Beyond race, the crucial divide in the politics of housing development isn’t between left and right, but between people who own homes and those who don’t. More recently, Andrew Hall and Jesse Yoder at Stanford compared voter file data with housing deeds for 18 million voters in Ohio and North Carolina. The more expensive the home people buy, Mr. Hall and Mr. Yoder find, the larger the increase in their likelihood of voting. That suggests that homeowners aren’t more likely to vote merely because they become invested in their communities. One possible interpretation: “It’s not that you become more selfish, but you become more likely to translate selfishness into political action,” Mr. Hall said of homeowners.

Source: New York Times August 21, 2018 09:00 UTC