"Can't we all just have the same backyard?"

Flirtatious: "Neighhh!" "Neighhh to you too big boy!"

Real Mood? Rural

Prediction: At least one new home being marketed in the Low 100's will actually be going for 149,999.99. And I'm not even good at math.

The picture here is pretty much my backyard. I don't own anything you see, but it's still what you see if you are in the backyard I do own. Still with me? It's coming as no surprise to me they are building a road over what you see in the picture. The road is actually three years past it's due date. But it's still sad. I think you can feel the sadness in the horse's body language, can't you? It certainly has to be sad for the three or four ranchers who owned all this land 50 years ago.

I don't know if the acronym NIMBY (not in my backyard) is in any official dictionary yet, but it ought to be. I can't tell you how many NIMBY stories I've done. As a reporter I was seldom sympathetic with either side.

One typical scenario goes like this: A rancher up in years, and down in income, decides to subdivide his land. He is going to sell out to a developer. But he wants that developer to promise he won't build a house on a lot smaller than 50 acres. Sure, no problem. So some folks from town, wanting to get back nature,  move out to the ranch on their 50 acre spreads where they can pretend to raise cows and chickens and run around naked.

Well the next year that developer sells the whole project to another developer. Meantime the county commissioners are noticing there's a few tax dollars coming in from those 50 acre ranchettes. "Just think," they conjecture, " how much more money we'd have if those were 10 acre parcels?" 

The lines get drawn. The Commissioners don't even wait for a Planning  Commission report. They hold a quick hardly noticed public meeting and the door is opened for the smaller spaced spreads.

Well some snitch tells those who've already bought the 50 acre spreads. The fight is on. NIMBY! "We can't have 10 acre lots right next to our 50 acre lots. That will drag down our home values. We'll take this all the way to the Supreme Court."

Danged if the Supreme Court fails to debate that question every year? They always say they got something more important to talk about. Can you believe that?

So the 10 acre ranchers are feeling a little smug. They now have their little "Pieces of Heaven"  where they can build some plastic pens and raise Yaks, or Llamas or Ostrich.  If you've got enough trees you can probably still run around naked. Well the smugosity doesn't last long.  Back to the County Courthouse.

"If we're making a ton of cash on 10 acre lots, what might one acre lots bring in."

NIMBY. The 10 acre gang goes nuts.

"We spent all our savings to come out here and get away from it all. We want to raise our children where they can appreciate nature and livestock and the value of running around naked. We're going to fight this!"

So the 1 acre contingent settles in. They're assured this is as small as the lots are going to get. These are people who've given up there "Postage Stamp" backyards so they can spend their life savings on a professional landscaper. It seems this landscaper is in pretty tight with the developers and the development's covenant committee. They're poor, but  they still got their green acres.

 Now here we see a little bit of a reversal of the principle. The kids living on the 1 acre poverty lots are coming home and complaining that the people in the 10 and 50 acre lots are running around naked.  NIMBY!

So a local county ordinance gets passed that says no Nudity. And While we're at it we don't like the smell of livestock. There must be no animals in this development. And everybody must have a plastic fence. Feeling pretty good and powerful are we 1 acre residents?

Well the county hires a new County Administrator who is just out of "Fight the Sprawl" school. He starts looking around for places where it would make sense to increase the population density to preserve open space.

"Let's See! That new development south of town seems to be where people are gravitating to. You know, where they have those 50 acre and 10 acre and 1 acre lots?  It makes sense to me that we go down there and let a developer build some apartments, condos, townhomes and rooms above drugstores.  The tax revenue we'd pull in from that would be incredible."

NIOBY! "Not in our backyard," the residents scream.  All of a sudden all the residents are in the same NIMBY club. They are getting media coverage, they have an attorney (typically a resident working pro-bono), but no leverage. And how can you fight the "Stop the Urban Sprawl" movement.  I've never seen NIMBY win in thelong run.

But you know I love Irony. Remember how it's now against the law to run around naked on your own property? Well once the development reaches urban proportions, businesses of all types are looking for market niches.  Businesses like Topless Clubs? NIMBY! "We'll not have our community corrupted by these Dens of Sin." 

But guess what? As long as they're not breaking the law, it's usually okay for them to come to town because it's unconstitutional to stop them. We knew the Supreme Court would jump in somewhere, didn't we?

So I guess we'll still see people running around naked, but now it's going to cost 10 dollars at the door with a 3 drink minimum. That's progress for you.