Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Home
Hostname: page-component-6c8bd87754-qjg4w Total loading time: 0.191 Render date: 2021-12-18T06:02:00.226Z Has data issue: true Feature Flags: { "shouldUseShareProductTool": true, "shouldUseHypothesis": true, "isUnsiloEnabled": true, "metricsAbstractViews": false, "figures": true, "newCiteModal": false, "newCitedByModal": true, "newEcommerce": true, "newUsageEvents": true }
  • English
Perspectives on Politics Perspectives on Politics

Article contents

Who Participates in Local Government? Evidence from Meeting Minutes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2018

Katherine Levine Einstein Open the ORCID record for Katherine Levine Einstein[Opens in a new window] ,
Maxwell Palmer  and
David M. Glick
Get access Rights & Permissions[Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Scholars and policymakers have highlighted institutions that enable community participation as a potential buffer against existing political inequalities. Yet these venues may bias policy discussions in favor of an unrepresentative group of individuals. To explore who participates, we compile a novel data set by coding thousands of instances of citizens speaking at planning and zoning board meetings concerning housing development. We match individuals to a voter file to investigate local political participation in housing and development policy. We find that individuals who are older, male, longtime residents, voters in local elections, and homeowners are significantly more likely to participate in these meetings. These individuals overwhelmingly (and to a much greater degree than the general public) oppose new housing construction. These participatory inequalities have important policy implications and may be contributing to rising housing costs.

Type
Article
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , March 2019 , pp. 28 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*Data replication sets are available in Harvard Dataverse at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/RRF7EU

This research was funded by Boston University’s Initiative on Cities. Many thanks to Mirya Holman, Spencer Piston, Jessica Trounstine, and participants at the Vanderbilt Local Political Economy Conference, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Political Science Research Workshop, American Political Science Association “New Faces of Urban Politics” Mini-Conference, and Boston Area Research Initiative Spring 2018 Conference for their helpful comments. We gratefully acknowledge our outstanding research assistants Luisa Godinez Puig and Sarah Sklar. All errors are our own.

