N.I.M.B.Y.

Business Environment

MGT 40

Submitted by:

Group I

Renzie E. Santos

Elieza Montero

Maruja Mae Panzo

Princess Kate Ubarro

Steve Dione Ong

John Diaz

Submitted to:

Prof. Anne Saboya

CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION

II. TERMINOLOGY AND DEFINITIONS

III. THE RATIONALE BEHIND NIMBY

IV. POINTS OF DEBATE

 In favor of development
 In favor of local sovereignty

V. SAMPLE PROBLEMS

VI. REFERENCES
I. Introduction

In seeking to understand public engagement with renewable energy technologies (RET), one
potentially relevant literature is that on public responses to (primarily opposition towards) the
local siting of other technologies or institutions. This is sometimes referred to as the NIMBY
(Not IN My Back Yard) literature, although not all authors use this term. Much of the literature
which deals explicitly with the NIMBY syndrome originates from the US, and has been published
since the late 1980s. NIMBY is used to describe opponents of new developments who recognise
that a facility is needed but are opposed to its siting within their locality:

In plain language...the motivation of residents who want to protect their turf.

More formally, NIMBY refers to the protectionist attitudes of and oppositional tactics adopted
by community groups facing an unwelcome development in their neighborhood... residents
usually concede that these 'noxious' facilities are necessary, but not near their homes, hence
the term 'not in my back yard'.

Most of the studies concentrate either on the siting of social facilities (e.g. prisons, homes for
the mentally ill) or waste incinerators. Although the issues surrounding these sorts of facilities
differ, much of the analysis is similar. Concern is evident in much of this literature about the
ability of local protesters to hold up the siting of proposed developments.

II. TERMINOLOGY AND DEFINITIONS

The acronym n(ot) i(n) m(y) b(ack) y(ard) dates from 1980, is defined as American

English, and was supposedly coined by Walter Rodgers of the American Nuclear

Society.

NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) is a widely used but lesser known acronym. Used by residents of
an area and the concerned development agencies. This term is believed to be first used in 1980
in the Christian Science Monitor, an international news organization however its use in
hazardous waste industry is considered to be much older. Different versions of this word
was used to people convey the same message/ reaction, opposing or expressing objection to
the development in their backyard or immediate surroundings. The new development might be
as close as in one’s backyard, in nearby open space or in the locality.

Nimby as a noun is “a person who objects to the siting of something perceived as unpleasant or
hazardous in their own neighbourhood, especially while raising no such objections to similar
developments elsewhere.

The use of this term became popular after 1980s and since then it is used in many parts of the
world like Canada, united Kingdom, Hong Kong, Italy, japan, united States to name a few. Those
showing NIMBY reaction are often referred as Nimbys and their state of mind is called
Nimbyism. Sometimes it is also referred as natural psychological phenomenon to resist change
or development.

III. THE RATIONALE BEHIND NIMBY

This term in general sense used by residents of an area where some form of development takes
place which possesses potential threat to them. Developments likely to attract local objections
include:

 Infrastructure development, such as new roads and motorway service areas, light
rail and metro lines, bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, airports, power plants, retail
developments, sales of public assets, electrical transmission lines, wastewater treatment
plants, landfills, sewage outfalls and prisons;
 The extraction of mineral resources including ore, aggregates and hydrocarbons
from mines, quarries and oil wells or gas wells, respectively;
 Renewable energy generators, such as wind farms and solar panels;
 Businesses trading in goods perceived as immoral, such as adult video, liquor stores,
and medical cannabis dispensaries;
 Accommodations perceived as primarily benefitting disadvantaged people, such
as subsidized housing for the financially disadvantaged, supportive housing for the mentally
ill, halfway houses for drug addicts and criminals, and homeless shelters for those with no
fixed address;
 Services catering to certain stigmatised groups (for example, injection drug users), such
as methadone clinics, syringe exchange programmes, drug
detoxification facilities, supervised injection site;
 Large-scale developments of all kinds, such as big-box stores and housing subdivisions.

The claimed reasons against these developments vary, and some are given below.

