"In parts of Columbia County, the rural landscape is dotted with signs saying “No Wind Farm” and “No Wind Turbines”. There’s been a wind-farm project pending in three townships up there for some time, and it’s supposed to start construction in about a year. If it ever gets final approval, there’d be about a hundred turbines built.

Now, there are allegations of coziness between a couple town board members with the developer, and strong protestations from the NIMBY’s. If you’re not familiar with the acronym, it means “Not In My Back Yard” and some of the people whose back yards are involved, and first supported the wind farm, are now against it..."

By Tim Morrissey. Read more

Above, a must-see item. Britain's Prince Charles had this video made to publicize the rainforest's importance in climate change, ahead of the Copenhagen Conference. [...] I was convinced, at that meeting in DC, that this would happen now, if it could be made to happen at all. The science heads seemed very serious. Regular readers may remember how I was able to question Pat Dehmer, head of science at DOE, about what they intended to do about the various nay-sayers, denialists, NIMBYs and BANANAs they would encounter. Dehmer's answer was essentially that she thought the new generation of Americans coming up would think very differently about all this. I was skeptical, mostly because I see nay-saying almost every working day, both in the more conservative of my students and in the community groups I work with on community-owned wind power projects [...] Fast forward to now. Today's Guardian Environment section (my regular over-coffee morning fare) is filled with articles highlighting intitatives that are the result, or a partial result, of the new theory of the economy that this team of science wonks is putting into action.

By Mick. Read more

"The NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) syndrome is always alive and well. When it comes to prison overpopulation, the drug addicted or mentally homeless and ever-mounting garbage, no one wants a prison, rehab facility or landfill in his or her neighborhood.

Neither do NIMBYs want a terrorist released in their backyards..."

By Susan Page. Read more

"On the matter of closing the controversial Guantanamo military prison and, more important, deciding what to do with the 240 detainees still held there, our elected officials have made a mess of things and there is blame to go around at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

First, President Obama made a colossal blunder when he signed an executive order to shutter the prison in one year, setting a deadline of Jan. 22, 2010, without first drafting a plan for what to do with the detainees..."

By San Diego Union Editorial. Read  more

Opponents of noisy GO Transit project in the west end may have a new ally in their fight to quiet the pile drivers that have rattled their neighbourhood -- City Hall.

Councillor Cesar Palacio, a one-time supporter of the now much-maligned West Toronto Diamond project, is calling on city council to express support for area residents to send city lawyers to any formal mediation or complaint residents make to the Canadian Transportation Agency.

"This cannot continue," Palacio told the Sun yesterday ahead of this week's city council meeting. "The community deserves something better.

"This is not short-term pain for long-term gain. This is long-term benefit for GO Transit but this will be an eternal pain for the local community." ...

By Don Peat. Read more

A BURGEONING NIMBY CONSENSUS?.... This seems to be an increasingly common sentiment.

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), the assistant majority leader, said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he would accept Guantanamo detainees in his home state as long as they were held in super-maximum prisons, where inmates are held 23 hours a day in small cells with slits for windows.

Moderator David Gregory asked: "Would you be OK with al Qaeda prisoners -- those currently at Guantanamo Bay -- in a prison in Illinois?"

Durbin responded: "Well, I'd be OK with it in a supermax facility, because we've never had an escape from one."...

By Steve Benen. Read more

"Even daycare, it seems, is vulnerable to NIMBY pressure.
The "Not In My Back Yard" movement has blocked new day nurseries on a three-block section of High Park Ave., at least for a year.
The ban marks a victory for residents, backed by a report from city staff listing objections that included the noise generated by children at play. According to Councillor Bill Saundercook, an existing day nursery was on the verge of being joined by one or more others at the risk of causing "pure chaos."..."

By TheStar.com. Read more

"Speaking of the homeless, some Hillsborough County residents crying NIMBY packed a county land use hearing earlier this week, trying to convince officials to deny a permit for a tent city much like Pinellas Hope. Catholic Charities, the same group that set up Pinellas’ tent city, wants to put up a similar camp on 6410 E. Hillsborough Avenue near Harney Road, on a piece of property they own. When neighbors found out about the proposal, they organized fiercely against it with images like the one to the right (OMG! Syringes!). One East Lake Park woman even created a little group: Stop Tent City. They even have T-shirts. Yes, T-shirts! ..."

By Alex Pickett. Read more

"Being hanged in effigy is an experience you don't soon forget. My trip to the gallows as a rookie city councillor was courtesy of a west Hamilton neighbourhood unhappy with an infill apartment proposal that I supported on the site of an abandoned factory at 101 Broadway Avenue back in 1986.

When opponents of the project protested at a public meeting that the development would attract students (gasp), nurses (horrors) and other undesirables to the neighbourhood, I countered sarcastically that maybe we should just bring back the historic Westdale covenant that precluded blacks, Jews and Eastern European immigrants from owning property there. Subtlety was never my strong suit; my constituents weren't amused.

When council considered the matter, a packed gallery of angry residents became so disruptive that the mayor had to adjourn the meeting and summon security..."

By TERRY COOKE. Read more

"Local Uptown-area NIMBYs, led by the Queen NIMBEE (and Minneapolis City Commissioner) Lara Norkus-Crampton, have led a mostly successful campaign to firmly establish the belief that the terms “character” and “height” are virtually synonymous.[...]
Why don't the NIMBYs complain about too-short buildings? The Lyn-Lake Small Area Plan does encourage buildings along Lake Street to be more than one story, thank goodness. Still, how often do we hear people complain when someone comes along and wants to build yet another one-story building on one of our valuable major commercial streets? This is just as potentially damaging to neighborhood character as a five-story building (if not more), yet I rarely, if ever, hear many people complaining about anything being too short...."

By Uptown Urbanist. Read more