Avoiding "NIMBY" attitudes. When it comes to building new homes or apartments, particularly homes for people with low- and moderate-incomes, some community residents express a NIMBY, or "not-in-my-back-yard" attitude. There are a lot of different reasons people find themselves opposing new development — distrust of developers; concerns about design or density; worries about the impact on traffic or schools; fear of people different from them (economically, socially or racially, etc.) coming into the neighborhood. While development can bring change to a neighborhood, many of these concerns are often misplaced, and are usually easily addressed by the developer or the City.
Supporting development in your community. You can do a lot to support the development of new affordable and market-rate housing in your community by talking to your neighbors about their concerns, and letting them know about the benefits of building new housing in your neighborhood. By referring people to this website, you can help others get the tools and information they need to think more critically about new development, and understand all the benefits and costs to growth.
Say "Yes in my backyard!" You might also think about going to public hearings to support high quality affordable housing projects that are proposed in your neighborhood. Becoming a YIMBY for your community will help ensure that more affordable housing is created in the places where neighborhood consensus exists for new housing development.
