Nimby

Nimby stands for “not in my backyard,” a term used to describe the reaction people have to the possibility of a “locally unwanted land use”—known as a LULU—being located in their communities. The term gained currency in the late 1970s and early 1990s.

Episodes like Love Canal and Times Beach created considerable fears that, if similarly unwanted uses for land were pursued in their communities, the community would suffer greatly. As the Christian Science Monitor noted in the first published reference to the term NIMBY:

People are now thoroughly alert to the dangers of hazardous chemical wastes. The very thought of having even a secure landfill anywhere near them is anathema to most Americans today. It's an attitude referred to in the trade as NIMBY—“not in my ...