References

Abramowitz, Alan. 2010. The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization, and American Democracy. New haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Barro, Josh. 2017. “Here’s What Mayors and Governors Should Really Do to Support the Paris Agreement.” Business Insider. Available at https://www.businessinsider.com/what-mayors-and-governors-should-do-to-support-paris-agreement-2017-6.Google Scholar
Berinsky, Adam. 2005. “The Perverse Consequences of Electoral Reform in the United States.” American Politics Research 33(4): 471–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berry, Jeffrey M., Portney, Kent E., and Thomson, Ken. 1993. The Rebirth of Urban Democracy. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Burden, Barry C., Canon, David T., Mayer, Kenneth R., and Moynihan, Donald P.. 2013. “Election Laws, Mobilization, and Turnout: The Unanticipated Consequences of Election Reform.” American Journal of Political Science 58(1): 95–109.Google Scholar
Campbell, Andrea L. 2005. How Policies Make Citizens: Senior Political Activism and the American Welfare State. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Capps, Kriston. 2015. “How Fair Housing Will Turn Liberal Cities Conservative.” CityLab. Available at https://www.citylab.com/equity/2015/07/how-fair-housing-will-turn-liberal-cities-conservative/398642/.Google Scholar
Carter, Jimmy. 1980. “Housing and Community Development Act of 1980. Remarks on Signing S. 2719 into Law.” Available at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=45238.Google Scholar
Chetty, Raj, Herdren, Nathaniel, and Katz, Lawrence F.. 2016. “The Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children: New Evidence from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment.” American Economic Review 106(4): 855–902.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 2017. “Chapter 40a, Section 11.” Available at https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleVII/Chapter40A/Section11.Google Scholar
Dahl, Robert. 1961. Who Governs? Democracy and Power in the American City. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
de Kadt, Daniel. 2017. “Bringing the Polls to the People: How Increasing Electoral Access Encourages Turnout but Exacerbates Political Inequality.” Available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2922125##,Google Scholar
Einstein, Katherine Levine and Kogan, Vladimir. 2016. “Pushing the City Limits: Policy Responsiveness in Municipal Government.” Urban Affairs Review 1(52): 3–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Einstein, Katherine Levine, Glick, David M., and LeBlanc, Conor. 2017. “2016 Menino Survey of Mayors.” Boston University Initiative on Cities. Available at https://www.bu.edu/ioc/files/2017/01/2016-Menino-Survey-of-Mayors-Final-Report.pdf.Google Scholar
Enos, Ryan D. 2016. “What the Demolition of Public Housing Teaches Us About the Impact of Racial Threat on Political Behavior.” American Journal of Political Science 60(1): 123–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finkel, Steven E. 1985. “Reciprocal Effects of Participation and Political Efficacy: A Panel Analysis.” American Journal of Political Science 20(4): 891–913.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiorina, Morris P. 1998. “Extreme Voices: A Dark Side of Civic Engagement.” In Civic Engagement in American Democracy, ed. Skocpol, Theda and Fiorina, Morris P.. Washington, DC Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Fischel, William A. 2001. The Homevoter Hypothesis: How Home Values Influence Local Government Taxation, School Finance, and Land-Use Policies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Fung, Archon. 2006. Empowered Participation: Reinventing Urban Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gay, Claudine. 2012. “Moving to Opportunity: The Political Effects of a Housing Mobility Experiment.” Urban Affairs Review 48(2): 147–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerber, Elizabeth R. and Phillips, Justin H.. 2003. “Development Ballot Measures, Interest Group Endorsements, and the Political Geography of Growth Preferences.” American Journal of Political Science 46(4): 625–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilens, Martin. 2014. Affluence and Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Glaeser, Edward L. 2011. Triumph of the City: How Our Greater Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier. New York: Penguin Press.Google Scholar
Glaeser, Edward L. and Ward., Bryce 2009. “The Causes and Consequences of Land Use Regulation: Evidence from Greater Boston.” Journal of Urban Economics 65(3): 265–78.Google Scholar
Glaeser, Edward L., Gyourko, Joseph, and Saks, Raven E.. 2005. “Why Is Manhattan So Expensive? Regulation and the Rise in Housing Prices.” Journal of Law and Economics 6: 71–89.Google Scholar
Green, Donald P., Strolovitch, Dara Z., and Wong, Janelle S.. 1998. “Defended Neighborhoods, Integration, and Racially Motivated Crime.” American Journal of Sociology 104(2): 372–403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gutmann, Amy and Thompson, Dennis. 2012. The Spirit of Comprise: Why Governing Demands It and Campaigning Undermines It. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gyourko, Joseph and Molloy, Raven. 2014. “Regulation and Housing Supply.” NBER Working Paper No. 20536. Available at http://www.nber.org/papers/w20536.Google Scholar
