Very intelligent, market-based policy proposal to counteract opposition to development.

Clever policy, however, can help balance the concerns of NIMBYs with the broad benefits of growth in productive places. One approach is simply to neutralise local opposition to development by compensating neighbours for the costs they bear when new construction is approved—to bribe, them, in effect. David Schleicher, a professor of land-use law at Yale Law School, has proposed the use of “tax increment local transfers”, or TILTs. New buildings normally generate extra property-tax revenue for the city once they have been completed. Some portion of the expected rise in the tax take associated with a proposed new development (the tax increment) could be promised to nearby residents in the form of a temporary property-tax rebate, scheduled to last ten years, say, if the development went ahead. As Mr Schleicher notes, TILTs would enhance the signalling value of local opposition to new projects: residents who fight against a proposed development despite the prospect of direct financial gain from it are more likely to have reservations worth addressing.