[Anechoic]

I've been on both sides of public project hearings, representing proponents who want to build or expand a project, and project opponents who want to block or reduce the expansion of a project. NIMBYism is very real, from folks who may just oppose a project on principle unrelated to actual negative effects (I see this a lot on transit projects from folks who are just opposed to public transportation) to folks who may be uninformed. It can be extremely frustrating when I have the facts on my side (and even the experts on the other side agree with me), but there is still opposition based based on "feelings."

That said, the public process in general (aside from NIMBYs) is necessary and useful. The most prominent example from my experience is the public opposition marshaled by Cambridge MA against the original "Scheme Z" Charles River crossing plan for the Big Dig. From an engineering point-of-view, it made perfect sense, but it would have been a hideous monstrosity that the city would have been stuck with for 50 years. The opposition made the project go back to the drawing board and resulted in the iconic Zakim bridge. The public process worked.

In my own direct experience, there have been times when me or my team missed something on an analysis (we may have mistaken a home for a garage for example) and the public process makes us aware of that so we can properly account for impacts. It works. Yet the process can be hijacked by NIMBY's and if those opponents know who to work the politics, it can cause real problems.

The problem is trying to separate the NIMBYs from the legitimate concerns. Planners and public staff have been trying to deal with this for decades with no real progress. If you eliminate the public process, you get the original Boston Central Artery where the state came in, bulldozed entire neighborhoods at pennies on the dollar, and constructed an eyesore that divided the city for decades. With the process, you get the Big Dig where a whole bunch of interests use Section 4(f), NEPA, MEPA, and Army Corp of Engineer regulations to blackmail the project into funding dozens of pet projects.

This is definitely an area in need of disruption. If you have ideas, get them out there.

[forensic]

Thanks for your comment. One thing I take away from what you said is that the solution to problems like this is BETTER government, not ZERO government.

All the libertarians want to use any government problem as an excuse to just scrap the whole government. But you make it clear that the problem is not ALL government, the problem is BAD government, and government CAN be improved.

[Anechoic]

Yes, I would choose "better government" over "zero government" (although the libertarian response would be "we're not calling for no government, just minimal government). That said - I don't really see the path to "better" government. We have so many competing interests, even at the city level, that it's very difficult to develop reasonable regulations that are effective yet fair. That's one of the big problems with environmental regulations and the public process.

One response would be to push as much of the decision-making process as possible down to the local level, but that creates its own problem, as well as inefficiencies.

Obviously, it's a hard problem; if it wasn't, it would have been solved by now.

[eli_gottlieb]

There is no way to get zero government for urban issues. Urban living naturally means an overlap between private property rights, public commons, and governmental infrastructure efforts.

The question is whether you have a democratically-run municipal or regional/county government with the power to make urban-planning decisions, or whether you instead resolve everything through a tangled network of property-rights lawsuits.

[wisty]

> If you have ideas, get them out there.

Trial by jury works pretty well. Instead of a public hearing by interested parties, a random bunch of citizens could be tasked with reviewing the process, with a skilled arbitrator (like a judge) ensuring submissions by special interest group are done in a fair way.

[notatoad]

Forcing better public input would be one strategy, I would suggest that public input should simply be ignored. Traffic flow patterns and safety are a science. It isn't a question of taste, there is an empirical 'best' way to design infrastructure. Public input belongs on things like public art projects, and what type of flowers to plant in the community gardens. How fast traffic should flow is not something that should be decided by anybody's uninformed opinion, regardless of whether or not they stand to gain.