Understanding Opposition to Apartment Buildings

Martin Vinæs Larsen and Niels Nyholt

Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy, 2024, vol. 5, issue 1, 29-46

Abstract: New apartment buildings offer potential relief from high housing costs, but they encounter significant local opposition. Using a vignette survey experiment, we explore why citizens oppose the construction of apartment buildings. We find limited evidence that this opposition stems from concerns over congestion or out-group bias. Citizens tend to oppose taller buildings irrespective of whether they attract more or undesirable residents. Instead, opposition to apartment buildings seems to be driven by local preservationism. Respondents do not think that tall buildings fit into their predominantly low-rise neighborhoods. To substantiate the importance of preservationism, we zoom in on projects that were proposed near another apartment building. Here, respondents agree that apartment buildings fit in and they oppose them less. These results may help explain why cities sprawl rather than densify, and why it is difficult to build affordable housing in expensive cities.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/113.00000092 (application/xml)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:now:jnlpip:113.00000092

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy from now publishers
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Lucy Wiseman ().