(NIMBY - Not in My Backyard)
3 years ago we had a series of earthquakes here that decimated much of the city. Large chunks of the city centre and surrounding suburbs were decimated and houses needed to be demolished with the population needing to find alternative accommodation.
High, middle and low income people were affected and the race to build more accommodation has really only just started and with it demographics will be forever changed.
With limited quality land to build on and the need for Social / Affordable Housing being at its highest level for years would people grow in social capital or revert to a more primal way of being accentuating NIMBY opposition?
I'm really interested in this topic, so I'll start by suggesting the resilience literature within the urban planning field:
Vale, Lawrence J., and Thomas J. Campanella, eds. The Resilient City: How Modern Cities Recover from Disaster: How Modern Cities Recover from Disaster. Oxford University Press, USA, 2005.
Pelling, Mark. The vulnerability of cities: natural disasters and social resilience. Earthscan, 2003.
Norris, Fran H., Susan P. Stevens, Betty Pfefferbaum, Karen F. Wyche, and Rose L. Pfefferbaum. "Community resilience as a metaphor, theory, set of capacities, and strategy for disaster readiness." American journal of community psychology 41, no. 1-2 (2008): 127-150
There was a lot of work done on New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and the critique of the planning response might make a good case for other cities.
Thanks Rosie.
I'll start looking at the literature straight away. A lot of Cantabrians (people who live in or near Christchurch) have mentioned to me that they have seen and felt a softening in themselves and their neighbours since the disasters (nothing scientific or proven) although the contradiction with this is that affordable housing (such as rental prices) have gone through the roof which has left a lot of families out in the cold literally.
i wonder if your question pertains, in part, to whether or not disasters can have an affect of changing separatist attitudes across social classes. If so, my research participants responded that in the immediate aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake,"there was no difference between rich and poor..between mulattos and negroes...we were all in the same boat, we drank from the same cup;" but shortly after, as resources arrived, the lines of demarcation were drawn anew and the same people who were carried on the backs of the poor were fighting to get the temporary shelters off their lands because it was unsightly .
Hi Guitele,
That is exactly what my question pertains to.
If I have read your response correctly, it seems (from what you have said) that the NIMBY effect morphs from one side of the spectrum to the other and the closer to a sense of nomalisation people feel the more they revert to type.
Is there any literature that you know of that documents this change in attitude?
Regards
Luis
I am glad I read your question correctly. You understood my response correctly also. I am sorry that I do not currently have any literature that comes literally to mind that documents this change in attitude. Have you tried the DISASTERS journal? I apologize if that seems obvious. Also, Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved and i believe the American Journal of Public Health had a special issue on disasters in 2010.
Thank you Guitele.
Please do not apologise, I cannot find a jar of jam in my food pantry unless it is staring me in the face :)
Thank you so much for pointing me in the right direction. Between yourself and Rosie I am getting there.
Regards
Luis
Realise the question was a few months ago. In Building Resilience: Social Capital in Post-disaster Recovery By Daniel P. Aldrich he discusses positive and negative social capital after disasters. More specifically he mentions NIMBY after Katrina in regards to residents moving temporary accommodation (trailers) away from their suburbs to other areas.
Hi Luis,
I think "reverting to character" is just one aspect of human nature. So NIMBY types do not turn into Kumbaya types because of temporary disruptions of their lifestyles. In terms of research data, it may be interesting to look at demographic material for South Africa in that the white South Africans who opted to stay on after the end of Apartheid may have temporarily been jolted out of their NIMBY attitudes in terms of black neighbours. However, when I visited Cape Town 5 years ago, the neighborhoods were as segregated as ever.
Incidentally, Luis, with respect to your inability to find a jar of jam in the pantry unless it is staring you in the face; I think you may be related to my husband who only a fool would send to the store to find groceries, even with a shopping list and aisles clearly marked with the products located on the shelves in that aisle. Might it have something to do with being of the male species? :>)
Gwen
:) Thanks Gwendolyn I'll chase that up. You may be right, we males are a funny bunch
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