Public works and zero km infrastructures, the Nimby syndrome is worsening in the territories, "not in my backyard"

Public works and infrastructure? Not in my backyard, or “Not In My Back Yard”, which is the extended form of the acronym Nimby, a well-known oppositional (social) syndrome: No committees and local communities against projects and interventions more or less at km 0 which damage - according to them - territories, environment, landscapes.

The host communities are sticking their claws out against biogas plants, waste-to-energy plants, endless wind and photovoltaic systems, data centers and various drillings, and also against the extreme engineering of certain projects that have been in the field for over 50 years (read Bridge over the Strait). Companies and stakeholders often retreat, even give up. There is a lack of common feeling: opposition to land consumption and the creation of unnecessary volumes often avoids disasters and protects urban areas and landscapes. But many times the no "regardless" slows down the necessary ecological transition and the creation of strategic infrastructures.

At the end of last summer, over 200 farmers in the province of Vibo Valentia, in the Piana degli Scrisi, stopped with their protests, even desperate ones, the construction of a large photovoltaic panel system, to protect the cultivation of Rosìa wheat, a rare and ancient cereal registered in the regional biodiversity register. They had already received the cancellation of the land lease. On the other side of the front was Friel, one of the major Italian renewable energy operators, who insisted on the agrivoltaic nature of the project (a 45 million euro investment). But the Calabria Region blocked and archived the procedures. The risk of irreversibly losing agricultural land was overwhelming.

Even digital infrastructures (in Italy investments of 37 billion are estimated in the next 10 years, based on the recent Ida 2026 - Italian Datacenter Association report) are now in the sights of networks of citizen committees that oppose their creation: those of Ciarlasco, for example, do not want a 3 and a half billion euro data center in Lacchiarella, between Milan and Pavia. And they organize the protest indefinitely. They believe the energy transition is at risk. And indeed, data centers are infrastructures that require a high percentage of renewable energy absorption and an enormous amount of water resources. The committees also implicate the mayors of the area in their opposition. In many cases, the scientific communities are involved.

To protect the historical and naturalistic heritage of the hamlet of San Bovio, the inhabitants of Peschiera Borromeo, province of Milan, also say no to the project of a data center in a green residential area adjacent to the southern Milan agricultural park. A threat to local biodiversity and the natural landscape. A petition was launched which collected over 10 thousand signatures.