demand for the ones that are left), better public transit, etc.

No one is saying this doesnt contribute, but my experience with NIMBYs is that its much more about keeping things the same because they like the way they are now than it is about pumping their homes value.

+1 -- Increased density will change the neighborhood, but would also make their property more valuable!

Mainly this, agreed. A place is a place because of how it is. Changing how it is makes it not that place anymore. Drastically opening access to the place will drastically change it and the people that live in the place often don’t want to change the place. They like the place how it is. That’s why they bought property in the place.

And then there’s construction. It takes a long time to build a thing in the place and not only will it change the place it will make the place much worse while long term construction happens. Nobody wants that.

Thank you. This is exactly my view as well. Folks before me got in when the getting was good, then pulled the ladder up.

A lot of people bought into places that weren’t very desirable and helped make the place desirable. There’s a lot of old towns that were down market from where they are today because the housing stock aged and owners couldn’t afford the renovate. But eventually some people took a risk and did because they saw the potential. Then more did and so on and the town is much more attractive than it was.

The idea that an interloper should just be able to walk in and exploit that is ridiculous. Talk about getting in while the getting is good!

There’s plenty of shabby places with potential. Go there and unlock it. It’s futile to try and jump on the back of people that did that elsewhere by demanding they build affordable housing after they turned a place around.

You make a decent point... but this recent run up in property values truly feels different than the norm. I'm from the Phoenix area, and prior to the Pandemic, I could have afforded a three-bedroom, two bathroom house with a pool, and with a sub six-figure income to boot. That same property has doubled or tripled in price within the past few years (which is an abnormal level of growth in real estate) plus the interest rates have also gone up. I'm getting fscked on both ends, with a monthly mortgage payment that would make me absolutely house poor.

I just hate the feeling of needing to put more of my life on hold because a world changing event disrupted my buying power and messed up the available housing stock. Truly the perfect storm of disappointment.

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