Political Regimes and Suburban
Growth, 1980–1990
John R. Logan
State University of New York at Albany
Kyle D. Crowder
Western Washington University
We provide new evidence on two hypotheses associated with the
model of the city as a growth machine. The first posits the pervasive influence of pro-growth coalitions in local governing regimes.
The second asserts that growth regimes make a difference to local development. Census data from 1980 and 1990 and data from a
survey of community leaders in nearly 300 incorporated suburban
communities are used to assess these hypotheses. In support of the
first hypothesis, we find that pro-growth coalitions represent by
far the most common type of political regime, but are less likely to
dominate the local politics of higher-status communities. The type of
regime prevailing in a suburb has a significant impact on the growthrelated policies adopted by the community. However, there is no
evidence that either growth policy or the type of political regime
significantly influences changes in population size, racial composition, or median income of these suburbs. These results cast doubt
on the assumed efficacy of local growth policies and raise additional
questions regarding the impacts of extra-local factors in the development of suburban municipalities.
The classic question in American local politics—Who governs?—has been
transformed in the past two decades by equal concern with identifying
what is at stake in governance. The most consistent answer, to paraphrase
Molotch’s (1976) thesis of the growth machine, has been that for those
who play the most central and enduring roles in local decision making,
the key issue in municipal government is land development. In most
cases, to be more specific, the issue is the pursuit of growth (see also
Mollenkopf, 1983; Logan and Molotch, 1987). This thesis has been elaborated by subsequent theorists who have emphasized that a pro-growth
coalition cannot be taken for granted, that there are variations among
cities in the composition of political regimes and in their particular stance
toward development (see especially Elkin, 1987). Nonetheless there is considerable agreement that in order to understand who governs in American
cities, attention must focus first and foremost on the politics of growth.
City & Community 1:1 March 2002
C American Sociological Association, 1307 New York Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20005-4701
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Our research examines the influence of pro-growth coalitions in
American suburbs. Suburbs are important in this context because they
bring together two contradictory characteristics. First, for decades they
have been the main site of population and employment growth in this
country; in the popular term coined by Garreau (1991), they are now
the “edge cities” of the metropolis. But second, because of their relatively small size, compared to central cities, they are typically presumed
to involve residents more strongly in local affairs, and therefore perhaps
less likely to be dominated by the business interests of the usual growth
machine (see Logan and Zhou, 1989).
We ask two kinds of questions. The first has to do with politics: Does the
growth machine dominate local politics in suburbs? To answer this question we examine who are the most active players in government, what are
their policy preferences regarding land development, and what policies
suburban municipalities actually adopt. We also consider whether there
is variation in the strength of the growth machine, and in the mobilization
of opponents of growth, and, if so, what community characteristics underlay such variations. The second kind of question is about the impacts
on population growth of growth machines (or their opponents) and of
the policies they promote. That is, where pro-growth coalitions rule and
where city policy explicitly favors development, is population growth
more rapid, or are the conditions of growth largely beyond the control
of local actors? Alternatively, where pro-growth policies are contested, or
actually reversed by imposition of formal growth limitations and other
restrictive measures, is the pace of development slowed, and does the
community become more exclusive in terms of social class or race? The
following sections develop each of these questions in turn. (For a more
extended review of this literature, see Logan et al., 1997.)
THE CHARACTER OF GOVERNING COALITIONS
Whom should we expect to find in the key positions in local government?
Molotch (1976; see also Logan and Molotch, 1987) posits an alliance built
around a core group of landowners, builders, and real estate developers,
whose essential purpose is the more intensive development of places where
they operate. They gain the support of most local businesses, especially the
media and utility companies, and control government through politicians
who have staked their futures on the pro-growth agenda. This is the
growth machine.
