Why Ugly Buildings Are Holding Back Housing

Beauty in my backyard

Western countries once allowed landowners to build almost anything anywhere, but strict rules now freeze neighborhoods and ban densification. A common theory blames ugly modern buildings for fueling NIMBY opposition, but the evidence suggests ugliness is not the main driver of local resistance. Instead, it was the rise of modernist architecture that generated a powerful new group of 'NITBYs'—people who oppose development elsewhere—leading to the triumph of heritage conservation. This article argues that conservationism was less a reaction to what modernists destroyed than to what they created.