What “Not in My Backyard” Really Means
Like most people, I thought I knew exactly what “Not in My Backyard” meant.
The phrase has become part of the American vocabulary. We hear it whenever a new apartment complex is proposed, a warehouse is planned, or a neighborhood pushes back against development. Most of us assume it refers to people who support an idea, so long as it isn’t built next door. According to Wikipedia, “Not in My Backyard,” or NIMBY, describes the opposition by residents to proposed real estate and infrastructure developments in their local area, as well as support for strict land regulations. The connotation is that such residents are only opposing the development because it is close to them and they would tolerate or support ii if it were built farther away.
When I was asked to explore the growing conversation surrounding NIMBY in our own community, I imagined I would spend my time reading planning-board minutes, researching zoning disputes, and interviewing attorneys. Instead, I found myself doing something completely different.
The Million Dollar Question
Everywhere I went, I started asking people a question.
If I stopped for a coffee, I’d ask the barista before I left. If I was paying for groceries, I’d ask the cashier while she rang up my order. If I was having lunch, I’d ask the waitress before she brought the check.
“When you hear the phrase ‘Not in My Backyard,’ what comes to mind?”
I wasn’t looking for statistics or carefully thought-out opinions. I wanted people’s first reaction. Sometimes our first instinct reveals more than the answer we give after we’ve had time to think about it.
At first, nothing seemed unusual.
Outside Ocean Township, the answers were remarkably consistent. Before I could even explain what I meant, several people assumed I was talking about the large summer crowds that descend on the Jersey Shore. People spoke about traffic, public safety, beach disturbances, and the annual disruption that accompanies the season. To them, “Not in My Backyard” had nothing to do with housing or neighborhood growth. It was about protecting the quality of life they already had.
Neighborhoods Outside Ocean Township
Then I crossed into the neighborhoods surrounding Ocean Township and continued asking the same question.
The difference was immediate. Before I could even explain what I meant, several people assumed I was referring to the Jewish community.
I remember thinking, “That’s interesting.” The question hadn’t changed. I was asking it the same way I had been asking it all week. Yet, somehow the answer had changed completely.
As I continued stopping for coffee, running errands, and talking to people, the pattern kept repeating itself. Different stores. Different people. Different conversations. The same assumption.
By then, I had stopped thinking about zoning.
A Conversation About People
I wanted to understand why a phrase that most Americans associate with development had become, in these neighborhoods, a conversation about people.
As those conversations unfolded, I noticed something else. Almost no one began by talking about planning boards or lawsuits. They talked about traffic. Parking. Larger homes. Mature trees disappearing. Streets that no longer felt quite the way people remembered them.
But if I stayed in the conversation long enough, those subjects almost always gave way to something deeper.
One longtime resident began by describing the physical changes she had watched over the years. She spoke about modest homes being replaced by substantially larger ones and she questioned whether the pace of redevelopment was healthy for the neighborhood.
Yet, the longer we spoke, the less she talked about houses and the more she talked about people. She missed recognizing the neighbors on her block. She missed stopping to chat on the sidewalk. She missed the sense of familiarity that had once made the neighborhood feel like home.
Relationships Are the Issue
Whether every memory was perfectly accurate wasn’t really the point. What struck me was that, beneath the discussion about development, she was really talking about relationships.
Not everyone I spoke with viewed the changes through that lens.
One woman smiled when I asked the question because, in her view, the conversation surrounding the community had become far more negative than the reality she experienced every day. She told me the new families had enriched the neighborhood. Instead of seeing strangers, she saw people she had come to know and appreciate. Her world had become larger, not smaller, simply because different people had moved in.
That conversation forced me to pause. Until then, I had been listening primarily to what people believed they had lost. Now I was hearing someone describe what she believed she had gained. The neighborhood had not changed for one person and remained the same for another. The very same streets had produced two entirely different experiences, depending on where someone happened to stand.
Non-Jews’ Responses
As I continued asking the question, another observation emerged that I had not anticipated. Several non-Jewish residents, none of whom knew one another, volunteered that their concerns were not about Judaism itself. In fact, many were careful to make that distinction before saying anything else. What they struggled to explain was something less tangible. They described newer neighbors as friendly but insular, people who tended to socialize within their own circles rather than with the broader neighborhood.
On the flip side, the Jewish perspective was never a mystery to me. I have lived it.
Jews and Continuity
I know why young families search for homes within walking distance of a synagogue. I understand why access to Jewish schools, kosher food, and community institutions is not a luxury but a necessity. As communities grow and children marry, they naturally look for homes close enough to remain part of the lives they have built. What many outsiders experience as expansion, Jewish families often experience as continuity, a way to remain connected to their faith, their families, and their community.
That reality is neither unusual nor unique. Throughout history, Jewish communities have grown this way, gradually extending beyond their original boundaries as each new generation searched for a place to call home.
