Drew Atkins has a great article over at Crosscut headlined, “NIMBYs are wrong on housing, says math.” The opening paragraph is perfect for memorial day:

When it comes to the merits of desecrating graveyards, you’d likely find champions among some housing density zealots. “Sure, it’s disrespectful to build micro-apartments on top of the dead,” they might say. “But are these cadavers using that space effectively? If we’re going to keep this city affordable, we need to prioritize the living, think outside the box.”

Later in the article I am quoted as agreeing with the idea of building on cemeteries.

Also helping to rile opposition are hardcore density advocates like Smart Growth Seattle director Roger Valdez, who provide easy villains (he might actually agree with the graveyard example). During one conversation with him, I tried in vain to find any restraint he’d support on real estate developers, anything that might cut into their profits: more on-site affordable housing, just a little parking, minimum space between buildings, anything. He wouldn’t bite. When I suggested that the city should restrain the construction of buildings so ugly or bland that they’re an insult to one’s sense of sight, he replied simply, “Beauty has a price.” He disagreed, in other words, that buildings should generally attempt to look good.

I love architecture. I love architects. In fact my entire intellectual foundation was poured with lots and lots of Kevin Lynch in the mix; Lynch pioneered planning, but argued that design was an essential part of how the built environment embraces people — or doesn’t. Does an ugly building have a negative impact on my sense of well being? Of course. But, as I pointed out in a very long post about Lynch years ago, cities are about people, not design:

Lynch’s work in mapping the way cities feel and trying to get at how we might willfully do what we know somehow works captures my intuitions about land use and planning. It’s why I suggested earlier this month that design and planning might not matter as much as how we feel about a place. We can try to outsmart ourselves but I don’t think it always works. Put more people together and place happens, not the opposite way around.

I often point out that the garish, flashing sign on Olive and John will someday be the subject of preservation efforts. Often what people call ugly in one era becomes an icon in the next.Yes, the sign is horrible. Awful. I hate it. Like my neighbors bathroom fan, or that stupid leaf blower, or the beeping from the garbage truck backing up, I’d like to walk over and just shut it off.

The problem is that such annoyances are part of life. Get over it! And this is even more important when it comes to annoyances that allow people to live here in Seattle. A big, fat, stupid looking building that provides housing for dozens if not hundreds of people far outweighs the nominal distress I might feel at the sight of a blank wall or siding that I wouldn’t have chosen myself. What you and I think about the color pattern of the building doesn’t matter. As Atkins points out,

But we also must admit that those individuals fighting density at all costs — unless it’s located in neighborhoods other than their own — are fighting to make the city less affordable in the long run, a purview for the rich, the natives, and their families. They’re fighting to preserve a version of Seattle that was within their price range decades ago, but isn’t affordable to most of us now.

Thank you. Micromanaging design from the sidewalk adds costs to housing that make it more expensive; too much micromanaging means projects won’t happen. And that’s the goal of the angry neighbor who complains about the building making them look fat.

Design can also be the refuge of the NIMBY wolf in urbanist sheeps clothing: “The reason people don’t like density is because they build it ugly.” That’s logic that says, as I pointed out before, that the AMC Pacer should make us all stop driving. But what’s true is that the utility value of housing far exceeds the way it looks, and while tastes change over time people’s need for housing does not.