As noted above, regime theory has devoted itself to analyzing the variations in governing coalitions among cities, seeking to classify cities systematically according to the character of local politics and the balance
of power among competing coalitions. A central thesis of most political scientists in this tradition is that politics is more fluid and contested
than is implied by the image of the growth machine (Stone, 1989). Elkin
(1987), for example, posits three kinds of regimes: pluralist, federalist, and
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entrepreneurial. However, a pro-growth coalition is dominant in every one
of Elkin’s regime types, and what differentiates them is the influence accorded to subordinate groups, including growth opponents. At one end
of the continuum (the entrepreneurial regime), the governing coalition
is unopposed; at the other end (the federalist), it must cope with sporadic opposition from resident groups. Other regime theorists point to
the existence of growth management or director regimes in which community groups strike a balance with pro-growth land interests, or even
exclusionary regimes that are dominated by residential interests that impose highly restrictive zoning and stronger growth controls (Digaetano
and Klemanski, 1991; Turner, 1992; Vogel and Swanson, 1989). Such a
continuum from pro-growth to exclusionary regimes is reminiscent of
Logan’s (1976) description of the range of growth strategies often found
in suburban regions: whereas many suburbs compete for economic development or population growth, other exclusive suburbs restrict it severely
(see also Johnston, 1980; Donovan et al., 1994).
Unfortunately, most research on governing coalitions has been limited
to case studies of one or a few communities. The comparative studies using
larger samples suggest how the character of governing regimes could be
measured, but they make no effort to evaluate the incidence of alternative
regime types.
More attention has been given to studying the opponents of growth.
That is, many researchers take for granted the omnipresence of growth
promoters and define their research question as the degree to which their
initiatives are contested by other actors. For example, Clark and Goetz
(1994) report that 26 percent of the California cities they studied have
visible, organized antigrowth groups, and that such groups have had a
significant impact on the types of growth strategies adopted in these
cities (see also Green and Schrueder, 1991; Schumaker, 1991).
In what kinds of places do antigrowth coalitions emerge and where do
they present the strongest opposition to pro-growth initiatives? Consistent with arguments made by others (Henig, 1982; Rudel, 1989; Guest
and Oropesa, 1984), Logan and Molotch (1987, p. 123) assert that wealthy
neighborhoods are particularly effective at protecting the use value of
their neighborhoods against value-free development. And they attribute
this result to a set of interrelated advantages that contribute to successful mobilization: “financial and political resources, residential stability,
social homogeneity, and an array of organizations long in place” (1987,
p. 135). Poor and minority communities, on the other hand, have a much
more difficult time participating in local politics because they tend to
be institutionally weak, and organizations that might defend them are
susceptible to co-optation or may be drawn into much broader struggles.
Several studies lend weight to these hypotheses (but see Logan and
Zhou, 1990, for contradictory findings). Bridgeland and Sofranko (1975)
found that communities with high socioeconomic status and—related to
this—with a high density of voluntary organizations were more likely
to mobilize on environmental issues. Similarly, Clark and Goetz (1994;
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see also Donovan, 1993, Protash and Baldassare, 1983) found that antigrowth movements are more likely to emerge in areas where residents
have a higher level of education, income, and occupational prestige.
This review suggests that we should expect to find considerable variation in suburban political regimes, in terms of both the composition of
the political elite and the policies that are adopted. In communities with
higher levels of socioeconomic status, serious challenges to the growth machine are most likely to arise. Here we may find growth-limiting regimes,
that is, regimes sensitive to local anti-growth sentiments and willing to
counter the initiatives of the growth coalition.
EFFECTS OF POLICIES AND POLITICS
We turn now to our second kind of question, whether political regimes
make a difference in community development. Do growth machines and
opposing citizen groups affect growth outcomes? Does the implementation of pro-growth policies result in growth? Do growth controls control
growth?
Considering the apparently large investment made in promoting or contesting growth at the local level, there is surprisingly little evidence that
local policy has consistent long-term effects. Ecologists Krannich and
Humphrey (1983, p. 76) suggest that local efforts “may often be inconsequential due to the inertia of extant economic and demographic trends.”
