It is a strange modern pathology that we universalise everything. You cannot just be concerned about what happens in your own backyard -- you have to concern yourself with everyone's backyard. Otherwise, like the NIMBYs, you are selfish and a hypocritical.
But standing up for one's community, seeking to maintain its way of life, its history, its beauty, and indeed its value, social and economic -- this is the essence of conservatism. So why is Liz Truss promising to take on NIMBYs? When will its voters realise that the Conservative Party is the party of big business not conservatism? It will always, unless extraordinary pressure is placed on it, take the side of the developer over the community.
We should not be criticising NIMBYs, whatever hypocrisies they may have (when it comes to politics all of us are hypocrites in some way or another). They are trying to maintain their communities. We should be criticising the developers, the town planners, the right-to-buy advocates who have together been the ruin of housing in Britain. We should be asking how it is that a country with a significant drop in birthrates has found itself in such a housing crisis. The problem is clearer deeper than even government policy, and has very little to do with handfuls of spirited protesters in more affluent areas. Blaming NIMBYs for our problems rather feels like scapegoating.
No comments:
Post a Comment