[davidw]

See, this is what I mean. These people are doing it all on their own, of their own volition. There is no big bad bogeyman behind them. They're just NIMBYs. They are that way for a variety of reasons, which is an interesting topic on its own, but I've met and talked with them and they have arrived where they're at without some Shadowy Corporation paying them off.

[SoftTalker]

I mean, it's pretty easy to understand if you just look at motivations. For most people who own a house, it's a pretty big part of their net worth. Nobody wants the value of their house to go down, and if you allow construction of more housing that is what will happen.

Local council members fear geting voted out if they make constituents unhappy.

We need both sides to think of the good of the community as greater than their own financial/power interests. But that's very hard to actually do.

[davidw]

Yes, that's part of it, but I think it goes beyond that, having observed these people close up for several years. I think for some, it's a real fear of change. Others are closet classists/racists who do not want 'those people' in their 'nice' neighborhood. Some on the left are more upset about a developer making some money than about people not having housing. It's a complex subject.