Aesthetics and NIMBYism

Every so often I read a tweet or listserv post saying something like this: “If modern buildings were prettier there’d be less NIMBYism.” I always thought this claim was silly for the simple reason that in real-life rezoning disputes, people who oppose new housing might not have any idea what the housing will look like- especially if the rezoning relates not just to one parcel of land, but to entire neighborhoods (as is sometimes the case in New York City where I live).

David Broockman, Christopher Elmendorf, and Joshua Kalla have a paper out that has a more nuanced version of the “pretty buildings” argument. Their argument is not about the sort of architectural features that distinguish modern architecture from, say, Victorian architecture. Instead, they claim that NIMBYs might be motivated by broader aesthetic concerns about height (i.e. dislike of tall buildings) and fit (i.e. that apartment buildings are bad when they are on a block full of houses, but less bad in already-dense areas). They rely primarily on public opinion surveys that support this view.

Even so, I’m not completely persuaded. What the average disengaged citizen thinks is not necessarily what the average person who bothers to testify at a zoning hearing thinks, let alone the hard-core NIMBY who organizes opposition to development or files suit to stop it.* This isn’t to say that Broockman et. al. are wrong- but I do think that more research might either bolster their argument or discredit it (or a little of both).

*In fairness, they do claim that “aesthetics are the most commonly voiced objection from people who speak against development in public hearings.” But since they cite an unpublished paper that is apparently not online for this, I am not sure how to evaluate this claim.