Urbanities,
Vol. 4
·
No 2
·
November 2014
© 2014
Urbanities
9
Thus, an unwanted establishment (for example, a halfway house) must be commonly
perceived as a mechanism that will take away control of neighbourhood surroundings for
residents. It makes sense that people who share the same neighbourhood also share an ideal
view of where the neighbourhood is going and where it has been; and that is largely what we
are interested in learning about. In addition, we sought to discover whether residents shared
similar interests in the values of their homes and shared hopes of creating a relatively crime-
free environment where neighbours trust each other. Finally, we wanted to explore whether a
shared opposition to the placement of a halfway house was related to the basic need to feeling
financially secure, free from crime and free from shame.
Economic Realities and Perceptions in a NIMBY Battle
As with any grassroots struggle, there is a dichotomy between perception and reality among
participants in a NIMBY battle. A common perception is that halfway houses contribute to
the economic decline of a neighbourhood. One of the most common themes among people
who oppose the placement of the halfway house was some variant of: ‘my property values
will go down’. In reality, however this is not the case, as it was many other factors that
contributed to the downfall of Chestnut Lane long before the halfway house arrived.
Ironically enough, many of the residents that we interviewed seemed to promote the false
causation of the economic demise of the area with the placement of halfway houses.
The residents appeared accurate in their perception of one disheartening reality of the
NIMBY battle however. Sometimes, as opposed to fighting the placement of unwanted
facilities by the state in their neighbourhood, economically privileged people simply leave.
The residents of Chestnut Lane were no stranger to the phenomena of middle-class flight and
perceived it as diminishing the quality of life in their neighbourhood: ‘I’ve seen a couple of
good people that were just adamant about getting out of town,’ said Annie, a middle-aged
Caucasian female resident, ‘We’re thinking about doing it too when we have enough money
saved up’.
Interestingly, the less affluent people left behind on Chestnut Lane had a similar
unpleasant reaction to residents of communities studied by sociologists in the 1960s and
1970s during the white flight era. During this time, schools were desegregating and more
affluent whites left the inner city for the suburbs (Frailing and Harper 2010, Bankston and
Caldas 2002). On Chestnut Lane most residents were not able to articulate how the flight of
such affluent people would affect the greater economy (that is, the tax base of the
neighbourhood) but they did see how it affected events and important things in their
vernacular life.
Restaurant owners, architects, lawyers and doctors were all reported as leaving
Chestnut Lane. At least three of the people that we interviewed seemed concerned that a
young doctor was considering the possibility of family life in the local neighbourhood. ‘All of
the good ones [doctors] are leaving the area’, said Martha, a local resident and a grandmother
of three who would not reveal her age to us. She added, ‘This must be the third doctor we’ve
been through in about 10 years’. When we interviewed this doctor, Alex, he said, ‘I did my
residency here because I didn’t mind working with people in need but we’re [his wife and
