Community-based opposition to large infrastructure projects, such as highways, rail lines, or energy facilities, exemplifies localized forms of protest. The paper clarifies when and how such forms of protest can enhance the democratic decision-making process to the extent that they highlight procedural failures alongside substantive ones. When this happens, these protests perform a heuristic communicative function for democracy and cannot, therefore, be dismissed as hypocritical ‘not in my backyard’ (NIMBY) objections to public decisions and policies. When they draw attention to micro-level exclusions, power imbalances, and local knowledge claims that have been overlooked, localized protests can enrich democratic practice and reveal hidden deficits in decision-making. The result is a refined account of the democratic contributive significance of localized protest.