I'll just reiterate that I think you should be free to live however you want. What you should not be allowed to do is use zoning laws to enforce your preferences on everybody else. If a conservative is somebody standing athwart history yelling stop, then a NIMBY is someone who does the same thing to the city as it grows around them. That's a right you claim for yourself that I don't acknowledge. In fact I think it's plainly illegitimate and Unconstitutional.
Zoning laws are at the township level. People living in the same location voted for them. Are you arguing that it's unconstitutional? On what grounds if you don't mind my asking?
Because private property rights shouldn't be subject to a vote. That's the whole point of a Constitution. It's for the things that aren't up to a vote -- the things we agree are rights so fundamental that they are guaranteed, not subject to the whims of the electorate.
The SCOTUS case that modern zoning grows out of is Euclid v. Ambler. It's a plainly ridiculous ruling, full of irrelevant editorializing about the desirability of urban environments. Consider this passage from the majority:
> With particular reference to apartment houses, it is pointed out that the development of detached house sections is greatly retarded by the coming of apartment houses, which has sometimes resulted in destroying the entire section for private house purposes; that in such sections very often the apartment house is a mere parasite, constructed in order to take advantage of the open spaces and attractive surroundings created by the residential character of the district. Moreover, the coming of one apartment house is followed by others, interfering by their height and bulk with the free circulation of air and monopolizing the rays of the sun which otherwise would fall upon the smaller homes, and bringing, as their necessary accompaniments, the disturbing noises incident to increased traffic and business, and the occupation, by means of moving and parked automobiles, of larger portions of the streets, thus detracting from their safety and depriving children of the privilege of quiet and open spaces for play, enjoyed by those in more favored localities-until, finally, the residential character of the neighborhood and its desirability as a place of detached residences are utterly destroyed. Under these circumstances, apartment houses, which in a different environment would be not only entirely unobjectionable but highly desirable, come very near to being nuisances.
What is this nonsense? "[T]he apartment house is a mere parasite." So the Court prefers suburbs to apartment living? Who cares? This is no basis for overturning fundamental property rights.
The Court in Euclid did what NIMBYs often do, which is to listen to all the arguments and then say, ultimately, "yeah, yeah, productivity, property rights, freedom, etc, I get it, I get it, but I don't want more density near me and isn't the intensity of my preferences on this issue what really matters?"
