Opinion
LOS: Listen Observe Speak
Observations, Ideas, Rants and Opinions about Our Megalopolis and Community
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The Attack of the Nimbys: The Selfish Community
I love it that when you look up "NIMBY" on Wikipedia, it nervously announces that "The neutrality of this article is disputed." And some dispute it is, given how every neighborhood has its share of NIMBYs (Not In My Backyard), NIABYs (Not In Anyone's Backyard), NAMBIs (Not Against My Business or Industry), and even a few BANANAS (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything or possibly Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone)!
Disputing and debating is good for encyclopedias and for democracy. The Greeks do it, Muslims do it, Jews do it, even we as Americans do it when we're in the mood. The democratic mind knows that outside the borders of tolerance, debate and compromise loom darkness and dictatorship.
I had stumbled into a dust-up about definitions but I still
wanted to know what is, more or less, a NIMBY?
Wikipedia finally gives in:
In fact, NIMBYISM defines the idea of democracy balanced between the contradictory tug of the forces of majority rule and the forces of minority rights. Our democracy is rife with examples of this teetering between the common good and the individual good.
The majority rules that a cellphone tower, a clean water plant, a metro system, an airport or a new school benefits many, but they simultaneously act to protect their rights as a minority by wanting it "elsewhere." The minority, in other words, should not have to sacrifice its minority rights to peace, quiet, and enjoyment of strong property values for the sake of a development that benefits a majority.
So while everyone, including the NIMBY, benefits from, say, a new school in the neighborhood (because it educates and empowers children as future citizens), the NIMBY doesn't want to deal with the noise, the traffic, the loss of her favorite strip-mall, and above all, the potential loss of her property's value.
So it seems, then, that the tiniest distance can separate a NIMBY from a non-NIMBY.
Imagine this scenario:
Resident A—a childless retired apartment-owner living adjacent to the school playground—is the most ferocious NIMBY because she hates the noise, the traffic and the lowering of the price of her property due to its extreme proximity to the school.
Resident B—a single parent with a school-age child living 100 feet from the playground—not only has less noise to deal with but has a school her kid can walk to and may even see a rise in her property price because of its proximity to a school. She's no NIMBY!
Sometimes, inches separate one from the other. And it seems that the potential solution can also be measured in inches.
Blessed with the democratic principles of tolerance, debate and compromise, each would have to give an inch or so to the other. Resident A agrees to install double-glazed windows thanks to a special subsidy for properties adjacent to the school supported by Resident B while the school plants trees or a sound wall to mitigate the noise for Resident A and Resident B.
Both the minority and the majority benefits, albeit at a price. Both the collective and the individual interest is satisfied, give or take. Above all, the NIMBY is cured of her NIMBYISM and the community is whole again!
But still I wondered whether NIMBY selfishness is always a bad thing.
Local activism can have global and social justice benefits. A poor neighborhood prone to having industrial waste dumped on its porch would presumably wear the NIMBY badge with pride and deserves everyone's respect. So there must be good NIMBYs and bad NIMBYs.
Still, no one likes the term applied to them.
I don't want a cellphone tower outside my bedroom window even if it will give me and everyone else better reception. I want the better reception, but I want the tower "elsewhere." Yet if I wasn't willing to come up with a better solution than to want to enjoy the benefit without any effort on my part, to want crystal calls thanks to the tower blocking my neighbor's window, then I'm not so much a NIMBY as selfish and nasty.
A "good" NIMBY works out the solution for both his and everyone's benefit rather than act hypocritically. In other words, I don't want a cellphone tower to be blocking my neighbor's window either. But I don't want to be a NIABY either. Something must give.
Being a NIMBY is hard work, as is living in a democracy. Without vigilance, without active participation, democracy is hollow. It's only as good and effective as its citizens. A democracy of dunces and hypocrites is no good for anyone.
Elsewhere, I read that "Nimby" was popularized in the 1980s by an Englishman, Nicholas Ridley—a powerful, abrasive minister in Margaret Thatcher's government—to attack people's resistance to housing developments.
It later emerged that Ridley personally was blocking a development near to his country home.
A NIMBY? No, just a nitwit!
