Urbanization, Changing Values, and the Politics of Environmental Protection

Emeline Bezin, Maxence Gerard and Ingmar Schumacher
Additional contact information
Emeline Bezin: CREM-UMR6111
Maxence Gerard: CREM-UMR6111
Ingmar Schumacher: University of Birmingham

Discussion Papers from Department of Economics, University of Birmingham

Abstract: How will urban growth affect the long-run environment? This paper focuses on an overlooked channel: how urbanization shapes environmental values and, with them, political support for environmental protection. Our theory combines two mechanisms: the extinction of experience documented by conservation science, whereby reduced contact with nature erodes attachment to it, and a cultural transmission process involving rational socialization decisions. Both are embedded in an overlapping-generations model with rural–urban migration and voting over environmental policy. When the extinction of experience dominates, urbanization erodes support for environmental protection. However, when socialization is effective, the picture reverses: the interaction between location and socialization choices gives rise to a process of cultural dissemination through which urbanization raises environmental values. Our main theoretical predictions are consistent with a set of stylized facts on environmental preferences, residential location, and policy support that we document using data from the International Social Survey Programme.

Keywords: Urbanization; political economy; environmental values; cultural transmission; extinction of experience (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 Q58 R11 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 44 pages
Date: 2026-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-res
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bir:birmec:26-05

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