When the White Sox decided to build a stadium in Addison, the residents said no.
When Burger Kings and halfway houses and parking lots appeared destined for construction in other towns, they said no way.
And today, as garbage dumps and road widening are being discussed in places like Bartlett and Wheaton, they are trotting out their now familiar refrain: ”Not in my back yard.”
It`s well known that bureaucrats have coined an acronym, ”NIMBY,” to describe the growing number of opponents to unbridled growth in the suburbs and its unwanted consequences: traffic, noise, pollution. NIMBYs like their suburbs the way they are; any additional people, cars or roads will only ruin them.
NIMBY battles are erupting everywhere. The Village Boards of Glendale Heights, Roselle and Bloomingdale last week all adopted resolutions opposing the creation of landfills in their areas. Bartlett annexed land last week to block it from becoming a garbage dump. Naperville residents a few years ago successfully challenged issuing a license to a local laboratory for burning film tainted with cyanide; residents all around O`Hare International Airport don`t want the airport expanded; and in Lake County, a dump and a sludge depository have been halted and an incinerator turned down.
”This has been going on for a long time,” said Larry Christmas, executive director of the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission. ”Where do you put the jail? Where do you put the airport, the halfway houses, subsidized housing? Not in my back yard. Things that everyone says are needed, but nobody wants them in their back yard.”
Although NIMBYism is more a sentiment than a political movement shared by a cross-section of the population, it is perhaps the most formidable opposition to growth that suburban politicians have ever encountered-so much so that Du Page County officials have begun a million-dollar public-relations campaign to defuse opposition to recently proposed garbage dumps and incinerators.
Du Page residents were exceptionally docile over the years as sprawling subdivisions were built across the farmland, shopping centers sprouted like mushrooms and roads were widened seemingly overnight. High technology became a justification for building almost anything, and opponents of nuclear power, extremely active in many parts of the country, never made inroads into the county that is the site of Argonne National Laboratory, the nation`s principal research facility for civil reactors.
But in recent months, the forces of growth and their NIMBY opponents have begun to battle over everything from highways to garbage dumps in Du Page. Even construction of the proposed superconducting supercollider at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, near Batavia-the nation`s biggest scientific plum-is drawing flak.
The multibillion-dollar collider until recently has had almost unanimous support in Illinois. But now, a number of Du Page and Kane County
municipalities are having some doubts, especially over the amount of land that`s going to be taken off the tax rolls for the 53-mile subterranean ring that scientists hope to use to advance their knowledge of high-energy physics. Last Wednesday, more than 300 Kane County residents braved a blinding snowstorm to protest the proposed construction of the collider, with Blanca Souder of Kaneville expressing NIMBYism at its best: ”I`m not against the collider, but I don`t want it in my back yard.”
”You have to do what`s good for the majority, and there`s always a few who are going to suffer,” said Jack Knuepfer, chairman of the Du Page County Board. ”Somebody has to get rid of the solid waste. Somebody has got to have a highway near them. Somebody is going to have a problem with the superconducting supercollider.”
The debates over landfills tend to arouse especially intense opposition, planners say, because the public is better informed about potential environmental hazards and more vocal about them than in the past. Few residents are eager to live near a garbage dump, but the alternative, Christmas points out, is ”they won`t get built or they`ll get built farther away. Either way, it usually means it (waste disposal) will cost more.”
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So far, it would seem that Du Page County has been effective at defusing the potentially heated debate over waste-disposal facilities, although everyone involved concedes that the discussions are at a very preliminary stage. But that the county already has taken steps to confront the NIMBY sentiment suggests just how volatile it is.
A month before the release of a report on waste disposal, the county`s Solid Waste Committee was briefed by a consultant whose firm specializes in training public agencies and personnel in presenting controversial plans to the public. The consultant recommended a policy of ”brutal honesty.” The committee`s goal, he instructed, is to get ”grudging acceptance,” not an endorsement, of its plan by the public.
Officials estimate that the public-relations effort will cost $1 million. Currently there are two public-relations consultants handling the project, according to Du Page County Board member Lloyd Renfro.
”At first turn, we`ve been running ahead of the pack,” said Renfro.
The consultants have led a series of meetings with county residents and plan to hold additional sessions with special-interest organizations such as the Sierra Club. One of the objectives, Renfro said, is to ”keep the politicians off the stage.”
Public response at the meetings has been a surprise to some officials who expected more vocal opposition. Emotions have been calm, and questions, for the most part, have dealt with specific aspects of the waste disposal facility, such as the noise it would generate, its hours of operation and the potential for pollutants entering the atmosphere.
But issues that will no doubt become more prevalent in the months to come were also raised.
At one of the county`s meetings in Glenbard North High School, one resident, Donald Moore, argued that a landfill ”would knock thousands off the value of houses. Who wants a landfill?” he asked. ”Even if it`s state of the art, it`s a dump.”
”What will NIMBY play in it?” commented Du Page County Board member Carole Pankau. ”A lot. I don`t want an incinerator or landfill near me. That is called human nature. `I don`t want it in my back yard, and you don`t want it in yours.` But it`s got to go somewhere. Out of everybody, somebody is going to lose.”
Pankau predicted that the reaction to the proposed landfills and incinerators will grow more vocal as the waste-disposal plans are completed.
Indeed, the public response to other growth-oriented but objectionable projects suggest that Du Page might yet face a torrent of irate citizens and complaints.
A county study released last fall, suggesting that various discontinuous north-south roads be linked, caused an outpouring of criticism. And when the Du Page County Forest Preserve District drew up a list of possible land acquisition sites, then acted to buy 5,000 to 8,000 more acres of open space, some county residents rushed to head off the district`s plans.
A byproduct of the NIMBY movement, according to Christmas, is that regional planning for Chicago`s suburbs will become increasingly difficult. Municipalities are better equipped to ”do battle” with state and county authorities, he said-and perhaps more importantly, land that was once available for public projects has been developed.
”You have to concede that some things won`t get done at all,” Christmas said. ”Places like Du Page County are suffering severe traffic problems. But they simply won`t be able to build a whole lot of large roads.
”In Du Page County,” Christmas added, ”it`s going to be harder and harder to find land that`s far enough away from people to avoid complaints. There just aren`t that many places left in the metropolitan area that are not in somebody`s back yard.”