Gyourko, Joseph, Saiz, Albert, and Summers, Anita A.. 2008. “A New Measure for the Local Regulatory Environment for Housing Markets: The Wharton Residential Land Use Regulatory Index.” Urban Studies 45(3): 693–721.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hajnal, Zoltan L. and Trounstine, Jessica L.. 2016. “Race and Class Inequality in Local Politics.” In The Double Bind: The Politics of Racial and Class Inequalities in the Americas, ed. Hooker, Juliet and Jr. Tillery, Alvin B.. Washington, DC: American Political Science Association.Google Scholar
Hankinson, Michael. 2013. “Externalities or Extortion? Privatizing Social Policy Through Community Benefits Agreements.” Harvard Journal of Real Estate: 6–13.Google Scholar
Hankinson, Michael. 2018. “When Do Renters Behave Like Homeowners? High Rent, Price Anxiety, and Nimbyism.” American Political Science Review. 112(3): 473–93.Google Scholar
Hoene, Christopher, Kingsley, Christopher, and Leighninger, Matthew. 2013. “Bright Spots in Community Engagement.” National League of Cities. Available at https://knightfoundation.org/media/uploads/publication_pdfs/BrightSpots-final.pdf.Google Scholar
Hopkins, Daniel J. 2010. “Politicized Places: Explaining Where and When Immigrants Provoke Local Opposition.” American Political Science Review 104(1): 40–60.10.1017/S0003055409990360CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hsieh, Chang-Tai and Moretti, Enrico. 2015. “Why Do Cities Matter? Local Growth and Aggregate Growth.” Kreisman Working Paper Series in Housing Law and Policy. Avaialable at https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/housing_law_and_policy.Google Scholar
Iyengar, Shanto, Jackman, Simon, Messing, Solomon, Valentino, Nicholas, Aalberg, Toril, Duch, Raymond, Hahn, Kyu S., Soroka, Stuart, Harell, Allison, and Kobayashi, Tetsuro. 2013. “Do Attitudes About Immigration Predict Willingness to Admit Individual Immigrants.” Public Opinion Quarterly 77(3): 641–65.10.1093/poq/nft024CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobus, Rick. 2017. “We Are All Nimbys . . . Sometimes.” Shelterforce: The Voice of Community Development. Available at https://shelterforce.org/2017/09/12/we-are-all-nimbys-sometimes/; accessed June 22, 2018.Google Scholar
Jannene, Jeramey. 2012. “East Library Replacement Project on Track.” Urban Milwaukee. Available at https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2012/12/13/eyes/; accessed June 22, 2018.Google Scholar
Jannene, Jeramey. 2014. “Developers Slay Nimby Objectors.” Urban Milwaukee. Available at https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2014/09/01/eyes-on-milwaukee-developer-slays-nimby-objectors/; accessed June 22, 2018.Google Scholar
Kahneman, Daniel and Tversky, Amos. 1979. “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk.” Econometrica 47(2): 263–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kain, Bruce. 2012. Democracy More or Less: America’s Political Reform Quandary. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kang, Naewon and Kwak, Nojin. 2003. “A Multilevel Approach to Civic Participation: Individual Length of Residence, Neighborhood Residential Stability, and Their Interactive Effects with Media Use.” Communication Research 30(1): 80–106.10.1177/0093650202239028CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kittilson, Miki Caul. 2016. “Gender and Political Behavior.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Available at http://politics.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-71?print=pdf; accessed June 22, 2018.Google Scholar
Lassen, David Dreyer. 2005. “The Effect of Information on Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Natural Experiment.” American Journal of Political Science 49(1): 103–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lassen, David Dreyer and Serritzlew, Soren. 2011. “Jurisdiction Size and Local Democracy: Evidence on Internal Political Efficacy from Large-Scale Municipal Reform.” American Political Science Review 105(2): 238–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Logan, John R. and Molotch, Harvey L.. 1987. Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Logan, John R. and Rabrenovic., Gordana 1990. “Neighborhood Associations: Their Issues, Their Allies, and Their Opponents.” Urban Affairs Review 26(1): 68–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lupia, Arthur and Norton, Anne. 2017. “Inequality Is Always in the Room: Language and Power in Deliberative Democracy.” Daedalus 156(3): 64–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mansbridge, Jane. 1980. Beyond Adversary Democracy. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Marble, William and Nall, Clayton. 2017. “Beyond ‘Nimbyism’: Why Americans Support Affordable Housing but Oppose Local Housing Development.” Available at https://www.dropbox.com/s/bdo3riekpnywgot/MarbleNall_NIMBYPaper.pdf?dl=0; accessed June 22, 2018.Google Scholar
