Gaining Acceptance for Noxious Facilities with Economic Incentives

In recent years considerable controversy has surrounded efforts to site prisons, AIDS treatment centers, and every form of waste disposal facility. While these facilities benefit the majority of the public, they also impose some burden on residents living near the site. Familiar terms such as NIMBY (Not in My Backyard) and LULU (Locally Unwanted Land Use) permeate the media, indicating the strong resistance shown by communities targeted to host these facilities (Popper, 1983). This public opposition is often effective in thwarting projects. For example, since 1980 not a single major new hazardous waste disposal facility has been sited anywhere in the United States, and the outlook does not appear any brighter in the immediate future (Weidenbaum, 1989). The key questions addressed in this chapter are 1) why there is such resistance to siting facilities and 2) whether there are ways that policy makers can reduce the level of resistance to such facilities. The following three examples provide concrete illustrations of the challenges we face in finding locations for siting facilities.