ELECTORAL REPRESENTATION, ZONING POLITICS, AND THE EXCLUSION OF GROUPHOMES

This paper examines how ward representation affects zoning policies wi th respect to group homes that house or care for the mentally retarded , juvenile offenders, recovering alcoholics and/or drug users. The ana lysis is motivated by an interest representation model that contends t hat constituency homogeneity should cause elected officials to be atte ntive to revealed preferences of their constituents. As predicted, war d representation which enhances constituency homogeneity, is strongly associated with the exclusion of group homes in municipal zoning ordin ances. The median household income of a city, relative to that of its metropolitan area, also has some exclusionary effect. Other demographi c and socioeconomic characteristics of communities, which have been th e primary focus of prior research on the siting of group homes, have n o statistically significant effect in this analysis.