Governance Of NIMBY Complex

With the rapid growth of economy and urbanization, China's social development has taken a new level. But the economic number could not cover all the shortcomings in social governance. Take NIMBY case for instance, mass incident caused by environment pollution has occurred one after another in recent years, especially in the selection procedure of public facilities which have obvious negative influence.NIMBY facilities have taken the key public service, but they bring negative influence, such as deterioration of living conditions, threats to health and property loss, to residents nearby. NIMBY facilities are typical public goods with non-competitive and non-exclusive features. They raise the overall level of social welfare, but the residents nearby take the cost. Driving by the self-interest motive, local residents often resist the construction of NIMBY facilities, which mind is called NIMBY complex, that is, do not build in my backyard.The effect of NIMBY complex makes it a dilemma to construction of public facilities. The development of city needs them, at the same time they have a negative impact to residents nearby. In Olson's theory about collective action, the key point of NIMBY conflict is that, the minority takes the cost, and the majority gets free riding, which is unfair to ordinary people. Coupled with the relative concentration of the affected residents, the formation of social mobilization becomes more easily through a simple "complaint" or "Passion", which makes the construction of public facilities in a great resistance.From a system and mechanism design perspective, the construction of NIMBY facilities has close relation to the tyranny of majority and tyranny of minority in the public policy making process. The lack of opinion survey and scientific proof in policy making makes the NIMBY conflict in policy implement. So the fundamental way to solve NIMBY problem is public participation, to lower the risk and raise compensation, bring deliberative democracy, open public information and propose public spirit.From the NIMBY conflict in China we can see that, with a more open political system and a more mature civil society, rising of public awareness and blockage of judicial relief make NIMBY conflicts occur in the form of mass incidents. PX incident in Xiamen is the biggest NIMBY conflict in China so far. It exposed the loss of public participation in public policy making and lack of channel for expression of public interests, and the less development of NGOs and spontaneous public participation. We should take these shortcomings into account in the construction of NIMBY facilities and public policy making in future.