The traditional narrative when it comes to NIMBYs is that these are individuals acting out of self-interest. Quintessentially, these are people who own their home and do not want development "in their backyard" out of fear that it might negatively impact the value of their property and/or have a negative impact on their local community.
But in reality, anti-development sentiment is likely more nuanced than this. In a recent working paper called "The Symbolic Politics of Housing," researchers at UC, Berkeley and UC, Davis show that anti-development sentiment is not always just about self-interest; rather, it can be predicted by how people feel about certain "salient symbols."
This is based on something called "symbolic politics theory" and it works like this: We all have positive and negative associations with certain "symbols." Often these are developed early in life. And so how we might feel about a development or a particular land use policy, depends on the symbols attached to it and whether we like them.
Here's an example.
Consider two identical apartment developments happening in your neighborhood. The first is being developed by faceless "Wall Street investors" and the second is being developed by a nice local entrepreneur who also happens to be of the exact same ethno-cultural group as you.
