What is a NIMBY?

You might of heard of this word before, and no doubt some of you will be wondering what does it mean, or perhaps you know why the word is used but not aware of what it stands for. It's an acronym, where the letters are from the first letters of words in a phrase. Not In My Back Yard - Nimby.

A nimby is someone who objects to a development near to their home, so for example someone campaigning to stop a housing development on farm fields next to their house would be considered a Nimby.

There is of course nothing wrong with being a nimby, who would want a mobile phone mast yards from their front drive, or a new housing estate at the end of the village, where there is a wild meadow?! HOWEVER, a lot of 'nimbys' are hypocritical, they complain about something being built near them, but if you look closer you find their actions do not match their objections. So for example, a village might have voted for the last ten years for Labour, despite knowing they allowed huge immigration of 3 million people, they continued to vote for them. Of course, a booming population, where net immigration was 250,000 increase each year, a city the size of Nottingham, means more housing is needed to cope with all the extra new households, people can't live in rabbit warrens. If a 'nimby' has on the other hand wrote letters complaining about mass immigration, has voted for parties who are anti mass immigration, they can be a nimby without being a hypocrite. However, all those waving banners against the consequences of what they voted for, really are someone who is only concerned about their back yard and just want the houses built next to someone elses village.