Search/Recent Changes
DBTropes
...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!

Not in My Backyard!

 Not in My Backyard!
type
FeatureClass
 Not in My Backyard!
label
Not in My Backyard!
 Not in My Backyard!
page
NotInMyBackyard
 Not in My Backyard!
comment
There are many things in life whose existence is desirable, or even essential to the society we live in, but that people generally don't want to live too close to. They might be homeless shelters where many people with addictions gather, smelly sewage plants, polluting electricity generator stations, prisons for dangerous offenders, or utilitarian social housing buildings. However as any SimCity player will tell you, not everything can be in the middle of nowhere - for people to have cheap and convenient access to them, they have to be near to civilization.
Fair enough, the voters will say. I support all these important social and government projects and facilities...Just... Not In My Backyard, OK? Build them somewhere else.
While it might be rather selfish to want the benefits of such amenities while declaring the downsides to not be their problem, it can be justified - there is little to no reward for living nearby, and often the decrease in property values actually punishes the neighbours on top of the lowered quality of life (noise, pollution, etc). It's not necessarily hypocritical except in Zero-sum situations where they want the good without the bad.
The phenomenon is a major part of many Simulation Games, where the player must balance necessary or lucrative buildings against residents' quality of life.
Also known as NIMBY. A key tool of NIMBY advocates is zoning regulations. As an example, an upper-class neighborhood might use its single family zoning to block construction of an apartment building for low-income people. A newer tactic is to use environmental regulations. For example, a posh oceanfront community that wants to prevent a homeless shelter from being built may develop a sudden deep and abiding love for protecting the habitat of a burrowing beetle (that just happens to live at the site of the proposed shelter). There is a more extreme version that believes that everything noisy, smelly, polluting, dangerous or ugly should be built in the middle of nowhere in an Abandoned Area and will oppose projects even if they're built nowhere near them, dubbed "BANANAs" - "Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone", which is a viable option... in some video games. The opposite is Yes In My Backyard advocates (YIMBYs). They support building new social housing, homeless shelters and community facilities.
An often overlooked aspect of NIMBYism is the fear of the unknown. Projects that are dissimilar to those already up and running in the same area have a harder time convincing people. Say for instance a new light rail line is planned. In Germany or France, most people are familiar with light rail lines and have either lived near one in the past or seen one on holidays. In the US, most people don't know the first thing about them and thus fears are naturally bigger and easier to exploit through political ads. Often people cannot possibly comprehend their own or other people's erstwhile opposition once the project is completed, as the benefits become apparent and the downsides turn out to have been exaggerated.
Another aspect that's understated is that sometimes these projects can be twisted for far more insidious means, such as building a valuable bit of infrastructure that can improve public transportation (good)...by carving it straight through a neighborhood where mostly minorities and marginalized people live in, as a form of systemic erasure and good old fashioned bigotry and racism, without explicitly saying the bigoted aspects out loud (Which is incredibly bad). However, conversely, there’s an equally long history of white homeowners using NIMBY tactics to prevent new housing construction that would “change the neighborhood’s character� (read: introduce more minority residents and potentially lower property values). Ironically, this racist strategy is often carried out by exploiting community input laws created to stop the displacement mentioned above.
Similarly, if a new housing facility or treatment center for homeless people recovering from addiction is proposed, neighborhood residents may oppose it, thinking that all the clients will be alcoholics and other Addled Addicts, and fear that the facility will turn Everytown, America into a Wretched Hive. The presence of a number of facilities for homeless people in a neighborhood may cause disturbances, but a single, well-managed facility might not cause these negative effects.note The negative perception of facilities serving homeless people is often due to the "concentration of poverty" in poor areas. If all of the homeless shelters, addiction centers, and soup kitchens are in one place, there will likely be encampments, public drinking, and other problems.
Compare to Original Position Fallacy, in which people demand something while assuming they will benefit from it or not be subject to the downsides. A sub-trope and possible result of Who Will Bell the Cat? when people realize that they don't want to be the one who has to bell the cat (or in this case, allow it to be built in their backyard).
