Q Step Summer Research Projects 2017
Project leader / Supervisor
Dr. Alex Schafran
Email
[email protected]
Project Title
Housing and Partisan Politics in the United States
Project reference
ENV-03-AS
Location of Placement
University of Leeds
Brief overview of project (including whether it involves quantitative or qualitative research)
In the aftermath of the controversial presidential election in the United States, the country is as
divided as it has ever been. While this division is increasingly fraught with tension and seems to
have clear lines on issues like guns, abortion, and immigration, there is no clear relationship
between party politics and urban development. This project will examine the relationship
between housing development (housing units built, population growth, housing permits) and
partisan politics (party registration, votes for President) in California, Arizona and Texas, asking
if there is any correlation between housing growth and party affiliation in a city, town or
county. This is a quantitative project. It is most ideal for someone aiming to combine statistical
analysis with GIS and spatial statistics, but we will consider someone who only has skills or
interest in statistics.
Links to external organisation/s (if relevant)
My partners in this project ar Dr. Jake Wegmann, University of Texas, and Dr. Deirdre Pfeiffer,
Arizona State University
Nature of tasks to be pursued by the placement holder (and quantitative/qualitative research
skills to be developed)
Ability to build significant datasets from publicly available data. Ability to clean and prepare
data in excel. Ability to analyse data using statistical software. Ability to map data using GIS
(optional)
Nature of contact with / support for placement holder from staff member
Supervisory support will be provided by Alex Schafran