NIMBY (Not in My Backyard)

Definition

NIMBY is currently used to describe those who might oppose other kinds of development, such as wind turbines, desalination plants, power lines, roads, passenger railways, mobile telephone network masts, high-density housing, homeless shelters, and funeral homes, where the motives of the opponents are seen to be more narrow about “backyard” interests in contrast to those LULUs mentioned above. NIMBY can therefore be used to describe parties opposed to a development to maintain their privileged position, where people consider others as undesirable neighbors (e.g., low-income or homeless residents) and view them as threats to the race, class, or lifestyle norms of their neighborhood or the expected aesthetics of their neighborhood. For example, the construction of unsightly or unattractive human structures (e.g., wind turbines, cell towers, or billboards) may threaten the perceived status quo and character of residents in a neighborhood and elicit resistance.

The origins of the term NIMBY can be traced to various incidences where wastes were left or are proposed to be disposed of in a place where people have little to gain from their presence but a great deal to lose. In the early Warren County case, a waste-hauling company tried to avoid paying the costs of legally disposing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) under the then-new U.S. Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA) by illegally dumping them on state roadsides in rural North Carolina and remote sections of the Fort Bragg Military Reservation. In response to the discovered contamination, the state of North Carolina proposed to construct a landfill in Warren County to provide an affordable, “safe” alternative for the state's waste producers. State officials were able to buy land from an economically strapped rural landowner in Afton in Warren County, NC. In Warren County, a local group tried to stop the proposed landfill, expressing concerns about the PCBs it would contain—toxic chemicals that had been linked to seabird and fish declines and mutagenic effects in living organisms. Their concerns were about possible contamination of their groundwater and diminished opportunities for new business development given the expected stigma of a community housing a hazardous waste facility.

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