East Bibb Twiggs Neighborhood Association v. Macon-Bibb County Planning and Zoning Commission

A common aspect of life in American society late in the twentieth century was community opposition to the siting of public facilities. Known as the "Not In My Back Yard" (NIMBY) syndrome, community planners faced increasing difficulty in locating various public service facilities. The facilities included landfills, prisons, power plants, homes for the elderly and mentally-retarded, substance-abuse facilities, group homes for HIV-AIDS infected persons, child daycare centers, outpatient medical facilities, and schools. NIMBY became quite effective at killing much-needed projects for the population at-large.

Neighborhood-based opposition originally grew from fear of decreased property value in addition to anticipated introduction of unwanted persons, noise, pollution, traffic, and odors, among other things seen as threats to the residents' quality of life. Earlier on, such facilities were routinely placed in lower income, inner-city neighborhoods less able to raise resistance. Facility saturation of some areas resulted. Eventually, these communities became increasingly mobilized to correct the past inequities. The NIMBY syndrome became relevant across all class, socioeconomic, and racial boundaries.

In reaction to the NIMBY trend, planners attempted education strategies, cooperative planning, fair-share policies, forced siting, community compensation, and conflict resolution techniques to varying degrees of success. Fair-share policies involved coercing neighborhoods to accept responsibility for their share of larger community and regional needs.