___________________________________
Ganging Up on the Talent in Da Hood
Gangs embody our nation's and our city's worst nightmare. Urban poverty, drugs, violence, apathy and despair have, in fact, conspired to give LA the dubious distinction of being the nation's gang capital, the epicenter of a deadly epidemic.
We all know that gangs destroy the lives of our most vulnerable population, urban youth. They also seriously endanger our communities, our police officers, and ourselves. And each week, they keep growing: 1500 gangs and 200,000 members and counting.
Meanwhile, the never-ending background story of how our megalopolis and our politicians have denied, distorted, abused and ultimately failed to genuinely address this civic crisis is just as scary. Just search "gangs" in Los Angeles Times and you'll see what I mean.
Yet it's not impossible to sew a purse from a sow's ear, to find hope in this national and neighborhood tragedy, if we dare to look.
Sometimes in the dark you stumble across something that inspires and illuminates. And it serves us well to pay attention and to use it to light our way through.
The Mar Vista Family Center is one shining project deserving of our support. Incredibly, MVFC succeeded in recruiting the very gang members who burned down its low-income community pre-school in 1980 to help build it and their community back up. A phoenix of a community organization, if there ever was!
Then there is Jorge Peniche, a talented Renaissance man from "da hood," a diamond in the rough and tough of LA. Visit his Website and you tell me!
A young man of indisputable talent, Peniche's in-your-face photography of real and wanna-be gang-bangers alone is an eye-opener, civic education through photographs that reveal truths in a kaleidoscope of grays rather than just black, brown or white.
Peniche's photographs bring all this to the surface in a way that makes the viewer ask why, how, who, and WTF (pardon my acronym)!
Above all, Peniche's calibre of work and personal modesty as a whole is a powerful message to young people everywhere. His work neither denies nor glorifies gangs. Instead, Peniche shows its complexity, the allure, commercialization, vulnerability and deadliness of it all.
The message seems clear: Tell your story using a camera instead of a gun. Get your high with art instead of drugs. And don't ever give up in building yourself and your community a better future, decision by decision, pixel by pixel. And hurry, before it's too late!
WARNING: His latest video below of gang bangers posing and being "shot" in Mar Vista Gardens features Hip-Hop lyrics some folks may find objectionable. Turn down the volume if it irks you and/or get any kids/immature audiences out of earshot.
The Attack of the Nimbys: The Selfish Community
I love it that when you look up "NIMBY" on Wikipedia, it nervously announces that "The neutrality of this article is disputed." And some dispute it is, given how every neighborhood has its share of NIMBYs (Not In My Backyard), NIABYs (Not In Anyone's Backyard), NAMBIs (Not Against My Business or Industry), and even a few BANANAS (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything or possibly Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone)!Disputing and debating is good for encyclopedias and for democracy. The Greeks do it, Muslims do it, Jews do it, even we as Americans do it when we're in the mood. The democratic mind knows that outside the borders of tolerance, debate and compromise loom darkness and dictatorship.
I had stumbled into a dust-up about definitions but I still
wanted to know what is, more or less, a NIMBY?Wikipedia finally gives in:
NIMBY is an acronym for Not In My Back Yard. The term is used to describe opposition to a new project by residents, even if they themselves and those around will benefit from the construction. Often, the new project being opposed is generally considered a benefit for many, but residents nearby the immediate location consider it undesirable and would generally prefer the building to be "elsewhere."Deceptively simple and yet I was struck by the idea's slipperiness. A NIMBY doesn't say "Good for you, now go away" but "Good for us, but not good for me especially, so go away."
In fact, NIMBYISM defines the idea of democracy balanced between the contradictory tug of the forces of majority rule and the forces of minority rights. Our democracy is rife with examples of this teetering between the common good and the individual good.
The majority rules that a cellphone tower, a clean water plant, a metro system, an airport or a new school benefits many, but they simultaneously act to protect their rights as a minority by wanting it "elsewhere." The minority, in other words, should not have to sacrifice its minority rights to peace, quiet, and enjoyment of strong property values for the sake of a development that benefits a majority.
So while everyone, including the NIMBY, benefits from, say, a new school in the neighborhood (because it educates and empowers children as future citizens), the NIMBY doesn't want to deal with the noise, the traffic, the loss of her favorite strip-mall, and above all, the potential loss of her property's value.So it seems, then, that the tiniest distance can separate a NIMBY from a non-NIMBY.
