I just had one more thought I wanted to write down. I wrote yesterday that

we all were a burden on our local amenities when we first came into this world, when we first moved to our current home

The most common complaint from NIMBYs to forbid new housing is that the newcomers will add demand to local services that current residents rely on. The schools, doctor’s offices, and libraries will become overcrowded, and this is unfair to the people currently using them. Thus, new people shouldn’t be allowed in, and to prevent that new houses shouldn’t be built.

But the logical conclusion of this demand would be not just that the community should have a veto on new houses, but they should also have a veto on new *children*. A community can block an ADU that would house just one extra person, so surely they can block a woman from having twins?

After all, new children stress local amenities as much or more than any other newcomers. In fact, children don’t have jobs and pay no tax, so on the balance they stress amenities *far more* than new taxpayers. Children fill up the schools, they go to the doctors, they run around the libraries, why *shouldn’t* the local community have a say in allowing new children into the area?

Of course they shouldn’t have a say because this is madness, and any reasonable person can see it is so. And they shouldn’t have a say in blocking a new home either.

We were all once the new face in our community, burdening our local amenities, and we should remember it.