The policy adjacent: How affordable housing generates policy feedback among neighboring residents

Abstract

While scholars have documented feedback effects among a policy's direct winners and losers, less is known about whether such effects can occur among the indirectly affected—“the policy adjacent.” Using 458 geocoded housing developments built between two nearly identical statewide ballot propositions funding affordable housing in California, we show that policy generates feedback effects among neighboring residents in systematic ways. New, nearby affordable housing causes majority-homeowner blocks to increase their support for the housing bond, while majority-renter blocks decrease or do not change their support. We attribute the positive effect among majority-homeowner blocks to the housing's replacement of blight. In contrast, the lack of a positive effect among majority-renter blocks may be driven by the threat of gentrification. Policy implementation can win support for expansion among unexpected beneficiaries, while failing to do so even among the policy's presumed allies.