 Not in My Backyard!
fetched
2024-03-25T06:15:19Z
 Not in My Backyard!
parsed
2024-03-25T06:15:19Z
 Not in My Backyard!
processingComment
Dropped link to CellPhonesAreUseless: Not an Item - FEATURE
 Not in My Backyard!
processingComment
Dropped link to DevelopmentHell: Not an Item - FEATURE
 Not in My Backyard!
processingComment
Dropped link to ErinBrockovich: Not an Item - CAT
 Not in My Backyard!
processingComment
Dropped link to IntergenerationalRivalry: Not an Item - FEATURE
 Not in My Backyard!
processingComment
Dropped link to PointyHairedBoss: Not an Item - FEATURE
 Not in My Backyard!
processingComment
Dropped link to RealLife: Not an Item - FEATURE
 Not in My Backyard!
processingComment
Dropped link to ShownTheirWork: Not an Item - FEATURE
 Not in My Backyard!
processingComment
Dropped link to TakeAThirdOption: Not an Item - FEATURE
 Not in My Backyard!
processingComment
Dropped link to ThereShouldBeALaw: Not an Item - FEATURE
 Not in My Backyard!
isPartOf
DBTropes
 Not in My Backyard! / int_1463a028
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Not in My Backyard! / int_1463a028
comment
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit often run into cases where they have to deal with former child molesters who face this problem when they get out of prison.
 Not in My Backyard! / int_1463a028
featureApplicability
1.0
 Not in My Backyard! / int_1463a028
featureConfidence
1.0
 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
hasFeature
Not in My Backyard! / int_1463a028
 Not in My Backyard! / int_16aa3232
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Not in My Backyard! / int_16aa3232
comment
In Desperate Housewives, the neighborhood holds a protest rally after plans for moving convicts into their street start going ahead. It ends badly. For everyone.
 Not in My Backyard! / int_16aa3232
featureApplicability
1.0
 Not in My Backyard! / int_16aa3232
featureConfidence
1.0
 Desperate Housewives
hasFeature
Not in My Backyard! / int_16aa3232
 Not in My Backyard! / int_1a90f68f
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Not in My Backyard! / int_1a90f68f
comment
Australian film The Castle is an inversion of this trope. The Kerrigans live a few hundred metres from an airport runway. Massive power lines pass right over their backyard. And the Kerrigans love it that way. They only get upset when a planned airport expansion means that they would have to move.
 Not in My Backyard! / int_1a90f68f
featureApplicability
1.0
 Not in My Backyard! / int_1a90f68f
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Castle
hasFeature
Not in My Backyard! / int_1a90f68f
 Not in My Backyard! / int_1afa31a2
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Not in My Backyard! / int_1afa31a2
comment
From musical RENT's number "Over the Moon": "Not in my backyard, utensils! Go back to China!"
 Not in My Backyard! / int_1afa31a2
featureApplicability
1.0
 Not in My Backyard! / int_1afa31a2
featureConfidence
1.0
 RENT (Theatre)
hasFeature
Not in My Backyard! / int_1afa31a2
 Not in My Backyard! / int_261c8d3f
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Not in My Backyard! / int_261c8d3f
comment
In The Simpsons episode "The Girl who Slept too Little", a stamp museum is being built directly behind the Simpsons' house. The family aren't best pleased at having a construction site practically in their back garden, and successfully lobby to have it moved - it's shifted onto the site of Springfield Cemetery, which is promptly moved behind the Simpsons' house, giving Lisa nightmares.
They then visit the stamp museum and complain about how long the journey took. Homer is even more distraught when he discovers that Lenny has been making a good amount of money using his own property as an overflow parking lot for the museum tourists.