Imagine this scenario:
Resident A—a childless retired apartment-owner living adjacent to the school playground—is the most ferocious NIMBY because she hates the noise, the traffic and the lowering of the price of her property due to its extreme proximity to the school.
Resident B—a single parent with a school-age child living 100 feet from the playground—not only has less noise to deal with but has a school her kid can walk to and may even see a rise in her property price because of its proximity to a school. She's no NIMBY!
Sometimes, inches separate one from the other. And it seems that the potential solution can also be measured in inches.
Blessed with the democratic principles of tolerance, debate and compromise, each would have to give an inch or so to the other. Resident A agrees to install double-glazed windows thanks to a special subsidy for properties adjacent to the school supported by Resident B while the school plants trees or a sound wall to mitigate the noise for Resident A and Resident B.
Both the minority and the majority benefits, albeit at a price. Both the collective and the individual interest is satisfied, give or take. Above all, the NIMBY is cured of her NIMBYISM and the community is whole again!
But still I wondered whether NIMBY selfishness is always a bad thing.
Local activism can have global and social justice benefits. A poor neighborhood prone to having industrial waste dumped on its porch would presumably wear the NIMBY badge with pride and deserves everyone's respect. So there must be good NIMBYs and bad NIMBYs.
Still, no one likes the term applied to them.
I don't want a cellphone tower outside my bedroom window even if it will give me and everyone else better reception. I want the better reception, but I want the tower "elsewhere." Yet if I wasn't willing to come up with a better solution than to want to enjoy the benefit without any effort on my part, to want crystal calls thanks to the tower blocking my neighbor's window, then I'm not so much a NIMBY as selfish and nasty.
A "good" NIMBY works out the solution for both his and everyone's benefit rather than act hypocritically. In other words, I don't want a cellphone tower to be blocking my neighbor's window either. But I don't want to be a NIABY either. Something must give.
Being a NIMBY is hard work, as is living in a democracy. Without vigilance, without active participation, democracy is hollow. It's only as good and effective as its citizens. A democracy of dunces and hypocrites is no good for anyone.
Elsewhere, I read that "Nimby" was popularized in the 1980s by an Englishman, Nicholas Ridley—a powerful, abrasive minister in Margaret Thatcher's government—to attack people's resistance to housing developments.
It later emerged that Ridley personally was blocking a development near to his country home.
A NIMBY? No, just a nitwit!
___________________________________
Ganging Up on the Talent in Da Hood
Gangs embody our nation's and our city's worst nightmare. Urban poverty, drugs, violence, apathy and despair have, in fact, conspired to give LA the dubious distinction of being the nation's gang capital, the epicenter of a deadly epidemic.
We all know that gangs destroy the lives of our most vulnerable population, urban youth. They also seriously endanger our communities, our police officers, and ourselves. And each week, they keep growing: 1500 gangs and 200,000 members and counting.
Meanwhile, the never-ending background story of how our megalopolis and our politicians have denied, distorted, abused and ultimately failed to genuinely address this civic crisis is just as scary. Just search "gangs" in Los Angeles Times and you'll see what I mean.
Yet it's not impossible to sew a purse from a sow's ear, to find hope in this national and neighborhood tragedy, if we dare to look.
Sometimes in the dark you stumble across something that inspires and illuminates. And it serves us well to pay attention and to use it to light our way through.
The Mar Vista Family Center is one shining project deserving of our support. Incredibly, MVFC succeeded in recruiting the very gang members who burned down its low-income community pre-school in 1980 to help build it and their community back up. A phoenix of a community organization, if there ever was!
Then there is Jorge Peniche, a talented Renaissance man from "da hood," a diamond in the rough and tough of LA. Visit his Website and you tell me!
A young man of indisputable talent, Peniche's in-your-face photography of real and wanna-be gang-bangers alone is an eye-opener, civic education through photographs that reveal truths in a kaleidoscope of grays rather than just black, brown or white.
Peniche's photographs bring all this to the surface in a way that makes the viewer ask why, how, who, and WTF (pardon my acronym)!
