Create your own NIMBY Mad Libs

The opposition against housing and other developments all starts to sound the same. We made a fill-in-the-blank speech to poke fun at Arizona's not-in-my-backyardism problem.

There aren’t enough houses in the Phoenix metro area, there aren’t enough shelter beds in the county and there are too many people living on the streets.

Nearly everyone agrees we have a housing problem, but the Venn diagrams of how to solve it don’t have enough overlap to compel the solutions we need. The op-ed pages of the state’s big daily, the Arizona Republic, are frequently filled with housing-related arguments, like this recent piece that makes the case that rigid zoning and neighborhood opposition to change hinder our cities’ ability to grow and adapt.

At local city and town meetings, you’ll hear a variety of arguments against new housing, both affordable and market-rate. Not In My Backyard-ism, or NIMBYism, refers to this kind of opposition, and it routinely tanks developments here and elsewhere.

For example, a Chandler affordable housing recently ran into intense opposition from neighbors, who cited traffic and local control as their major concerns. 

The Chandler project isn’t unique. Around the Valley — around the country, really — neighbors turn out to oppose housing developments. Sometimes, those neighbors include celebrities (like Steph Curry and Dave Chapelle). Housing advocates say this type of opposition is a major impediment to addressing Phoenix’s affordable housing crisis.

The arguments all start to sound the same: The opposition doesn’t oppose the project, just its location. They know we need more housing, but lament the increased traffic. They point to city codes and planning documents as evidence the project shouldn’t be adopted. They simply don’t want the project near them.

Because we’ve sat through, heard arguments from and read about so many of these failed projects, we decided to create a fill-in-the-blank speech for NIMBYs to use the next time they step up to the mic to speak out against a development. 

This is styled off the Mad Libs we all did as kids. Typically, you play the game with another person, who tells you which type of word you need without you seeing the story you’re filling in. If you want to play alone, we made a checklist of the words you’ll need in order. (Mad Libs is copyrighted, so we came up with a different name and logo.)

You can download the checklist and fill-in-the-blank NIMBY speech here, or it’s attached below as images.

Have fun with this! Don’t take yourself too seriously! It’s a game!

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