Why does Berkeley have so many Priuses?

BUYING green is all the rage: barely a day passes without the rollout of a new “environmentally responsible” product. This week it’s the waterless car-wash, an energy saving computer monitor and a biodegradable dish-rack. Ignore, for a moment, whether green consumerism is a contradiction in terms. Pass over the question of whether these products actually deliver the benefits they promise. Who buys them—the rich, the idealistic, the penny pinching or the guilty?

Perhaps energy saving cars, light-bulbs, computer monitors and building materials appeal to those who value their future environmental benefits. But evidence suggests that, despite tangible financial rewards, most people do not make even small environmentally sound changes at home, such as installing energy-efficient light bulbs or not leaving the television on standby.

By and large, then, these green products are aimed at the environmentally concerned. Matthew Kahn and Ryan Vaughn, economists at the University of California at Los Angeles, wrote a paper analysing the patterns of green consumerism in California. They noticed that Berkeley, California, just a few hours up the coast, has lots of Priuses, organic food, solar panels and public transit—and no Hummers.

Messrs Kahn and Vaughn built a database of every certified green building, sorted by zip codes. They looked at where hybrid vehicles were registered, and constructed a measure of each zip code’s politics based on analysis of party registration and voting records on two binding statewide environmental initiatives.

Source: http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/greenview/displayStory.cfm?story_id=11562081