 Not in My Backyard! / int_261c8d3f
featureApplicability
1.0
 Not in My Backyard! / int_261c8d3f
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Simpsons
hasFeature
Not in My Backyard! / int_261c8d3f
 Not in My Backyard! / int_2d311a08
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Not in My Backyard! / int_2d311a08
comment
In the '90s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon; Shredder and Baxter were raiding a hidden science testing facility deep in the bad part New York City. When asked why it was here of all places by Baxter, Shredder replies on how it's because "if it blows up the neighborhood, nobody cares." A variation in the formula as its existence is supposed to be a secret, let alone desirable at all, it is the consequences of its presence that lead to the double-standard as it will make less of an impact because of its placement.
 Not in My Backyard! / int_2d311a08
featureApplicability
1.0
 Not in My Backyard! / int_2d311a08
featureConfidence
1.0
 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987)
hasFeature
Not in My Backyard! / int_2d311a08
 Not in My Backyard! / int_38c87187
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Not in My Backyard! / int_38c87187
comment
According to Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, NIMBYism is responsible for mankind's rapid expansion across the earth; whenever someone wanted to do something, someone else would object, and so the first person would have to move further and further away from civilization to do it. Now that the world is mapped, it appears to be a problem... except the most NIMBYistic people, the rich, are the ones funding private spaceflight...
 Not in My Backyard! / int_38c87187
featureApplicability
1.0
 Not in My Backyard! / int_38c87187
featureConfidence
1.0
 Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (Webcomic)
hasFeature
Not in My Backyard! / int_38c87187
 Not in My Backyard! / int_3caeeb6f
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Not in My Backyard! / int_3caeeb6f
comment
Present in the SimCity series, and SimCity 3000 even uses the term by name. Makes sense, as you're playing a city planner.
This ranges to many things, from the obvious toxic waste dumps, incinerators, and casinos, to more subtle things like landfills, industrial areas, and commercial zones (more so in Sim City 4, where traffic noise becomes a factor to how desirable a zone is). Naturally, anything that humans wouldn't want sitting in their backyard in Real Life, Sims wouldn't want either.
The inverse of this is called YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard), which includes things like parks, schools, hospitals and police stations. A good strategy is to balance out the NIMBY with YIMBY. (Sure you're living next to a pollution factory, but look at the nice trees!)
 Not in My Backyard! / int_3caeeb6f
featureApplicability
1.0
 Not in My Backyard! / int_3caeeb6f
featureConfidence
1.0
 SimCity (Video Game)
hasFeature
Not in My Backyard! / int_3caeeb6f
 Not in My Backyard! / int_56fa0ea4
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Not in My Backyard! / int_56fa0ea4
comment
Civilization VI delves into this trope with the tile appeal system and cities having to build separate specialized districts. Most notably, tiles that have high appeal comfer bonuses to things like Neighborhoods or National Parks; placing things like Industrial districts, mines, and airports conversely decrease surrounding tiles' appeal.
 Not in My Backyard! / int_56fa0ea4
featureApplicability
1.0
 Not in My Backyard! / int_56fa0ea4
featureConfidence
1.0
 Civilization (Video Game)
hasFeature
Not in My Backyard! / int_56fa0ea4
 Not in My Backyard! / int_5c5bdbbc
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Not in My Backyard! / int_5c5bdbbc
comment
Emerging: The Department of Virology, located in the National Institute for Infectious Diseases has the potential to operate as a BSL-4 (which is required to deal with deadly diseases such as Ebola and the unknown disease ravaging Tokyo), however it only operates at as a BSL-3 due to opposition from local residents and communities. This is an example of Truth in Television for the real life National Institute for Infectious Diseases located in Kanto, Japan.
 Not in My Backyard! / int_5c5bdbbc
featureApplicability
1.0
 Not in My Backyard! / int_5c5bdbbc
featureConfidence
1.0
 Emerging (Manga)
hasFeature
Not in My Backyard! / int_5c5bdbbc
 Not in My Backyard! / int_656e45b0
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Not in My Backyard! / int_656e45b0
comment
One event in Yes, Prime Minister the chief of the Electricity Board makes a request for a new nuclear power station to be built. If Hacker decides to build the plant, he's told it will be built at Fowey, where he has family, and promptly rejects the idea. If he turns the plant down, the chief says that he'd be happy to have one built in his back garden... only to backpedal immediately when Hacker takes him at his word.
