Simby Culture

Nimby, the acronym which stands for Not In My Back Yard, emerged in the 1980s and grew in popularity as a pejorative term for people who opposed development in their local area but were happy to insist that development needed to take place elsewhere.

The implication was that a nimby was selfish and narrow-minded. Even the Green movement was keen to distance itself from nimby culture because it wasn’t truly green – if anything, the nimby would often take a stance that was illogical and even damaging to the environment in order to protect their private domain.

Just as the term nimby started its life in the USA, so simby culture was coined by The Pauline Foundation, a radical green-conservative think tank based in Palo Alto, California. Simby stands for Start In My Back Yard.

But the acronym suggests a simpler approach than is actually the case. Far from suggesting individuals should welcome the developers, simby culture actually asks that, instead of simply refusing the need for development point blank, protesters should strive to produce alternative solutions.

To take the divisive issue of housing developments. Simby culture acknowledges that there is a need for housing, it also accepts that building companies need to make profit, but then looks for solutions that will address both issues whilst arriving at a satisfactory conclusion from an environmental perspective.

The same approach can be applied to any business-centred environmental problem – do not simply criticize the business for being a business, proffer a solution that will satisfy both business and environment.

It has to be said that this approach has not made The Pauline Foundation popular with hard-line environmental groups, many of which have accused it of being in the pocket of big business.

The founder, Hal Rubin, who was himself arrested for environmental activism in the early 1990s, has dismissed the criticism, particularly from his former colleagues in the Red Earth Collective, as a failure to understand that more can be achieved through cooperation than conflict.

Rubin is vindicated to some extent by the increasing tendency, particular in the Western States of the USA, of businesses to approach simby culture from the other direction. Businesses have found that by consulting local residents about their hopes and fears at an early stage, projects have faced considerably less opposition and have often benefited from tapping local knowledge.

Whether the true meeting of minds envisaged by simby culture can ever be realized is one thing – after all, no one wants to see the view from their window destroyed – but the idea of promoting greater and earlier dialogue between potentially opposing parties is certain to catch on as its benefits become more apparent.

(coming next - super-city state theory)