THE MOLECULE OF MOREindividuals, family, and country, whereas liberals are more likely to
focus on the largest group of all: the global community of all men and
women. Conservatives are interested in individual rights, and some
support the idea of building walls to keep illegal immigrants out of
their country. Liberals see individuals as intertwined, and some talk
about abolishing immigration laws completely. But what happens when
the immigrants actually show up—when they change from an idea to
a reality, from distant and abstract to right next door? There are no
large-scale studies that would provide an answer to this question, but
there is anecdotal evidence that the H&N experience of direct contact
produces different results compared to the dopaminergic experience of
setting policy.
In 2012 the New York Times reported on a group called Unoccupy
Springs, which had arisen in the heart of the very liberal, very wealthy
Hamptons. The group advocated for a crackdown on immigrants who
were packing single-family homes with unrelated people in violation
of the local housing code. The Unoccupy group argued that their new
neighbors were overburdening the schools and depressing property val-
ues. Similarly, a study from Dartmouth College found that compared
to Republican states, Democratic states have more housing restrictions
that deter in-migration of lower-income people. These restrictions
include limiting the number of families allowed to live in a single home
and zoning restrictions that reduce the supply of affordable housing.
Harvard economist Edward Glaeser and Joseph Gyourko of the
University of Pennsylvania evaluated the impact of zoning on housing
affordability. They found that in most of the country, housing costs are
very close to the cost of construction, but they’re significantly higher in
California and some East Coast cities. They note that in these areas,
zoning authorities make new construction extremely costly, as much
as 50 percent higher in urban areas, which are otherwise favored by
immigrants.
Barriers that shut out impoverished immigrants are reminiscent of
Einstein’s statement, “My passionate sense of social justice and social
responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack
of need for direct contact with other human beings.” Conservatives