Nimbyism, is not the problem, the problem is that houses are investments now and it make perfect sense to protect your investment from decline.
Now if housing was really only about a place to live and maybe appreciated 2-3 percent a year, then I would call it Nimbyism, but you don’t tell people to leverage them selves up 6-10x because some day they will have a payoff and not expect them to fight to protect their investments.
People would freak out if the government would tax 401k’s or IRA’s, even if we would be better off using the tax money to balance the budget.
The developers and the city could mitigate the impact of density by paying the homeowners either a check or a reduction in property tax for the impact to their investment, then at least homeowners would benefit from development.