Neighborhood Growth and Traffic
I also asked whether there were aspects of the neighborhood’s growth that concerned them. I expected to hear about rising home prices or the difficulty of finding housing. Instead, the answer I heard most often was traffic.
Congested roads, crowded intersections, and longer drives during peak hours frustrated them just as much as everyone else. That surprised me because it reminded me that not every concern falls neatly along communal lines. Sometimes neighbors disagree about profound issues, and sometimes they simply sit in the same traffic together.
By then, I understood why the conversation surrounding “Not in My Backyard” had become so emotionally charged. I was not listening to two sides arguing over the same set of facts. I was listening to two groups of people whose experiences of the very same place had led them to tell entirely different stories.
By that point, I had heard enough to know that I wasn’t dealing with a simple disagreement over development. The more people I spoke with, the more I realized they were not arguing about the same issue at all.
Longtime residents were describing what had changed. Jewish residents were describing what had finally become possible.
Looking at Community Through Different Lenses
Neither group was imagining things. They were simply experiencing the same community through entirely different lenses. That distinction matters because it explains why these conversations so often become emotional. When people believe they are talking about different things, they inevitably talk past one another. One side discusses traffic counts and neighborhood character. The other discusses the ability to raise children within walking distance of a synagogue, a school, and a community that makes Jewish life possible. Both conversations are sincere. They are simply answering different questions.
That realization sent me somewhere I hadn’t expected to go. Until then, everything I had gathered had come from conversations over coffee counters, grocery checkouts, and restaurant tables. Now I wanted to understand how those same tensions appeared when they left everyday conversation and entered the public record.
It did not take long to find the answer.
Entering the Public Record
Ocean Township has spent years wrestling with exactly these questions. One of the most prominent examples involved Yeshiva Gedola Na’os Yaakov on Logan Road. Residents voiced concerns about traffic, neighborhood character, safety, and the overall scale of the proposed project. The yeshiva argued that denying their application imposed an unlawful burden on its ability to exercise its religion.
What began as a local land use dispute ultimately became years of federal litigation under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, better known as RLUIPA.
A similar conflict unfolded in nearby Allenhurst, where a Sephardic congregation challenged zoning restrictions that it believed prevented it from establishing a synagogue. That case, too, ended not with a neighborhood consensus but with a legal settlement.
Reading through court filings after spending days listening to ordinary residents was an unexpected experience. The language could not have been more different.
Court opinions discuss ordinances, statutory protections, precedent, and constitutional rights. Planning boards weigh traffic studies, parking requirements, and environmental impact. Every argument is measured against legal standards.
Questions of How Neighbors Feel
Yet, none of those documents answered the questions people had been asking me. No traffic study explains why someone feels disconnected from the neighborhood they have lived in for thirty years. No zoning ordinance explains why a young Jewish family feels it has nowhere else to build an observant life.
The law can determine whether a municipality acted properly. It cannot determine whether neighbors understand one another.
And perhaps that is where this conversation has gone off course.
After weeks of conversations, dozens of unexpected interviews, and hours spent reading court filings, I walked away with a conclusion I never anticipated.
The phrase “Not in My Backyard” isn’t really about backyards. It’s about fear.
Fear
For some, it is the fear of losing a neighborhood that no longer feels familiar. For others, it is the fear of never finding a place where they can build the kind of life their faith requires. Those fears look very different, but they are fears, nonetheless.
The mistake we make is assuming that the other side’s concern must be rooted in ulterior motives. It is easier to believe someone is intolerant than to accept that they may simply be struggling with change. It is just as easy to assume newcomers are indifferent to the people around them when, in reality, they may be entirely consumed by the challenges of building a new life.
The truth, I suspect, is more complicated.
Communities are not built only with zoning approvals, construction permits, or planning board resolutions. They are built through thousands of ordinary interactions that never appear in a court record or a newspaper headline. They are built when neighbors learn one another’s names, when children play together, when conversations replace assumptions, and when familiarity slowly replaces suspicion.
What Makes a Community Neighborhood
As Jews, we have always understood the importance of building communities. We build synagogues, schools, mikvaot, and kosher markets because Jewish life depends on them. But perhaps we sometimes forget that the strongest communities are not held together by buildings alone. They are held together by relationships.
If there was one lesson this assignment taught me, it is that the most important conversations rarely happen inside a courtroom or at a planning board meeting. They happen over a cup of coffee, at the checkout counter, or between two neighbors who decide to stop and talk instead of simply walking past one another.
I began this assignment believing I was writing about zoning. I finished it believing I was writing about something far more important.
A neighborhood is not defined by the size of its homes, the width of its streets, or even the outcome of its legal battles. In the end, a neighborhood is defined by whether the people who share it choose to become neighbors.
Linda Argalgi Sadacka is a writer, speaker, and strategist whose work focuses on leadership, culture, faith, and community engagement. Through her writing, advocacy, and The Silent Revolution podcast, she reaches audiences seeking thoughtful conversations on public discourse and Jewish life.