NIMBY Me This, YIMBY Me That
City diversity — what’s a conservative to do with that?
Cities, by nature, are diverse. From state capitals to international ports to regional production hubs, cities have always attracted a large variety of people — workers, bureaucrats, merchants, and some just “passing through.” Sometimes this diversity was multi-ethnic, sometimes it was “simply” from a variety of villages and towns. Either way, cities have always been a place where people of different origins met, worked, and lived with each other as best they could.
Yet if human diversity is a fact of life in cities, so are constant efforts to manage, control, and even reduce it. From self-segregating neighborhoods to laws governing entry and residence, people have always tried to either keep to themselves or force “other people” to keep to themselves (or get out). The medieval city’s air is said to have made you free, but guilds and other organizations “who were there first” often worked to keep out foreigners, especially potential competition. For example, in Chinese cities, “foreigner’s quarters” were a common sight. And what is true of pre-modern cities is true of modern ones, even before bringing in the important issue of race.
Yet as urban thinkers like Jane Jacobs convincingly argue, cities work best as diverse places, with different groups of “strangers” around at various times of the day to keep an eye on things and ensure order. That contrasts with small towns, where people keep each other in line by being neighbors — monitoring each other and looking out for one another.
A Clash of Conservatisms
The question of city diversity sits at the core of the N/YIMBY debate (Not/Yes In My Backyard) presently roiling urbanists on both sides of the political line. With housing a pressing issue in America and around the world, two groups vie for dominance — those who act like the old guilds and oppose new neighbors or development near them, and those who wish to make things easier for newcomers, primarily by building more housing.
The debate has led to some amusing acronyms ribbing NIMBYs who oppose development. There’s VIMBY, Vaporware in My Backyard, which is code for building requirements so demanding that they are effectively impossible. My personal favorite is one suggested by Scott Clark: BANANAs = Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anybody.
This cuts to the heart of the debate between “thin” conservatism — which focuses on economic opportunity, rule of law, and social mobility — and a “thick” conservatism based on conservation, tradition, and maintaining stability in the tumult of change.
Class Warfare by the Wealthy
For the “thin” conservatism of YIMBY, NIMBY-style regulations designed to keep development out have no right to exist, economically or morally.
More often than not, NIMBY activists are not poor residents of some downtrodden slum. They tend to be relatively well-off, often considering themselves the effective “owners” of the area, even if they aren’t even a numerical majority.
NIMBYism is thus class warfare by the upper classes against the poor — both directly (denying people who want to move into better areas access to schools, infrastructure, and other amenities) and indirectly (by forcing development to overwhelm poorer areas).
Thin conservatism genuinely aims to increase opportunity for all in employment, education, and housing. NIMBYism makes a mockery of that by pulling up the rungs of the economic ladder.
Preservation At Any Cost
“Thick” conservative ideas support the NIMBY side of the debate.
Historical preservation societies, something dear to any conservative, often expand their purview beyond anything worth truly conserving, using their mandate to freeze the neighborhood in place.
The idea of localism, also a favorite of conservatives distrustful of central government, gives an outsized advantage to wealthy NIMBY homeowners who tend to vote and campaign disproportionately against development in their area.
When it comes to change, thick conservatism appears entirely on the side of NIMBYs. After all, the word “diversity” is now so inextricably a part of left-wing values that even mentioning the term makes many a conservative blanch. And many on the right associate the word “change” exclusively with the left-wing concept of “progress” — something to be resisted, as William Buckley famously tried in his call to stand athwart History and yell Stop!
Insoluble Dilemma or Misunderstood Question?
At at first glance, this conflict between thin and thick conservatism appears insoluble.
But I think this is because of a category error. As I argued previously, thick conservatives are obsessed with small towns and agrarian life, and they subsequently have a bad habit of thinking of cities in such terms. As a result, they spend their time trying to make a city stop being a city.
But there is nothing more conservative than to let places and institutions be the best they are — whether governments, religions, or communities. Indeed, this is precisely why conservatives instinctively oppose central government top-down planning. More often than not, such efforts hamper human institutions. Nowhere is this truer than cities.
The idea that the very presence of different people will automatically change you, as if there were some sort of “liberal cooties,” is simply not reality. If it were true, then city dwellers would become like chameleons, constantly changing color whenever they went outside. To the contrary, because a city is largely made of strangers, interaction is an active choice, not a passive one forced on us like in small town communities. In cities, we can choose to mind-meld, ignore, or anything in between.
But a healthy city needs diversity to flourish, prior to any discussion of what conservatives can do within this framework.
A NIMBY or “flight from cities” approach exhibits a profound lack of confidence that one can flourish within that diversity, let alone set an example that neighbors and other residents may yet follow or find inspiring.
If NIMBYs often embody the worst stereotype of property owners, with their opposition to such innocent signs of life as daycares, YIMBYs embody the confident conservative belief in neighbors working together to solve problems and live peacefully in the same place.
We can take inspiration here from heterodox conservative thinker G. K. Chesterton, who argued that the staid and “boring” institutions of life are actually the greatest sources of adventure. As he put it: “We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbour.”
Life in the city is an adventure as well as a tale of tradition, and conservatives who seek adventure should welcome the challenge that comes with new neighbors, not shrink from it.
Strangers are opportunities for human contact, not alien beings justifying a 911 call.
As for what thick conservatives have to contribute beyond to welcoming neighbors, and the mark which thick conservatives can make on city life and traditions — that will have to wait until the next article.