 Not in My Backyard! / int_656e45b0
featureApplicability
1.0
 Not in My Backyard! / int_656e45b0
featureConfidence
1.0
 Yes, Prime Minister (Video Game)
hasFeature
Not in My Backyard! / int_656e45b0
 Not in My Backyard! / int_6c1234ed
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Not in My Backyard! / int_6c1234ed
comment
Present in Dwarf Fortress. Obviously it is a bad idea to leave rotting meat in an indoor refuse pile near a place dwarves will frequently have to pass through, as the miasma it gives off will disgust nearby fortress dwellers. More subtly, it is a bad idea to create bedrooms near frequently used crafting workshops, next to areas under current excavation, or just next to rooms in which dwarves are hauling around and placing furniture. Doing so will result in any dwarves sleeping in said rooms having an unhappy through at their uneasy sleep due to the noise.
 Not in My Backyard! / int_6c1234ed
featureApplicability
1.0
 Not in My Backyard! / int_6c1234ed
featureConfidence
1.0
 Dwarf Fortress (Video Game)
hasFeature
Not in My Backyard! / int_6c1234ed
 Not in My Backyard! / int_7b79c8d7
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Not in My Backyard! / int_7b79c8d7
comment
Johnny and the Sprites: In "The Sprites Save Grotto's Grove," a super-annoying real-estate developer shows up with exciting plans to build a hotel. It sounds great at first, until Johnny and the Sprites realize that it would require the complete destruction of Grotto's Grove, not to mention most of Johnny's literal backyard.
 Not in My Backyard! / int_7b79c8d7
featureApplicability
1.0
 Not in My Backyard! / int_7b79c8d7
featureConfidence
1.0
 Johnny and the Sprites
hasFeature
Not in My Backyard! / int_7b79c8d7
 Not in My Backyard! / int_863b7825
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Not in My Backyard! / int_863b7825
comment
One episode of Yes, Minister centers around Sir Humphrey trying to get Ministerial approval for a new chemical plant intended to make something called Metadioxin. Unfortunately, since the chemical's name is similar to Dioxin, which was involved in a recent toxic spill incident on the Continent, there's a big NIMBY lobby to prevent mass production of Metadioxin anywhere near anyplace anyone lives, even though Metadioxin is harmless.
 Not in My Backyard! / int_863b7825
featureApplicability
1.0
 Not in My Backyard! / int_863b7825
featureConfidence
1.0
 Yes, Minister
hasFeature
Not in My Backyard! / int_863b7825
 Not in My Backyard! / int_9bb385be
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Not in My Backyard! / int_9bb385be
comment
In Pharaoh, there are many buildings that produce various entertainers and service providers required to keep your citizens happy. Unfortunately, while the walkers are welcome, the buildings themselves are not. Reasons range from the sensible (industrial buildings are ugly, noisy and smelly) to Fridge Logic (people coming and going from the dance school)note The conservative, gods-fearing Egyptians don't like the unruly liberal artists.. Most cities end up with a few zones of highly-developped housing, requiring vast slums of workers to keep the rich society's services running correctly.
This game also has its own form of YIMBY: gardens, plazas, and statues. It's okay to built a circuit for industrial employers to find workers, as long as there is a statue between the industries and the workers' residential block. The maximum YIMBYs would be temple complexes, city palace, and your dynasty house.
No amount of YIMBY can negate the effect of Forts. Just like Real Life! (See: Okinawa.)
 Not in My Backyard! / int_9bb385be
featureApplicability
1.0
 Not in My Backyard! / int_9bb385be
featureConfidence
1.0
 Pharaoh (Video Game)
hasFeature
Not in My Backyard! / int_9bb385be
 Not in My Backyard! / int_a0d41ba0
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Not in My Backyard! / int_a0d41ba0
comment
Climate Town: The issues faced by transit, affordable housing and other projects which could help make places less car dependent, more efficient and better for the environment as a whole are mentioned on multiple occasions to include people trying to fight allowing such things near their neighborhoods, with viewers encouraged to attend local meetings to voice their support so that the naysayers are not the most heard and represented viewpoint.
