Tierney Doesn’t Understand NIMBY
“Well, we usually call people, you know, NIMBY, if they do not want to help society.”
Beacon Hill-Cyrville Councillor Tim Tierney
This is the definition of NIMBY from Merriam-Webster dictionary: “Opposition to the locating of something considered undesirable (such as a prison or incinerator) in one’s neighborhood.”
There is no value judgment in the definition of NIMBY. It is simply a person who doesn’t want something located in their neighborhood. Maybe that person thinks an undesirable project works better somewhere else … and it might.
If the city wants to locate something somewhere that is unpleasant, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the city is promoting the betterment of society. Maybe the city is wrong.
For example, people can be against Lansdowne 2.0 because Lansdowne 1.0 was not successful financially. They don’t think 2.0 will solve that problem. That’s not a NIMBY argument.
Lansdowne can be opposed by residents of the Glebe, not because they are NIMBYs, but because they feel their tax money is being used well there.
NIMBYs are not about not helping or hindering society. There are myriad decisions by the City of Ottawa not for the betterment of the city but to support pressure groups.
Take intensification. The city wants to put multi-unit buildings in residential neighbourhoods. That’s because we have a tight market for places to live. That will change. Think demographics. When the baby-boomer bulge in populations dies, there will likely be a surplus of housing, especially in condos and apartments.
NIMBY is a statement of location not a value judgment on people who are against a project in their community. You can be against a project in your community and not be a NIMBY. You can live in a neighbourhood, be against a bad project, and, in doing so, help society.
Maybe it’s just a person who is against putting a high-rise on a residential street that is very successful as it is and doesn’t want that street destroyed.
Ken Gray
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Well said! I am moving my residence from being in the shadow of the Lansdowne 40 story buildings, to mid Nepean.
My complaint remains against the massive development in the park. So by just moving my family out of the shadow, it goes from Nimby to legitimate? These are the same arguments, by the same person, on a different day.. (that is, after the move).
Tierny has done what so many others before him have. He has selected a meaning for a common term that bears little resemblance to that which has been associated with the term for decades/centuries. By doing this he demonstrates to himself and his acolytes that he, and by extension they are ‘superior’ life forms.
As for everyone else, we are left shaking our heads. Much the same way we did when he boasted of getting a tattoo of his most recent ‘favourite’ musical group. Or when he thought that creating a name that snowplow initiative for school kids was a critical piece of business for a six figure income city councillor. As contrasted with addressing the moribund state of public transit, or a $36 million hole in the operating budget, or … well about every problem the city actually faces.