"The change is 'something that you should be a little cautious about if you are a planner or city official concerned about the social fabric.'

Property owners are typically more invested in their neighborhoods and push for urban transformation that will better the neighborhood and increase their equity.

But the owners of rental buildings are usually absentee owners, not residents of the area in which they are invested, Lin said, and don't necessarily have the same dedication to bettering the neighborhood that condo owners often do."

This is an idea that goes back to a 1999 article by Denise DePasquale and Edward L. Glaeser in the Journal of Urban Economics.

Homeowners are approximately 10% more likely to know their U.S. representative by name. They are 9% more likely to know the identity of their school board head. Homeowners are 15% more likely to vote in local elections and 6% more likely to work to solve local problems. On average, they are members of 0.25 more nonprofessional organizations than nonowners. Homeowners are 12% more likely to garden and 10% more likely to own guns [?]. Homeowners attend church more frequently than renters.

This has been held as truth ever since. But now there is new evidence to suggest that this might not be the case. A new study by Grace Wong challenges the results of DePasquale and Glaeser. Not only did the author find that homeowners "report to be less healthy, derive less joy from love and relationships, spend less time with friends and on active leisure, and also experience less positive affect during time spent with friends," she also found that there is no evidence that an individual's level of civic participation is related to whether or not they own their home.

In New York, a city of renters, I find social and civic participation to be incredibly high. This is likely a cause of the sheer number of interactions one has during the course of a day. The density of the city requires one to be involved in neighborhood affairs because of sheer proximity. Since the actions of one neighbor are more likely to affect a larger group of people than it would in a neighborhood of detached single-family homes, there is often a communal approach to handling neighborhood problems. I'm not sure Ed Glaeser would appreciate these types of interactions, according to this piece in the NY Sun from earlier in the year. In comparing Houston with New York, he talks about how much nicer the housing in Houston is than New York. "In Houston, you'll find a lot of nice places listing for $175,000... Almost all seem to be in pleasant neighborhoods, a few are even in gated communities."

I find it ironic that someone talking about how much more civic-minded homeowners are shows his preference for gated communities, which have the tendency to be socially-isolating and economically stratifying.

Mr. Glaeser goes further to show his preference for isolation. Houstonites have it much better because they don't have to mix with people on public transit:

"Just as with housing, however, there's a significant difference in the quality of transportation in Houston and New York. In Houston, the middle-class breadwinner likely will drive an air-conditioned car from an air-conditioned home to an air-conditioned workplace, and take 27.4 minutes to do it, on average."

In the end, it is still unclear whether homeowners are better citizens; the new evidence from Ms. Wong suggests that we need to reexamine this long-held belief. What is more clear, however, is that Mr. Glaeser really likes air conditioning.

- Thanks to Harry for the lead.