I take the same issue whenever I see zoning issues about my locality (Denver) brought up by online communities who tend "YIMBY" but have little, if any, horse i

I take the same issue whenever I see zoning issues about my locality (Denver) brought up by online communities who tend "YIMBY" but have little, if any, horse in the race of local politics. There this un-nuanced thousand-miles-removed view of zoning issues propagated in media and places like Reddit and HN, and then there's the opposing boots-on-the-ground version where those of us living in the community, who would have to live with the changes, fight against destructive zoning proposals and corrupted officials. Starting a sentence with "as a zoning official" has no value. Having personally met with a number of zoning officials, historic commission members, city planners, and council-members, their allegiances and political views vary from one to the next. Some ran on campaigns almost entirely funded by out-of-state-developer donations; while others, sure, are a reflection of elite country-club voters wanting to keep out the "riff-raff". There's a whole swath of viewpoints in between the extremes, and the only thing consistent among every national story about "NIMBY"ism is that it is far, far too disconnected from the communities to adequately capture any of those viewpoints.