But it is not only from an ecological perspective that the efficacy of local
political action has been questioned. Urban sociologists have long been
aware of a trend toward delocalization of society, in which local communities have become increasingly dependent on their linkages to economic
and political forces beyond their borders (Vidich and Bensman, 1960;
Warren 1963). The more recent theoretical interest in globalization reasserts this point of view, suggesting that local initiative has become less
relevant in a world economy where investment decisions are made at a
distance (Feagin, 1987; Logan, 1991). Potentially, the increasingly nonlocal sources of both development financing and project coordination could
remove decision making from municipal government, undermine locally
based movements for neighborhood preservation or environmental protection, and subordinate local pro-growth political coalitions to outsiders
(Logan and Molotch, 1987, ch. 6). What has been the actual experience
at the local level up to now?
We are aware of only two studies on the impact of growth promotion
on population growth. One early study found that the power of business
elites was significantly associated with population growth between 1960
and 1970 for a sample of 48 cities (Lyon et al., 1981). Counterevidence is
provided by Krannich and Humphrey (1983), who studied the influence of
local economic growth initiatives in small communities in Pennsylvania.
They find that prior growth trends and geographic accessibility of places
were significantly associated with growth, but that pro-growth policies
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actually were negatively related to population growth. In their view, in
this sample of communities—most of which were already experiencing a
declining population—it is more appropriate to think of growth promotion as a (weak) response to decline, than to treat it as an independent
causal force.
Studies of the effects of restrictive measures have also had mixed results
(see reviews by Deakin, 1989; Pogodzinski and Sass, 1991). Two comparative analyses of growth controls reveal null effects on population growth.
Logan and Zhou (1989) examined a national sample of suburbs, with indicators of their use of controls, including moratoriums on development,
growth limitations, environmental impact statements, open space zoning,
zoning to protect the environment, public facilities requirements, and
public land dedications. None of these growth controls significantly impacted population growth between 1970 and 1980. Similarly, Baldasarre
and Protash (1982; see also Donovan et al., 1994; Landis 1992) found that
growth controls in their sample of California cities did not control population growth. In fact, they had positive effects of population growth.
This result is reminiscent of the Krannich and Humphrey study above,
and again the authors concluded that the true causal direction may be
from growth to policy, rather than the other way around.
The only finding of a significant effect of growth controls is in a study
of public facilities requirements in Florida counties (Feiock, 1994). Counties that instituted these requirements (essentially increasing the cost of
new construction) experienced a decline in the issuance of new building
permits, implying lower subsequent population growth.
Besides looking for a direct effect on population growth, researchers
have also been interested in more subtle impacts of growth restrictions
on housing price, residents’ socioeconomic status, and racial composition.
Some believe that growth controls serve exclusionary purposes and that
this may indeed be their principal intention (Johnston, 1980). Hence,
the impacts may be less on the rate of growth per se, and more on its
distributional consequences. Here again the evidence is mixed. In their
examination of the impact of either a numerical limitation or a moratorium on the issuance of building permits, Katz and Rosen (1987) found
that such control measures increased housing prices. Exclusionary zoning (imposing high minimum-lot sizes for housing) was found to affect
median family income (Neiman, 1980). Yet Logan and Zhou (1989) found
no effect of moratoriums or growth limitations on such suburban community characteristics as median income, median rent, and percentage
African-American. The only impacts in their analyses were an increase
in median rent in suburbs that had adopted environmental impact statement requirements, and a decline in the proportion of African-American
residents in suburbs that instituted environmental zoning.
Those researchers who have looked most closely at restrictive regimes
remain cautious about their significance. Molotch himself is pessimistic.
He concludes (1988, p. 39) that “even the notorious anti-growth movements among the affluent, so prevalent in the U.S. in recent years, have
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had only sporadic and temporary success.” He further suggests that the
appearance of a more restrictive local regime may mask a pro-growth
reality. Thus Warner and Molotch (1995; see also Logan and Zhou, 1989)
note that in many cases developers adapt to growth controls through
aggressive public relations campaigns where planning for “responsible
growth”—rather than actual growth limitation—is touted. These studies
imply that it is necessary to study both growth policy and the character
of the underlying regime; the latter may be more consequential than the
former.