Above all, Peniche's calibre of work and personal modesty as a whole is a powerful message to young people everywhere. His work neither denies nor glorifies gangs. Instead, Peniche shows its complexity, the allure, commercialization, vulnerability and deadliness of it all.
The message seems clear: Tell your story using a camera instead of a gun. Get your high with art instead of drugs. And don't ever give up in building yourself and your community a better future, decision by decision, pixel by pixel. And hurry, before it's too late!
WARNING: His latest video below of gang bangers posing and being "shot" in Mar Vista Gardens features Hip-Hop lyrics some folks may find objectionable. Turn down the volume if it irks you and/or get any kids/immature audiences out of earshot.
- JorgePeniche.com: The images and the classical music is to die for!
- Mar Vista Family Center: A Phoenix of community philanthropy
- Streetgangs.com: A down-and-dirty hub of news and activism about LA gangs since 1995.
- Culver City Boyz: Possibly the gang in Peniche's video.
- KPCC Report on LA's anti-Gang plan
- LA Times on the "Businessmen": Geezer Gang Reform
- Mayor Villaraigosa's Gang Reduction Strategy
4 comments:
An intellectually stimulating article that tweeked my social conscience so that I thought Not In My Brain, Y'all...but there it is so I'm forced to think about it and thank Babek for forcing me to do so...
What better Community Council member than the one who tugs at our brains and lures us into thought with stories?
Need Insight? Meet Babak, Yea!
Sometimes I find myself a bit overwhelmed by all the issues that one comes across. Things can seem to be very complex or deeply ingrained. I make the mistake of thinking to myself, what possible difference can I make? I'm just one person, I have my own responsibilities, things to take care of.
Yet as I read what you wrote, in your relevant and quite entertaining style, it reminds me of something that I tend to forget. And that is that the way in which we have the most impact on our world is by getting involved in our local scene.
I am excited that you are a candidate and look forward to hearing more of your opinions and ideas.
Best regards, Siobhan
Wow!I am really liking this blog, it's both extensive and informative. It reminds me of an octopus.It has it's hands on many subject areas and issues pulled together by one head (you Babak).
The capacity to take on such a task clearly demonstrates that you are an active leader in the Mar Vista Community, that you care about what goes on within it and more importantly that you respect the intelligence and thinking power of your fellow neighbours. Brilliant!! You have given them much to consider and chew on, even me and I live on the other side of the pond.
On your Opinion and Youth pages, the articles: 'Attack of the Nimbys' (The Selfish Community) and 'Ganging Up on the Talent in Da Hood' were of particular interest to me because sadly we share the same kinds of issues. In London, communities are breaking down left, right and centre. You talk about the hypocrisy of the NIMBY neighbour (Not In My Back Yard. We'll we have plenty of those here I'm afraid and ICBB neighbours (I can't be bothered). Many of us are exasberated by local politicians and their broken promises.
However, what's crippling us here more than anything else and I put this above community apathy - is fear. We have become so fearful of each other and more tragic still, petrified of our own young people. Our adult fears have given too much power to some young people who have not yet acquired the life experience or emotinal skills to use it constructively. Hard to imagine but, it's true. Youngsters here are growing up without the love, care or guidance that only their communities can provide. And I'm talking for all youngsters cared and uncared for by their families. I have spoken to so many youngsters that have no real sense of community belonging apart from their own mental constructions they share with no one else.
The emergence of youth gangs in the UK is of grave concern here and is spiralling out of control it seems. So far this year we have had 71 young men die by the knife or gun in London alone. Now for us this is a huge amount of young people. Even one is too much to go in such a needless way.
The media does not help with it's moral panics (such big bullies they are). The stories we consume about youth crime feed our fears which then takes the spot light off of all the positive things that young people are doing to stay ahead and indeed to survive. That's why I was so pleased when you mentioned the works of The Mar Vista Family Center and the Young photograher, Jorge Peniche. There seems to be alot of positive things going on in your community.
Every now and again I will be checking in on your blog for inspiration and tips on how I can become more of an active community member in my own neighbourhod here in Charlton, South East London... and of course a rant, I'll divide it into chapters next time.
Good luck with your campaign and let me know of the result come the 21st June. If I could vote for you I would! Wendy.
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