OK then, let's say you've bought an old run down shop on a street corner and want to open it up as a traditional corner shop but because all the rest of the houses around have been "smartened up" and the occupiers are "a lot more posh" than the people who used to live around there, they all object to your place being re-opened citing the encouraging of "undesirables" hanging around because you're going to be open "all hours".

Petitions are organised, councillors are lobbied., objections are raised, placards appear and that's only for a bit of a shop.

Then again, you own a large area of land and want to "mine" clay for some years before restoring the site back to fields, woods and a lake. NIMBYs object to that and camp out in and around the existing trees...... on YOUR land making a mess which someone (you) will eventually have to clear up.

Alternatively, you're a farmer and want to put up a new, much larger, more intensive pig unit and all the NIMBYs raise all sorts of objections about spoiling their view, the possible smell, raise objections about raising animals for meat but of course all that "isn't the same" eh?