RESEARCH DESIGN
The present study takes advantage of a unique data set designed to overcome many of the limitations of previous research. It includes a large and
diverse sample of communities; the timing of data collection allows analysis of both the sources and consequences of local politics; and separately
collected measures of the character of local regimes and municipal growth
policies are available.
The sample includes 295 incorporated suburban municipalities with
populations of at least 2,500, surrounding four major cities: San Francisco,
Dallas, Chicago, and Philadelphia. These metropolitan areas were chosen
to represent the diverse political environments and growth experiences of
the country’s four major census regions. For each of the suburban municipalities in the sample we use 1980 and 1990 census data describing local
social, economic, and demographic conditions to examine both the determinants and outcomes of local political conditions and growth-related
policies. These sociodemographic variables include population change occurring in the suburb between 1980 and 1990, the racial composition of
the population, the median income level of families, the mean educational
attainment of adult residents, the level of home ownership in the suburb,
and the percentage of its residents who work within its borders. Because
the metropolitan region in which the suburb is located is included as
a predictor in all multivariate models, all metropolitan-level effects are
controlled. Although there likely are intraregion variations in both the
determinants and impacts of growth policies, variations between these
regions may be just as substantial given regional differences in political
culture, growth rates, population composition, and other sociopolitical
factors. Our focus here is on community-level relationships.
Our knowledge of local politics comes from original survey research
conducted in the early 1980s. It is a challenging task to use relatively
simple survey items to characterize what may be complex political situations; hence most research on this topic has been based on intensive field
studies of one or a few localities. Among large-scale studies, Clingermayer
and Feiock (1991) are unique in the scope of political questions that were
addressed (see also Rubin, 1986; Clark and Goetz, 1994). Surveying economic development officials in 226 cities nationwide, they first asked,
“Is there an over-arching or elite organization in the city that leads
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development efforts or coordinates the activities of other community
groups?” Second, on the assumption that civic and business organizations would support growth promotion and that neighborhood associations would oppose it, they asked how active these organizations are in
the city. Third, attending to Molotch’s emphasis on the importance of the
local media as a partner in boosterism, they asked how supportive the
local media is of economic development efforts.
Unlike these researchers, we have not asked whether there is an overarching pro-development organization in the community, because such
organizations—often in the form of local development agencies—may
play purely formal roles. We have instead emphasized the level of political activity of various groups, including a wider range than Clingermayer
and Feiock. And, rather than presuming the positions taken on growth
issues by the groups, we have inquired specifically about each one. Our
classification of local regimes takes into account both the relative balance of activity of various groups and organizations, and the position on
growth issues taken by each of them.
The Suburban Governments Survey (SGS) was conducted between
November 1983 and June 1984. SGS questionnaires were initially mailed
to community leaders in all 352 incorporated suburbs in the four
metropolitan areas represented in the survey. Within each suburb, three
local public officials expected to have relevant but distinct views of the
local political situation were initially contacted: the mayor, the director
of planning (or equivalent office), and the school superintendent or principal of the local high school. To obtain information on growth issues
from a variety of perspectives, supplemental information was collected,
when possible, from two types of secondary respondents: representatives
of the chamber of commerce or business community and representatives
from local civic or neighborhood associations. Names and addresses for
local business and chamber of commerce representatives were obtained by
contacting state departments of commerce and regional planning offices.
For the names and addresses of local leaders of civic and neighborhood
associations and of additional business representatives, referrals from the
initial wave of respondents were utilized. We will refer to those identified
by this method as second-wave respondents. A similar strategy for collecting information from multiple respondents per location has been used
by Bridgeland and Sofranko (1975), Lyon et al. (1981), and Kranich and
Humphrey (1983).
The top panel of Table 1 presents the rate of response to the SGS for
the various types of initial respondents. Of the 352 places to which surveys were sent, a completed questionnaire was received from 223 mayors,
114 planners, and 97 school administrators. A response was received from
at least one of these public officials in over 81 percent (286/352) of the
places to which surveys were mailed, and multiple primary responses were
received from about 34 percent of these municipalities (92 + 28/352).