 Not in My Backyard! / int_a0d41ba0
featureApplicability
1.0
 Not in My Backyard! / int_a0d41ba0
featureConfidence
1.0
 Climate Town (Web Video)
hasFeature
Not in My Backyard! / int_a0d41ba0
 Not in My Backyard! / int_bfa1d565
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Not in My Backyard! / int_bfa1d565
comment
An episode of Boston Legal focused on this problem, with some townspeople employing the firm to stop the production of a nuclear power plant in their area. Opposing counsel actually points out the use of this trope and rhetorically asks where they're meant to put the plant, as they'd already thought they'd chosen a perfectly remote location before the ruckus started.
 Not in My Backyard! / int_bfa1d565
featureApplicability
1.0
 Not in My Backyard! / int_bfa1d565
featureConfidence
1.0
 Boston Legal
hasFeature
Not in My Backyard! / int_bfa1d565
 Not in My Backyard! / int_d45837ba
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Not in My Backyard! / int_d45837ba
comment
Cities: Skylines features a similar NIMBY system as the SimCity example above. However, you now have to factor what you should and should not build in your zones. For example, lumping in industrial zones right next to your residential areas will pollute the water system and makes your citizens sick and forces the medical service buildings (if you have any built in your city) to dispatch ambulances to pick up your ill citizens and send them to the nearest medical service building for treatment. This also applies if you connect any water pipe from a residential zone to an industrial zone regardless if your industrial areas are built away from your residential ones; no matter if you have water treatment facilities to deal with the wastewater buildup, the consequences will remain the same until you appropriately fix them. Also debuting in this game is the introduction of noise pollution. Even otherwise non-ground polluting buildings should be built away from residential zones as your citizens will complain about the noise and eventually will get sick due to vertigo or hearing damage caused by your noise-generating buildings. The construction of roads also influence the amount of noise pollution as well. Small, two-lane roads don't generate much noise and are ideal for low-density residential and commercial areas but high-density zones dislike them because they generate a lot of traffic due to so many vehicles using up a single lane at once and therefore contributes to noise buildup. Six-lane roads are generally suited to industrial and high-density commercial zones but not for residential ones as they generate a lot of ground-level noise thanks to major traffic buildup. Four-lane roads serve a comfortable middle ground between two-lane and six-lane roads and are suited to any buildable zone except low-density residential areas. On the other hand, office zones are the only buildable zones that do not particularly complain about what type of road is constructed in their areas so you can build them at your leisure. Ironically, the game does not feature air pollution generated from any of the buildings unlike SimCity.
You also have to take into account where you're going to dump your waste water. The game features realistic water flow — yes, they had the staff learn partial differential vector calculus, computational fluid dynamics and Navier-Stokes equations — which means you'd better make sure your poop water won't get sucked by a water pump downstream or get trapped in a stagnant pool.
 Not in My Backyard! / int_d45837ba
featureApplicability
1.0
 Not in My Backyard! / int_d45837ba
featureConfidence
1.0
 Cities: Skylines (Video Game)
hasFeature
Not in My Backyard! / int_d45837ba
 Not in My Backyard! / int_d8118f41
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Not in My Backyard! / int_d8118f41
comment
The trope name is the title of an early Blue Heelers episode, with a protest against a prison being built near Mt. Thomas.
 Not in My Backyard! / int_d8118f41
featureApplicability
1.0
 Not in My Backyard! / int_d8118f41
featureConfidence
1.0
 Blue Heelers
hasFeature
Not in My Backyard! / int_d8118f41
 Not in My Backyard! / int_ddd4b174
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Not in My Backyard! / int_ddd4b174
comment
A version of Monopoly called Monopoly City has a game mechanic where building unpleasant things, such as sewage treatment plants, can reduce the desirability of nearby locations, with the in-game effect being a reduction in the price of their land and properties on them.
