[spothedog1]

Imagine 2 empty parcels of land in downtown Manhattan, one can have a giant skyscraper of any height built on it and the other has to be a single family home. The parcel of land with no restrictions is going to be worth exponentially more because you can built a massively profitable structure on it, the other one is so regulated that it isn't worth any where near as much. The more profit you could derive from a parcel of land the more its worth. Now I used an extreme example just to get my point across but the same principle holds on a small scale. If your house was rezoned for apartment buildings and the demand existed, someone would come in and buy it off your hands for a huge premium. Since in our hypothetical someone had just built an apartment building next to your house, the value of the land is already high, simply allow your parcel of land to allow more structures would cause it to rise in value.

On the infrastructure side, its a much better deal for you as well, the combined value of all the property taxes from the apartment buildings will be way more than if that lot had remained a house. Since the road, water, sewer and electric lines are already in place nothing new has to be built. You benefit from all those property taxes coming in from the apartment building while the liabilities to the government have barely increased. The local government can use this new surplus of taxes to build new amenities for you.

For traffic, sure but that's why you want to build more pedestrian friendly neighborhoods and public transit so people don't have to drive everywhere. Once you have enough people in a place you could open small shops so they can hang out around the building rather than drive everywhere.

[ergocoder]

Let's not imagine an unlikely scenario. None of this is likely true for US' cities.

> someone would come in and buy it off your hands for a huge premium.

This is still a far future.

> If your house was rezoned for apartment buildings and the demand existed

It's still better for you that only demand exists, but not supply.

To be honest, I doubt nimbyists are even interested to move. They just want their neighborhood to stay relatively the same (quiet, fewer people, safe, less crowded).

Either way we look at it, this kind of points are likely cons, not pros.

> sure but that's why you want to build more pedestrian friendly neighborhoods and public transit so people don't have to drive everywhere.

I laughed a little, assuming this is a US city.

Again, I don't own a house, so it's not that I agree or disagree with nimby. But I can understand why nimby hates new buildings next to their houses. It's just a lot more cons than pros.

[8note]

I don't think one would be worth more than the other.

Extraordinarily wealthy people are going to be willing to pay a premium for a nice house in Manhattan, and extremely wealthy people are exponentially wealthier than moderately wealthy people, so you cant get that back in volume.

[jdkee]

So the opening scene to the Pixar movie, "Up"?

[manquer]

Yes it sucks for that guy, with one of best opening scenes of any cinema we cannot help feel bad for that guy. However economically it is bad for that city/country that he does not move.

We can of course choose to say we want quality of life over economic comforts modern economy offers, until our holiday shopping is stuck in the ports because of viewshed(!) regulations.

The cold truth is if only very rich do that it won't affect much, if however everyone also starts, the economy will suffer and eventually as a result of that quality of life will also drop, everything becomes expensive and industry/jobs go to places that don't restrict as much.

Look at Healthcare in U.S. for stark example, insurance(tied to employment!) or proper care is a luxury is out of reach of for many people, that on average citizens here actually may be getting poorer care than many other countries with poorer per capita GDP . The best in world research or care is possible in the U.S. what is the use if people cannot afford it ?