 Increased traffic: More jobs, more housing or more stores correlates to increased traffic on
local streets and greater demand for parking spots. Industrial facilities such as warehouses,
factories, or landfills often increase the volume of truck traffic.
 Harm to locally owned small businesses: The development of a big box store may provide
too much competition to a locally owned store; similarly, the construction of a new road
may make the older road less travelled, leading to a loss of business for property owners.
This can lead to excessive relocation costs, or to loss of respected local businesses.
 Loss of residential property value: Homes near an undesirable development may be less
desirable for potential buyers. The lost revenue from property taxes may, or may not, be
offset by increased revenue from the project.
 Environmental pollution of land, air, and water: Power plants, factories, chemical
facilities, crematoriums, sewage treatment facilities, airports, and similar projects may, or
may be claimed to, contaminate the land, air, or water around them. Especially facilities
assumed to smell might cause objections.
 Light pollution: Projects that operate at night, or that include security lighting (such as
street lights in a parking lot), may be accused of causing light pollution.
 Noise pollution: In addition to the noise of traffic, a project may inherently be noisy. This is
a common objection to wind power, airports, roads, and many industrial facilities, but also
 stadiums, festivals, and nightclubs which are particularly noisy at night when locals want to
sleep.
 Visual blight and failure to "blend in" with the surrounding architecture: The proposed
project might be ugly or particularly large, or cast a shadow over an area due to its height.
 Loss of a community's small-town feel: Proposals that might result in new people moving
into the community, such as a plan to build many new houses, are often claimed to change
the community's character.
 Strain of public resources and schools: This reason is given for any increase in the local
area's population, as additional school facilities might be needed for the additional children,
but particularly to projects that might result in certain kinds of people joining the
community, such as a group home for people with disabilities, or immigrants.
 Disproportionate benefit to non-locals: The project appears to benefit distant people, such
as investors (in the case of commercial projects like factories or big-box stores) or people
from neighboring areas (in the case of regional government projects, such as airports,
highways, sewage treatment, or landfills).
 Increases in crime: This is usually applied to projects that are perceived as attracting or
employing low-skill workers or racial minorities, as well as projects that cater to people who
are thought to often commit crimes, such as the mentally ill, the poor, and drug addicts.
Additionally, certain types of projects, such as pubs or medical marijuana dispensaries,
might be perceived as directly increasing the amount of crime in the area.
 Risk of an (environmental) disaster, such as with drilling operations, chemical
industry, dams, or nuclear power plants.
 Historic areas: The affected area is on a heritage register, because of its many older
properties that are being preserved as such.

Generally, many NIMBY objections are guessed or feared, because objections are more likely to
be successful before construction starts. It is often too late to object to the project after its
completion, since new additions are unlikely to be reversed. As hinted by the list, protests can
occur for opposite reasons. A new road or shopping center can cause increased traffic and work
opportunities for some, and decreased traffic for others, harming local businesses.
People in an area affected by plans sometimes form an organization which can collect money
and organize the objection activities. NIMBYists can hire a lawyer to do formal appeals, and
contact media to gain public support for their case.

IV. POINT OF DEBATE

Although often used rather pejoratively, the use of the concept NIMBY and similar terms have
been critiqued. For instance, the term is frequently used to dismiss groups as selfish or ill-
informed, yet these same groups may have virtues that are overlooked.

 In favor of development

Frequently argued debate points in favor of development include higher employment,

tax revenue, marginal cost of remote development, safety, and environmental benefits.
Proponents of development may accuse locals of egotism, elitism,
parochialism, drawbridge mentality, racism and anti-diversity, the inevitability of
criticism, and misguided or unrealistic claims of prevention of urban sprawl. If people
who don't want to be disturbed see the general need of an establishment, such as an
airport, they generally suggest another location. But seen from society's perspective,
the other location might not be better, since people living there get disturbed instead.

 In favor of local sovereignty

Those labeled as NIMBYs may have a variety of motivations and may be unified only
because they oppose a particular project. For example, some may oppose any significant
change or development, regardless of type, purpose, or origin. Others, if the project is
seen as being imposed by outsiders, may hold strong principles of self-governance,
local sovereignty, local autonomy, and home rule. These people believe that local
people should have the final choice, and that any project affecting the local people
should clearly benefit themselves, rather than corporations with distant investors or
central governments. Still others may object to a particular project because of its
 nature, e.g., opposing a nuclear power plant over fear of radiation, but accepting a
local waste management facility as a municipal necessity.

V. SAMPLE PROBLEMS

Landfill Sites & Industries – Waste generation in urban areas is a daunting issue with no
seemingly solution other than dumping a major part of waste to landfill sites. This results in
huge piles of garbage which can be seen from large distance. No one will like to live near a
landfill site or industries because of the filth, smell, potential skin problems and other diseases.

Airport – Everyone will agree to the fact that the construction of airport is necessary. As the
world progresses the preference for air travel has increased yet when it comes to locating an
airport, mixed reactions is received. Some wish to be located near airport as it will provide
connectivity and increased land prices, better facilities etc but at the same time Nimbys will
highlight the negatives like noise, pollution, height restrictions and traffic it will generate.

Hospital – A must and basic facility in an area often faces criticism at time of construction by
some. This is due to the assumption that the diseases from the patients coming for treatment
might spread. Some express concern over the way waste is handled by the hospitals as the
harmful microbs might spread if waste is not disposed properly.

