IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/osfxxx/surv9.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Symbolic Politics of Housing

Author

Listed:
  • Broockman, David
  • Elmendorf, Christopher S.
  • Kalla, Joshua

Abstract

Voter support for anti-development policies contributes to America's acute housing shortage. Prevailing theories of support for anti-development policies emphasize NIMBYism (opposition to housing nearby) and homeowners' self-interest. We offer an additional explanation drawing on symbolic politics theory. This theory argues that voters have positive or negative affect towards various symbols, often developed early in life; later, they evaluate policies based on their affect towards relevant symbols. In line with the theory, we show that affect towards salient symbols powerfully explain anti-development preferences. First, homeowner-renter gaps in support for increasing density in cities are negligible, but affect towards cities powerfully predicts support for density. Next, experiments show that affect towards developers, government entities, and new housing's residents also explain anti-development preferences when policies make these symbols visible; homeownership and NIMBYism often fail to predict patterns we find. Finally, consistent with a role for socialization, historical public opinion data suggests that birth cohort helps explain affect towards cities.

Suggested Citation

  • Broockman, David & Elmendorf, Christopher S. & Kalla, Joshua, 2024. "The Symbolic Politics of Housing," OSF Preprints surv9, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:surv9
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/surv9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/66c3787a4a81ac78fcc5d14e/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/surv9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Victor Couture & Jessie Handbury, 2017. "Urban Revival in America, 2000 to 2010," NBER Working Papers 24084, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Edward Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko, 2018. "The Economic Implications of Housing Supply," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(1), pages 3-30, Winter.
    3. Evan Mast, 2024. "Warding off Development: Local Control, Housing Supply, and NIMBYs," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 106(3), pages 671-680, May.
    4. Sanghoon Lee & Jeffrey Lin, 2018. "Natural Amenities, Neighbourhood Dynamics, and Persistence in the Spatial Distribution of Income," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(1), pages 663-694.
    5. Sears, David O. & Lau, Richard R. & Tyler, Tom R. & Allen, Harris M., 1980. "Self-Interest vs. Symbolic Politics in Policy Attitudes and Presidential Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 74(3), pages 670-684, September.
    6. Druckman, James N., 2004. "Political Preference Formation: Competition, Deliberation, and the (Ir)relevance of Framing Effects," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 98(4), pages 671-686, November.
    7. Michael Tesler, 2015. "Priming Predispositions and Changing Policy Positions: An Account of When Mass Opinion Is Primed or Changed," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 59(4), pages 806-824, October.
    8. Trounstine, Jessica, 2020. "The Geography of Inequality: How Land Use Regulation Produces Segregation," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 114(2), pages 443-455, May.
    9. Michael Tesler, 2012. "The Spillover of Racialization into Health Care: How President Obama Polarized Public Opinion by Racial Attitudes and Race," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(3), pages 690-704, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yuming Fu & Song Shi, 2022. "Barriers to urban spatial development: Evidence from the 2010–2011 Christchurch earthquakes," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(1), pages 218-245, January.
    2. Dingel, Jonathan I. & Miscio, Antonio & Davis, Donald R., 2021. "Cities, lights, and skills in developing economies," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    3. Wang, Yixuan, 2024. "Urban Redevelopment and Gentrification: Evidence from the Atlanta BeltLine," 2024 Annual Meeting, July 28-30, New Orleans, LA 343550, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    4. Baum-Snow, Nathaniel & Hartley, Daniel, 2020. "Accounting for central neighborhood change, 1980–2010," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    5. Kulkarni, Nirupama & Malmendier, Ulrike, 2022. "Homeownership segregation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 123-149.
    6. Schuetz, Jenny & Larrimore, Jeff & Merry, Ellen A. & Robles, Barbara J. & Tranfaglia, Anna & Gonzalez, Arturo, 2018. "Are central cities poor and non-white?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 83-94.
    7. Kristian Behrens & Brahim Boualam & Julien Martin & Florian Mayneris, 2024. "Gentrification and Pioneer Businesses," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 106(1), pages 119-132, January.
    8. Sumit Agarwal & Shashwat Alok & Sergio Correia & Deepa Mani & Bernardo Morais, 2024. "Transportation Technology and Gentrification: Evidence from the entry of Ridesharing Services," Papers 2409.15462, arXiv.org.
    9. Matthew Mleczko & Matthew Desmond, 2023. "Using natural language processing to construct a National Zoning and Land Use Database," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(13), pages 2564-2584, October.
    10. John Kuk & Deborah Seligsohn & Jiakun Jack Zhang, 2022. "The partisan divide in U.S. congressional communications after the China shock," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(3), pages 494-526, July.
    11. Jackelyn Hwang & Jeffrey Lin, 2016. "What Have We Learned About the Causes of Recent Gentrification?," Working Papers 16-20, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    12. Carl Gaigné & Hans R.A. Koster & Fabien Moizeau & Jacques-François Thisse, 2017. "Amenities and the Social Structure of Cities," Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes & University of Caen) 2017-07, Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes, University of Caen and CNRS.
    13. Ricardo Hausmann & Tim O'Brien & Andres Fortunato & Alexia Lochmann & Kishan Shah & Lucila Venturi & Sheyla Enciso & Ekaterina Vashkinskaya & Ketan Ahuja & Bailey Klinger & Federico Sturzenegger & Mar, 2023. "Growth Through Inclusion in South Africa," Growth Lab Working Papers 222, Harvard's Growth Lab.
      • Ricardo Hausmann & Tim O'Brien & Andres Fortunato & Alexia Lochmann & Kishan Shah & Lucila Venturi & Sheyla Enciso & Ekaterina Vashkinskaya & Ketan Ahuja & Bailey Klinger & Federico Sturzenegger & Mar, 2023. "Growth Through Inclusion in South Africa," CID Working Papers 434, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    14. Gaigné, Carl & Koster, Hans R.A. & Moizeau, Fabien & Thisse, Jacques-François, 2022. "Who lives where in the city? Amenities, commuting and income sorting," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    15. Melanie Krause & André Seidel, 2020. "Land Scarcity and Urban Density within Cities," CESifo Working Paper Series 8660, CESifo.
    16. Jason Barabas, 1998. "Wage Erosion, Economic Assessments, and Social Welfare Opinions," JCPR Working Papers 56, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
    17. Elliot Anenberg & Edward Kung, 2018. "Can More Housing Supply Solve the Affordability Crisis? Evidence from a Neighborhood Choice Model," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2018-035, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    18. Nicholas Kacher & Luke Petach, 2021. "Boon or Burden? Evaluating the Competing Effects of House-Price Shocks on Regional Entrepreneurship," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 35(4), pages 287-304, November.
    19. Author-Name: Alan S. Blinder & Alan B. Krueger, 2004. "What Does the Public Know about Economic Policy, and How Does It Know It?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 35(1), pages 327-397.
    20. Morgan Ubeda, 2020. "Local Amenities, Commuting Costs and Income Disparities Within Cities," Working Papers halshs-03082448, HAL.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:surv9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://osf.io/preprints/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.