This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, October 10th,

2023.

I'm Caleb Brown.

States spend piles of money on economic development incentives

to attract big industrial facilities,

and local communities often fight against the

construction of the very housing needed for those workers.

Chris Denson directs policy and research at the Georgia Public Policy Foundation

in Chicago and August we discussed the NIMBY at the Georgia Public Policy Foundation.

In Chicago in August, we discussed the NIMB impulse when it comes to development and

how best to make the case for new housing.

Aside from the time that, well, the lack of a better term, we'll just say local weirdos who show up at zoning board meetings and rattle on about how great things were in their neighborhood 40 years ago and how they want their

neighborhood to stay exactly the same way that it has been and they want it to stay that way

forever.

The only cost to those people for doing that is their time. And they impose a lot of costs on people.

I'm speaking broadly about the people who want to stop development.

I'm creating humanizing them in a very negative way,

and I apologize for that.

But to the extent that they're these people who essentially can make their voices heard,

get their way and prevent developments from occurring, there seems there's no

downside for the

the benefit of the people who want things to stay the same.

...