What happens when NIMBY (Not In MY BackYard) behaviour impacts the health of the whole community? In Darien Connecticut the town was going to have their first drive-through COVID-19 testing site set up.
The testing was to begin in a parking lot at the Darien Town Hall. But residents complained copiously to town officials, not wanting a testing facility so close to their residences. The town Mayor and Council nixed the facility.
What exactly is Darien? It is a small town of 21,000 people that is one of the wealthiest in the United States, and is ranked in the top ten of Bloomberg’s current list of “America’s Richest Places. The average household income is over $350,000.
Most of the residents here commute to Manhattan for work. Here are the amenities in Darien: there’s “eleven parks, two public beaches, the private Tokeneke beach club, three country clubs including the first organized golf club in Connecticut, a hunt club, the public Darien Boat Club, and Noroton Yacht Club.”
The drive-through testing was to be in a lower parking lot adjacent to the Town Hall for residents that had a doctor’s order and had already been screened and given an appointment.
The Mayor of Darien responded that there was no need to throw social media stones at Darien residents not wanting a drive-in virus check facility in their town.
Darien is in Fairfield County where there were 102 confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of Friday March 20.
With thanks to Dan Seljak-Byrne for the link.
Images: ReformAustin & Darien
So what decision did the Town Council make? To move it or cancel it?
I suppose it shows how pliable politicians are.
There you have it – equality, or inequality, Trumps health in the US of A!
NIMBY doesn’t stop at the border. Let’s see what happens if this same idea is floated in West Vancouver. I sincerely hope I’d be wrong about that, but sense of entitlement doesn’t just go away because there’s a pandemic on.