Gerard Jackson
BrookesNews.Com
Monday 24 November 2003

Every rich country suffers from a nasty little disease called nimbyism (not in my backyard). Carriers are usually white and affluent. The symptoms are, fortunately, easy to detect (except in the case of brain damaged left-wing journalists) and consist of an exaggerated concern for their environment (it is never anyone else's); a striking contempt for property rights, except their own; an inflated sense of their own architectural and environmental tastes while exhibiting considerable disdain for the tastes others; a marked indifference to the legitimate aspirations and ambitions of the little people; a penchant for special pleading dressed up as concern for the public good; pompous, self-righteous statements about selfish, greedy developers, and a febrile sense of moral superiority.

Back in February 1998 Murdoch's Australian reported a particularly virulent outbreak of nimbyism in Kuringai, Sydney. Ms Anne Carroll (an obvious carrier) displayed rabid symptoms when she announced to Jennifer Sexton, a sympathetic journalist, that development she does not personally approve of "is selfish, greedy" action.

Not only that, developers exploit the ignorance of long-term residents by paying less than the market value for their property. Well, nothing stopped Carroll from doing the neighbourly thing and informing these ignorant (or should I say stupid) people of the real value of their property. So why didn't she? With her intimate knowledge of property market she should be richer than Soros.

Dianne Duck (another carrier), spokewoman for the Melbourne group Save Our Suburbs (their suburbs?), bragged how other carriers tried to sabotage development by disrupting planning hearings, displaying the nimby's usual contempt for the property rights of others. Ron Baker, president of the Local History Group in Brisbane, "was not opposed to development", he just thought that it should be done elsewhere.

(This is reminiscent of those nice middle-class people who were not racist but thought that 'coloureds' did not belong in their suburb).

What Baker really means is that developers should move to poorer areas, even if it means raising the cost of shelter for the less well-off. Still another nimby, Andrew Main from a Perth-based nimby group, scornfully claimed he saw "classic old streets transformed into high-rise expensive developments that look like boxes"

What do free-marketeers have to say about this? Humbug! And humbug is something that should rile every decent human being. When Carroll, Baker, Duck, Main and their ilk prevent anyone from disposing of their property to the highest bidder they are guilty of theft, even if it is done legally.

If a house will fetch $300,000 as a residence but $1000,000 as a development site then by stopping the sale to the developer the likes of Carroll have literally confiscated $700,000 of their neighbour's wealth. The honest thing, of course, would be to do what the Mafia or the Yakuza do and that is at least make an offer. But lacking the integrity of these criminal organisations, our nimbys prefer to corrupt the law and use it to steal their neighbour's property.

Unfortunately the consequences of nimby greed don't stop there at grand larceny. Land is an economic good and therefore needs to be economised. There are basically two ways in which this can be done with residential land:

More houses can be built on the same land (increasing residential density) or we can build apartments can be built instead of houses, which means building up. These proposals are opposed by nimbys who have developed arrogant belief that when they bought their houses the sale included the surrounding area.

Regardless of nimby propaganda, it's obvious that builders only respond to the demands of their clients. If their clients demand something else, builders would try to accommodate them. (Notice how nimbys prefer to call builders developers. In our half-baked country developer is now a term of abuse).

It's true that on occasion attractive houses will have to be demolished to make space for more dwelling room. But it needs to be remembered that the new occupants indirectly bought that property and it was theirs to dispose of. If the likes ofBaker, Duck, Caroll et al don't like it then the market provides them with a just solution. Buy the property. But why do that if you can get politicians to steal it for you by perverting the law.

The effect of successful nimby attacks on property rights is to transfer wealth from the poor to themselves. Denying people the right to develop their property has the effect of driving up property prices (generating capital gains for the owners) which forces marginal buyers to purchase in other areas which in turn raises their property prices.

Not only are marginal buyers in those areas now forced out but so are marginal renters who must now seek rental property elsewhere. The result is that supply lags behind demand, rentals rise and the poor get poorer and nimbys like Carroll, Baker, Main and Duck get richer. This is precisely what has happened in my own suburb.

Only a paper like The Australian would have the unadulterated gall to write a bleeding heart article on affluent nimbys whose selfish actions badly damage low income groups. It is not developers that journalist' like Sexton should be attacking but the hypocrisy and anti-social and anti-democratic values of nimbys like Ms Carroll. As the 'Duke' used to say: "That'll be the day".

Gerard Jackson is Brookes economics editor