From: jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca (John Paul Morrison)
Subject: Re: It has to go in somebody's back yard.
Organization: University of BC, Electrical Engineering
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 08:54:19 GMT

In article <1992Sep2.233431.20099@unixg.ubc.ca> buckland@ucs.ubc.ca (Tony Buckland) writes:
> There are some more news stories today on NIMBY (not in my
> back yard) themes today: notably one involving yet another
> interior B.C. community being asked whether they will please
> be the site for incinerating some Vancouver garbage of nasty
> composition, but that specific doesn't matter, I'm sure any
> of you have some suburb not wanting a group home or a community
> not wanting nearby gas well drilling or something.
> 
> The general principle involved is that there are some things
> which you can almost guarantee no town or neighborhood as a whole
> will volunteer to accept.  Pulic-spritedness, i.e. recognition
> that _somebody's_ back yard will have to contain whatever it is,
> and that the world is pretty much totally divided into back
> yards, is an argument you might as well not bother making.
> 
> So why do we insist on a system of asking for volunteers?  Why
> not have a mechanism (on the federal level, since provincial
> governments think of their individual provinces as back yards too)
> for _assigning_ locations for things nobody wants?

Maybe this cynical, but why should they? If it's private property,
it's my business what I do with it. If it's public property, people
in the area should decide what's appropriate use for public land.

If what you have is so nasty, do I want it? And if I do agree to having
it (for a fee of course) it would be under some kind of contract.

There are actually two kinds of NIMBYs (IMHO)

1. Not In My Back Yard (it's my property, and I choose not to have it)
2. Not In *Your* Back Yard, Because It's Too Close To Mine, And I Want
   To Restrict *Your* Right To Use *Your* Property.

#1 is OK to most people (except for a few communists)
#2 Is more contentious. 

I think #2 is completey bogus. So If you want to build an incinerator next
to my house, go ahead, with this caveat: I consider the air, water, soil
on my property *mine*. Mess with the air I breath, or the water I drink,
and I mess with *you*. If #2 is bogus, then it's OK for you to do what you
like on your side of the fence, but by extension, if it leeches crud,
fumes toxic ash, belches stomach churning fumes etc. and crosses over to
my side, then that diminishes my rights. Hence I sue you and win. If
it's public land you defile with your <insert angry mob inspiring project>,
then a member of the public could initiate proceeding against you.
OK, at least in *my* idea of a fair society.

In reality, fascist munipalities make laws about whether you can park
a Winnebago in your front drive (Recent STUPID bylaw). While other
people dump crap all over public land/water (they even do it for FREEE!
Helllllooooo??? Can you say POLLUTION TAX???). One is an example of
busy-bodies restricting an indivual's rght to use his property, while
the other shows how people tolerate abuse of their own (collective)
property. Seems the two priorities are a bit reversed.

[ disclaimer to would be flamers: "you" was used generically for a point,
not to refer to Tony. etc. blah blah, for the reading/semantically
challenged ]



-- 
__________________________________________________________________________
 John Paul Morrison                     |  Just another "Enemy of Canada"
 University of British Columbia, Canada |  Say NO/NON to Constitutional
 Electrical Engineering                 |  hegomony and fear-mongering
 jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca                     |  by politicians/scum.
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