Yep. Hell, no. So let's keep the 90 acres of weed-infested empty lot instead of adding $5 billion in stimulus to a serious depressed area.

You can't make this up.

No need to make it up. It's pretty routine. I've been doing land use and zoning work for more than three decades now, and it happens all the time and everywhere. Many neighbors would rather have an empty lot than anything built near them. Especially in seriously depressed areas, since those areas usually won't see any of the benefit of that "$5 billion in stimulus" that might be available to the much larger jurisdiction. There might be extra tax revenue and some more jobs, but almost none of that will end up being allocated to the people who live in the immediate area. They get all of the negative impacts (real or perceived) from a LULU (locally undesirable land use), and none of the upside. So unless you do some serious outreach and work out a way to have them share in the upside, they'll often turn out against your project.