Fields of Dreams: An Economic Democracy Framework for Addressing NIMBYism

Local opposition to the development of socially desirable facilities is one of the most important policy challenges in the United States. Despite decades of effort, a policy formula to reduce “Not in My Back Yard” (NIMBY) political opposition is yet to be found. Cash payments, inclusive deliberation, benefits negotiations, and statutory mandates are only a few of the policy and legislative measures that have been attempted at diffusing NIMBY sentiments, mostly to no avail. This Article offers a different approach to NIMBY conflicts. I argue that disempowerment is one of the main drivers of NIMBY sentiments. People oppose certain developments largely because they feel a lack of control over decisionmaking procedures that directly affect their lives. Applying theories of participatory democracy, I develop a property-based framework to mitigate NIMBY sentiments. Ownership, I explain, empowers. It confers the power to determine and control a resource. When a resource is owned by a community, the community possesses the power to set the agenda for the resource. It follows that if communities own, develop, and manage socially desirable facilities, NIMBY sentiments will be attenuated. To test this hypothesis, I explore two recent successful examples of communal ownership — the development model for windfarms and the U.K.’s Community Right to Build reform. Both case studies demonstrate the potential of communal development to mitigate NIMBY sentiments and provide valuable legal and policy lessons for broader implementation of communal models.