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Comment by Negitivefrags | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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

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