Who Participates in Local Government? Evidence from Meeting Minutes
by Katherine Levine Einstein, Maxwell Palmer, and David M. Glick, Boston University
In response to developer excess, most local governments now solicit public input in some form for significant housing developments. These venues, may however, be biased in favor of the politically advantaged. We use data from local meeting minutes and find that meeting participants are (1) demographically unrepresentative of their broader communities and (2) overwhelmingly opposed to the construction of new housing.