In My Back Yard?
October 13th, 2009 by ComputerBob
Every country needs prisons, electrical power generating plants, water treatment plants, and a myriad of other industrial and utility infrastructure facilities.
And the higher an area’s population density, the greater the need is to have those things close by.
But since they’re typically visual, auditory, olfactory or ecological blights, they all typically bring down the property values of anyone who lives anywhere near them.
Like when my wife and I lived up in the Frostbite State, and one neighborhood was excited about the employment opportunities that were going to come when a local brewery that had been shut down was going to be turned into an ethanol processing plant.
But the complaints drowned out the praise, once the ethanol plant started spewing out a horrible smell that permeated the area for miles around and drove everyone’s property values to new lows.
So even though most people agree that they’re a necessity, any time any organization wants to constuct any sort of factory, it must first go through years of debate, discussion and politicking, and meet countless regulations, to try to overcome the “Not In My Back Yard” (NIMBY) effect.
The current U.S. administration has expressed a commitment to vastly increase the country’s amount of renewable energy sources during the next ten years. That sounds like a great idea, but that’s going to require the building of massive amounts of new infrastructure — and all of that infrastructure is going to have to go somewhere.
NIMBY.
But here’s an idea for some places where they might fit in perfectly.
As always, Slashdot’s readers have a lot to say about that idea.
What do you think?
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