Research suggests political differences may prompt neighbors to move

Politics not only makes for strange bedfellows, but apparently bad neighbors as well. According to research by economists at the University of Virginia, people are more likely to sell their homes and move out of the neighborhood if new neighbors have opposing political views.

the study, published In the last week Journal of Finance, uses information obtained from North Carolina public records. Found it resident They were 4% more likely to sell their property and move within two years if their new neighbors were the opposite. Political viewscompared to residents whose new neighbors share their politics.

“Political identity and partisanship are prominent features of today’s society,” the researchers wrote in the paper. Party neighbors move in nearby while unaffiliated or classmate neighbors do.

“We document that aversion to living close to members of the opposite party is an important factor influencing households’ decisions to sell their home. Our causal analysis suggests that households are more likely to sell their homes and relocate. are willing — a very expensive activity — when presented with the opposite. Party neighbors,” he wrote.

Although the data are considered representative of society at large, the data were limited to North Carolina. The researchers used public records to focus on residents who were politically engaged. The desire to withdraw was seen among both Republicans and Democrats.

“Any movement we’re seeing there, it’s kind of surprising,” said W. Ben McCartney, assistant professor of commerce at the McIntyre School of Commerce and a faculty associate at UVA’s White Ruffin Byron Center for Real. Which is because moving is very expensive. Stat, who led the research. “You can imagine, if you don’t like your new neighbor, you’re just going to send more angry tweets, or something.

“The key finding in the paper is that people who find a new neighbor with an anti-party affiliation are 3.41 percent more likely to move. That’s 4 percent more than someone who “The new neighbor should be of the same relationship.” “We’re estimating that’s about 1% of all moves. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s thousands of moves every year.”

John Orellana-Lee and Calvin Zhang, financial experts at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, joined McCartney in the research.

McCartney said there are many reasons why people move in and out of communities and why some cities and neighborhoods are predominantly Republican or Democratic.

“There are areas and cities and large parts of places across the country that are going to be bright blue and bright red, and we know as early as November that some parts of Virginia will be very red and others very blue,” McCartney said. said. “It’s not just the rural/urban divide. It can break down into neighborhoods, too.”

Some neighborhoods attract residents based on “bundles of amenities,” such as local public or Private school, parks or even restaurants that attract residents, McCartney explained. People can move in or out based on these facilities.

“Therefore, there are two competing theories as to why you have politically segregated cities and created environments. On the one hand, it may be because people who value the same things live together. Or it Maybe that’s why people don’t like to live with people waving Joe Biden flags or with ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ stickers on their cars. They think, ‘I don’t want to see him every day, so I’m going to move.’ Both result in politically segregated cities, but for two very different reasons.”

What the research attempted to do was to isolate the causes using real estate transaction information. Public records Regarding political affiliations in North Carolina, narrowing down to only the ostensible causes of politics

“It’s really hard to sort out potential causes in the data,” McCartney said, “so we adjusted the convenience bundle so that the only difference between the residents we studied was that of the opposite party.” Who is a neighbor and who is not.” “When we see that neighbors on the opposite side of existing residents are more likely to move in, that’s first-order evidence that there’s something about new neighbour That’s why they’re moving.”

McCartney said the study shows the country’s political divide is real.

“This is strong evidence that political polarization is not just a Twitter trend, but also affects important life decisions,” he said.