Michels, Ank and De Graaf, Laurens. 2010. “Examining Citizen Participation: Local Participatory Policy Making and Democracy.” Local Government Studies 36(4): 477–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
National Low Income Housing Coalition. 2017. “Out of Reach.” Available at http://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/oor/OOR_2017.pdf; accessed June 22, 2018.Google Scholar
Oliver, J. Eric. 2001. Democracy in Suburbia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Oliver, J. Eric, Ha, Shang E., and Callen, Zachary. 2012. Local Elections and the Politics of Small-Scale Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paul, Lauren Gibbons. 2015. “Not in Newton’s Back Yard: Affordable Housing in Newton.” Boston Magazine. Available at https://www.bostonmagazine.com/property/2015/02/24/affordable-housing-in-newton/; accessed June 22, 2018.Google Scholar
Peterson, Paul E. 1981. City Limits. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226922645.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pew Research Center. 2014. “The ’U-Shape of Political Activism: Higher at Ideological Extremes, Lower in Center.” Available at http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/section-5-political-engagement-and-activism/pp-2014-06-12-polarization-5-01/; accessed June 22, 2018.Google Scholar
Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research, and Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston. 2005. “Massachusetts Housing Regulation Database.” Available at http://www.masshousingregulations.com; accessed June 22, 2018.Google Scholar
Quigley, John M. and Rosenthal., Larry 2005. “The Effects of Land Use Regulation on the Price of Housing: What Do We Know? What Can We Learn?” Cityscape 81(1): 69–137.Google Scholar
Rae, Douglas W. 2004. City: Urbanism and Its End. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Rothstein, Richard. 2017. The Color of Law. New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Sanders, Lynn M. 1997. “Against Deliberation.” Political Theory 25(3): 347–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schleicher, David. 2013. “City Unplanning.” Yale Law Journal 122: 1672–1736.Google Scholar
Schlozman, Kay, Verba, Sidney, and Brady, Henry E.. 2012. The Unheavenly Chorus: Unequal Political Voice and the Broken Promise of American Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Semuels, Alana. 2017. “From ‘Not in My Backyard’ to ‘Yes in My Backyard’.” The Atlantic, July.Google Scholar
Shingles, Richard D. 1981. “Black Consciousness and Political Participation: The Missing Link.” American Political Science Review 75(1): 76–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stone, Clarence N. and Stoker, Robert P.. 2015. Urban Neighborhoods in a New Era. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226289151.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tausanovitch, Chris and Warshaw, Christopher. 2014. “Representation in Municipal Government.” American Political Science Review 108(3): 605–41.Google Scholar
Tighe, J. Rosie. 2010. “Public Opinion and Affordable Housing: A Review of the Literature.” Journal of Planning Literature 25(1): 3–17.Google Scholar
Town of Arlington. 2016. “19R Park Avenue Abutters’ List––300 Feet from Site.” Available at https://www.arlingtonma.gov/home/showdocument?id=33197; accessed September 18, 2018.Google Scholar
Trounstine, Jessica. 2016. “Segregation and Inequality in Public Goods.” American Journal of Political Science 60(3): 709–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White House. 2016. “Housing Development Toolkit.” Available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images/Housing_Development_Toolkit%20f.2.pdf; accessed June 22, 2018.Google Scholar
Wong, Weihuang. 2018. “Our Town: Support for Housing Growth When Localism Meets Liberalism.” Available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3173813; accessed June 22, 2018.Google Scholar
Yglesias, Matthew. 2017. “A Promising New Coalition Looks to Rewrite the Politics of Urban Housing.” Vox. Available at https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/24/16010720/dc-comprehensive-plan; accessed June 22, 2018.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Einstein et al. Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/RRF7EU
Link
38
Cited by

Send article to Kindle

To send this article to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle.

Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Who Participates in Local Government? Evidence from Meeting Minutes
Available formats
×

Send article to Dropbox

To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your <service> account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox.

Who Participates in Local Government? Evidence from Meeting Minutes
Available formats
×

Send article to Google Drive

To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your <service> account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive.

Who Participates in Local Government? Evidence from Meeting Minutes
Available formats
×
×

Reply to: Submit a response

Please enter your response.

Your details

Please enter a valid email address.

Conflicting interests

Do you have any conflicting interests? *