[Decade]

NIMBYs also win in local votes. Most voters turn out for presidential elections. Far fewer turn out for state elections. And the voter turnout for local elections is frankly pathetic. The votes where San Francisco set a cap on new office space per year and made apartment buildings near the coast inordinately slow and expensive to build? Off-year elections where the NIMBYs have an electoral advantage.

http://beyondchron.org/the-failure-of-district-elections/