NIMBY NUMPTY

Earlier this week, Paddington residents rose up against a truly terrifying monster - a four-metre-tall puppet called Fauna (pictured above, sorry).

But their complaint wasn’t that this nightmare fuel would leave indelible marks on their children’s psyche. It was that Fauna’s attendance at a local event would cause ‘increased noise, crowds, lights, rowdiness and litter’.

The story has caused quite a stir, with the Sydney Morning Herald seeing fit to take an editorial position on it (tl;dr justice for Fauna), which also includes the lament that “Paddington is giving NIMBYs a bad name”.

NIMBYs have been the topic of much debate for years, but it’s heated up in recent months. The ABC ran a long piece on NIMBYs vs YIMBYs, which caused Spectator Australia to have a complete meltdown, otherwise known as a normal Monday.

Over in WA, Greens leader Brad Pettitt told his East Coast peers to “quit inner-city NIMBYism” while West Australian Music chief executive Owen Whittle complained the scene was under attack from ‘grumpy NIMBYs’.

In the UK, residents even held a street party to celebrate blocking a housing development before authorities later approved the plans, making the next street party with their new neighbours decidedly awkward.

Given NIMBYism has been around since the 1980s, why all the attention now? Partly, of course, it’s because housing affordability has become a national joke and 10,000 extra Australians are becoming homeless each month.

But it’s also a story of modern culture. The Spectator reflects the nostalgia for ceaseless suburbia, while grumpy city-dwellers demand the peace that comes with it, combined with the convenience of being a short stroll from the CBD. 

Stuck between a rose-tinted past and a prohibitively expensive future, we pick battles we can win in a fleeting bid for control over our own destiny. Down with Fauna.