For those of you who don't know, I currently work as a camerman for a Chicago suburb. My job consists of mostly watching and recording city council meetings for cablecast and archival purposes.

Often one of the items is a new townhome re-development. No big deal, right? Well, it so happens that this suburb is as luddite as it gets. Fourty pissed people show up to harp about seven townhomes. Seven! They complain about it replacing open space, trees that have been there since these people where children. They get very emotional, they yell, they swear. They do everything but actually put up their own money and buy the property, for fair value, and make sure it is left pristine.

Now why am I putting this in the New York forum? Well, your fair city seems to have the same problem. That problem is that of luddites, NIMBYs, or whatever you call them. These people have the gall to tell a builder what they can and cannot do with their own property. Never do these people offer to buy these properties and have them made into public spaces. Never do they offer to do anything constructive. Never to they ever even act like they care about anything that happens in the city except for things that directly effect their selfish, luddite, cheap-@$$es.

Why do they have this power? How can these jack@$$es stop a 75-story tower? Why does your city-council even give these jerks the time of day to return their mindless phone calls. These people do not vote in local elections. They do not care about anything but themselves. The only thing they have ever given to the community is tax dollars.

So why bother with them? Why empower them? Why let them stand in the way of progress? What not punch them in the mouth the minute they open it?

They're just so shallow. I couldn't stand to live in a city that has as many of them as New York. The whole thing just pisses me off.

Please tell me I am not alone.

You're definately not alone. It's sickening that such a small number of whiners can derail such beneficial projects. What these people need to get through their thick heads is that in a place like Manhattan, you have nowhere to go but UP.

And have any of these people actually realized that if the people back in the 20s and 30s had the same attitude as them, the building they're currently residing in wouldn't even be around? I guess common sense is frowned upon in these groups.

What not punch them in the mouth the minute they open it?

Damn! :colgate:

and nope.. you're not alone.... I do strongly support acts of preservation, but it seems these ppl bitch and moan just to hear themselves.

^It's not the preservers that bother me. They have a legit reason, and these people often help the community. The people that piss me off are the a-holes that only care how a building will change the neighborhood or block their view. Like these people are entitled to a river view in perpetuity, when they live three blocks from the river.

These people never offer to solve things fairly. The try to tell developers what to do with their property, not the NIMBY's, not the public's, the developer's property. They will never, ever offer to buy the property. They just whine and moan, and file lawsuits.

Any system that encourages, or even allows these people to have their way is a fundementally flawed system. And this is actually hurting the city as a whole. How many times have you read people on this site refer to New York as old, or run down? These people are choking this great city. Why should they have to be appeased? Has the results of their actions ever created anything grand and humane? Nope, and usually neither.

Sometimes I wish I had one of these to deal with these people:
http://www.cdgroup.org/forums/images/smiles/gun8.gif

http://www.cdgroup.org/forums/images/smiles/gun8.gif lol... :gunz: :hilarious ;) I knew you weren't talking about preservers, I just posted that to split the two groups....because as you said, they both have very diffrent motives

I'm always amused when they bring "shade studies" into the argument. For crying out loud, you live in Manhattan people! Idiots like that need to move to the suburbs so they can get all the green space and shade they require and let cities do what they were intended to do........ grow!

You're right STR. No major project has gone through without public controversy even if the site is on a freakin' parking lot like the proposed Gehry tower.

You're always gonna hear the NIMBY's and local community people whine over a project, that's just the nature of how development works in NYC. Saying it includes a big portion of politics in an understatement.

A prime example of NIMBY's working their power is with the development at Columbus Circle. There are dozens of schemes and plans proposed there but the NIMBY's fought them greatly until the Time Warner Center was agreed upon, which appealed to them since it contains a good deal of public amenities.

One issue is that each project is obligated to hold public meeting (I think it's called an enviromental process review), so either way these NIMBY's will get the chance to voice their opposition to the big projects.

However, you could look at this on the bright side. A good example would be Trump World Tower. Trump got his project going despite the fact that there was a prohibition to build any tower taller than the UN building in the vicinity, he fought the two complaints that his tower was too out of scale and that is was a bad design.

He even went on to insult the NIMBY's...

"It's clear on the face that the few opponents, and they are few, aren't even able to read the simplest of English."

Sometimes the NIMBY's win, sometimes they don't, when they don't you could see we get results like Trump World Tower.

I wish every developer could crush these people like the Donald does.

If not for one lousy supreme court judge, we'd have Gore as the prez now. Beware of people in small numbers.

Moving on...