Your Concerns Have Been Noted: Constituent Influence and Support for Housing

Alexandre Rivard

No 8t74r_v1, SocArXiv from Center for Open Science

Abstract: Opposition to new housing development is widespread and neighbourhood defenders— proximate residents who mobilize against proposed projects—are a well-documented feature of local planning politics. Yet we know relatively little about how political elites process these place-based claims. Using a conjoint experiment embedded in the 2026 Canadian Municipal Barometer, I examine the extent to which city councilors weight the preferences of constituents based on their proximity to a proposed housing development. The results confirm that councilors are more responsive to proximate con stituents. This proximity effect is amplified by neighbourhood tenure and is stronger for denser development types. Contrary to expectations, neither the councilor’s ideol ogy, density preferences, electoral district type, nor acclamation status conditions this responsiveness—suggesting that localism is a structural feature of local representation rather than an ideological predisposition. Taken together, the findings suggest that place-protective claims find a receptive audience among political elites.

Date: 2026-06-08
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:socarx:8t74r_v1

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/8t74r_v1

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