Canada

Nova Scotia

In July 2012, residents of Kings County rallied against a bylaw, developed over three years of
consultation and hearings, allowing wind generators to be constructed nearby. A similar theme
arose in September 2009, where residents there rallied against a wind generator in Digby Neck,
Nova Scotia. In January 2011, residents of Lawrencetown, NS openly opposed a cellular
telephone tower being built. A proposed development of downtown Dartmouth in August 2012
was also contested by residents. In February 2013, some residents of Lunenburg County
opposed wind farms being built in the area, saying, "It's health and it's property devaluation"
and "This is an industrial facility put in the middle of rural Nova Scotia. It does not belong
there."

In March 2013, some residents of the community of Blockhouse opposed the building and
development of a recycling plant, referred to by one business owner as a "dump." The plant
would offer 75 jobs to the community of roughly 5,900 people. In the same month, the
municipal councilors of Chester, Nova Scotia, approved the building of wind turbines in the area
in a 6–1 vote, despite some local opposition

Ditch NIMBY to fix Philippines’ municipal solid waste problem

The Philippines’ mounting solid waste problem is now extending beyond Metro Manila, and
it’s time to trash a bad culture that’s getting in the way of solving the issue.

Metro Manila is now home to more than 12 million people. As with many other megacities in
Asia, waste collection and disposal is a major environmental issue.

Currently about 35,000 tons of municipal solid waste are generated by the Philippines daily, and
more than 8,600 tons per day in Metro Manila alone. A sizable proportion of the refuse is
openly burned, further worsening the quality of the city’s already heavily polluted air.

W A ST E

Ecological solid waste management gets tough in the Philippines. The problem extends beyond
the capital.

Daily garbage generated in northern Baguio City increased by more than 20 per cent from 2008
to 2013. Since the Irisan dumpsite trash-slide incident in 2011, Baguio has used landfill facilities
in Pangasinan and Tarlac provinces. In Cebu, the Inayawan landfill still operates years after it
was supposed to have closed upon reaching 7 years of service life in 2005.
There have been attempts to hold back the tide of rubbish. The 2000 Ecological Solid Waste
Management Act is considered landmark legislation on environmental management. It aimed
to systematically organise and sustainably manage the collection and disposal of municipal solid
waste (MSW) in the country.

The law mandated the establishment of MSW collection systems anchored on the 3R formula—
Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. This involves segregation at source and the establishment of
intermediate facilities such as materials recovery facilities, which ideally should be established
at the barangay (neighborhood) level.

It also provided specific deadlines for closing unsanitary open dumpsites, and supported
properly engineered sanitary landfills as the only sustainable means of final garbage disposal.

However, many of the law’s goals have yet to be achieved. Cities are still dumping waste on
open dumpsites. In 2010, when all open dumpsites should already have been closed as
mandated by the law, 790 were still operating.

Three major obstacles have contributed to this failure – and one is linked with the provisions of
another law.

The biggest constraint to the establishment of proper MSW disposal facilities is the “Not In
My Back Yard” (NIMBY) attitude. It’s like saying “yes, we need dumpsites, but please put
them somewhere else.

Social perception and assessment exercises have attempted to educate communities about the
difference between materials recovery facilities, sanitary landfills and open dumpsites. But the
common notion of what a dumpsite looks like is embedded in people’s minds.

Making matters worse is that cities that have welcomed dumping have not been able to
present a good model. Take for instance the (controlled) dumpsite in Payatas, Metro Manila,
where leachate has found to leak through to the Marikina River tributaries. In 2000, an
enormous pile of garbage collapsed, killing over 200 people and injuring hundreds more.
A second obstacle is financing and governance. The investment costs and management burden
of a comprehensive MSW management system are too burdensome for many cities.

Losses due to NIMBY

A small opposition always exist due to one of the other belief of people or some bad
experience. NIMBY does not cause much damage unless it is supported by large number of
people who brings development to stand still. Continuous and frequent opposition to
development might even slow down the development process and hamper the growth of a city.
Because of prolonged objection and delay in completion of projects investors start moving to
other areas which are more promising. NIMBY reaction thus can prove to have adverse and
undesirable effect on an area. Due to widespread, frequent obstruction, in some cases to get
advantage and attract investment YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard) reaction is also seen. This is
opposite of NIMBY and tries to address the problems caused by Nimbyism.

A planned instance of NIMBY reaction can result in outflow of investment. This type of
incidence occur because of certain individual or group of people which wish to hamper growth
in an area or to create a false image of other area being more attractive for investment.
Another benefit which one can get by disrupting the project is to tarnish the image of working
agency or to portray them as incompetent. Considering the example of roads for linking new
areas, a delay or halt in construction will devoid the areas from growth.

VI. REFERENCES

http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/research/beyond_nimbyism/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIMBY

https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Not_in_my_back_yard_syndrome

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Not-in-My-Backyard-Phenomenon