 Not in My Backyard! / int_ddd4b174
featureApplicability
1.0
 Not in My Backyard! / int_ddd4b174
featureConfidence
1.0
 Monopoly (Tabletop Game)
hasFeature
Not in My Backyard! / int_ddd4b174
 Not in My Backyard! / int_e235270c
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Not in My Backyard! / int_e235270c
comment
Stellaris: Any species with the Repugnant Trait causes reduced opinion in diplomacy. It doesn't matter if said Aliens are scientists and workers par excellence; others won't appreciate having them as neighbors. Changed in 2.2, where Repugnant species are just worse at producing Amenities than other species, making it harder to keep your people happy if the only entertainers you have are gross mushroom men.
 Not in My Backyard! / int_e235270c
featureApplicability
1.0
 Not in My Backyard! / int_e235270c
featureConfidence
1.0
 Stellaris (Video Game)
hasFeature
Not in My Backyard! / int_e235270c
 Not in My Backyard! / int_e6318baf
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Not in My Backyard! / int_e6318baf
comment
This is the title of Midsomer Murders episode in which an unpopular real estate development planned for a small village results in murder.
In "Country Matters", a group of locals was willing to go to the European Court of Human Rights in order to stop a supermarket from being built in their village.
 Not in My Backyard! / int_e6318baf
featureApplicability
1.0
 Not in My Backyard! / int_e6318baf
featureConfidence
1.0
 Midsomer Murders
hasFeature
Not in My Backyard! / int_e6318baf
 Not in My Backyard! / int_e7b92e07
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Not in My Backyard! / int_e7b92e07
comment
Constructor: High-level tenants are conscious of their neighbors, especially if you group Nerds together with noisy Hippies on the same estate. They also tend to demand more costly fences. The most expensive one is the Insurmountable Monolith, which more closely resembles the Berlin Wall. Only Yuppies want to live next to this monstrosity, which they dub "Art Deco".
 Not in My Backyard! / int_e7b92e07
featureApplicability
1.0
 Not in My Backyard! / int_e7b92e07
featureConfidence
1.0
 Constructor (Video Game)
hasFeature
Not in My Backyard! / int_e7b92e07
 Not in My Backyard! / int_ef076a36
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Not in My Backyard! / int_ef076a36
comment
In Star Trek: Voyager, taking Not In My Backyard to its logical extreme, the Malon are a race that never bothered to develop clean ways of disposing of waste, because they simply shipped it all off to somewhere else, a long way away. When Janeway offers a Malon captain a way to neutralize waste safely without hauling it all the way to an empty part of space, she fails to realize that hauling waste is his livelihood, so he naturally rejects her offer (clearly not thinking that he could make a fortune with his new "invention" back home).
 Not in My Backyard! / int_ef076a36
featureApplicability
1.0
 Not in My Backyard! / int_ef076a36
featureConfidence
1.0
 Star Trek: Voyager
hasFeature
Not in My Backyard! / int_ef076a36

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

 Not in My Backyard!
processingCategory2
Cynicism Tropes
 Not in My Backyard!
processingCategory2
Drama Tropes
 Not in My Backyard!
processingCategory2
Selfishness Tropes
 Private Eye (Magazine) / int_df7b1b60
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Emerging (Manga) / int_df7b1b60
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Blue Heelers / int_df7b1b60
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Dopesick / int_df7b1b60
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Anno 1800 (Video Game) / int_df7b1b60
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Cities: Skylines (Video Game) / int_df7b1b60
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom (Video Game) / int_df7b1b60
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Pharaoh (Video Game) / int_df7b1b60
type
Not in My Backyard!
 SimCity (Video Game) / int_df7b1b60
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Sim Settlements 2 (Video Game) / int_df7b1b60
type
Not in My Backyard!
 CGP Grey (Web Video) / int_df7b1b60
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Friendship is Witchcraft (Web Video) / int_df7b1b60
type
Not in My Backyard!
 Killer Bean Forever / int_df7b1b60
type
Not in My Backyard!