One of the most pernicious lies the political establishment has spread is that anyone who cares about the future of their neighborhood automatically opposes new development, especially new affordable development.
This is the myth of the NIMBY, which stands for “not in my backyard.” Tellingly, the term was coined by corporate marketers in 1979 to smear residents in New Hampshire and Michigan who opposed the construction of new nuclear power plants in their communities (this was in the immediate aftermath of the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, when fears about the dangers of nuclear energy were at a peak). Big corporations used the term in the 1980s and 1990s to demonize people who opposed new landfills, prisons, oil refineries, and other industrial sites in their communities.
ONV leadership and supporters are not NIMBYs, nor are we about saying no. We support affordable housing in our communities. We support our neighborhoods to be as thriving and diverse as possible. We support every community to choose its own destiny. We support local choice, local control, and the local decision-making process.
We oppose top-down state mandates that make housing less affordable and remove local control on planning.
