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MENTAL MODEL · M3934

NIMBY - Not In My Backyard

NIMBY - Not In My Backyard
CultureHigh supportSociology
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Updated 2026-08-01

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INTRODUCTION

English translation pending.

CORE DEFINITION

Not In My Backyard describes residents who accept that a facility is socially necessary, such as a waste plant, a mobile mast or a psychiatric hospital, yet refuse to host it locally. The phrase entered wide use in the 1980s in American siting disputes. The core proposition is that benefits are socialised while costs are localised, so collective and individual rationality diverge. The key qualification is that opposition usually rests on real distributional costs and lost trust rather than mere selfishness, which is why compensation and participation shift outcomes more than persuasion does.

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

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- Cost mapping: identify whose backyard actually absorbs the negative externality. - Siting design: choose compensation, participation or auction mechanisms before announcing a site. - Backlash forecast: predict resistance intensity from how concentrated the local costs are.

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A facility delivers diffuse benefits to a large population but concentrates noise, risk or stigma on a small neighbourhood. For each resident near the site the personal cost is large and visible while the personal share of the benefit is small, so opposition is individually rational even when the project is collectively efficient. Because the losers are few, organised and highly motivated while the beneficiaries are many and indifferent, the concentrated minority usually wins the political contest.

MINIMUM ACTION

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Source support: Explicit

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