Imagine you wanted to stop denser housing. What would be your strategy?
You would spread word that new housing would be unaffordable to locals and cause their own rents to rise. You would demonstrate, demonize developers and run candidates on a Real Estate is Evil platform.
And you would back up your argument with a study manipulated if necessary.
No anti-development playbook is complete without a study. Nothing turns anecdotes into facts, and predictions into certainties, quite like scientific-looking analysis does.
What if the evidence contradicts your claims? Worry not. You can finesse data to say just about anything. The expression “lies, damn lies, and statistics” doesn’t come from nothing.