There were also nine municipalities from which a completed survey was
submitted by a representative of the local chamber of commerce but not
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TABLE 1. Sample Characteristics for the Suburban Growth Survey (Primary Respondents, Based on an Initial Sample of 352 Suburbs).
A. By Respondent Position
Respondent Position
N of Respondents
Mayor
City planner
School administrator
223
114
97
Response Rate
63.4%
32.4%
27.6%
B. By Number of Respondents in the Place
Number of Primary Respondents
N of Places
1 only
2
3
175∗
92
28
Total
295
∗
Includes nine places with response only from chamber of commerce representative.
by a mayor, planner, or school administrator, bringing the total number of
places with at least one first-wave respondent to 295. Additional information from second-wave informants was received from 125 of the 295 places
in the sample. In 107 localities, a member of the local business community
and chamber of commerce identified by a first-wave respondent provided
a completed questionnaire; and in 48 municipalities completed surveys
were returned by leaders of local civic and neighborhood associations.
We treat the municipality itself as the unit of analysis in this study. To
take into consideration as much information on each place as possible, we
have constructed variables based on reports from all individual respondents, including multiple informants from the same suburb. On average,
completed surveys were returned by 2.5 informants per suburb, with some
suburbs having as many as seven respondents.
For two kinds of items we have calculated the average of responses.
The first of these is about the suburb’s growth policies. Respondents were
asked, “Which of the following best describes your community’s feelings
about the growth of business and industry within the city?: (1) There
is general consensus that it should be restricted; (2) There is much disagreement on this issue; and (3) There is general consensus that it should
be encouraged.” A similar item asked about the community’s feelings
about “population growth in the city.” Three other questions elicited information about the existence and function of growth-related policies
in the municipality. Respondents were asked, “Which of the following
land-development policies do you believe are applied by your city government?: Commercial zoning is used to (1) discourage commercial growth,
(2) limit business to some areas, or (3) encourage commercial growth.”
Similar items were used to gather information about the use of industrial
zoning to limit or encourage industrial growth and residential zoning to
restrict or encourage population growth.
Summary scores for each of these five items were determined by taking the mean of the scores for all respondents in a municipality. We have
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created a single “local pro-growth policy index” by combining all five
items (ranging in value from 0 to 10). The average inter-item correlation
for the responses to these items is 0.44; correlations range from 0.27 (between the items tapping local attitudes toward population growth and
whether commercial zoning is used to encourage growth) to 0.63 (between
the items related to commercial and industrial zoning). The reliability of
the additive pro-growth policy index is 0.79.
A second kind of question elicits information on specific local actors’
positions on growth-related issues. One question is: “Please identify the
individuals or groups who, to the best of your knowledge, have supported
or opposed the growth of business and/or industry within this municipality.” Another is: “Please identify the individuals or groups who, to the
best of your knowledge, have supported or opposed construction of new
apartments or housing within this municipality.” Respondents were asked
to report the stance of 17 different individuals and groups ranging from
city officials and political parties, to realtors and the local news media.
Possible responses to these items were “opposes,” “group has taken no position,” and “supports.” For each of these items, responses were converted
to numeric values (from 1 to 3, with 3 representing the pro-growth position) and information provided by multiple respondents was averaged
to produce a single score for each municipality. These scores in turn have
been recoded into three categories: values less than 1.75 are considered
anti-growth, those in the range 1.75–2.25 are neutral, and those above
2.25 are pro-growth.
For another set of items, we used a more intensive coding procedure. To
assess the levels of activity of various political actors in local governance,
respondents were asked, “How would you describe the general level of
involvement in local political issues of the following individuals or groups
over the past 3–5 years?” The involvement of each of 14 different groups
was to be ranked on a scale from 1 (indicating “not very involved”) to 5
(indicating “very involved”). Three researchers independently assessed,
on a case-by-case basis, the information provided by all respondents from
each place to determine which group, or which combination of groups,
was most active in the locality. In the largest number of cases (108, or
37 percent), the most active group or groups were the chamber of commerce, and/or realtors, land developers, and builders. In a much smaller
number (12 percent), neighborhood associations were reported to be the
most active group, while in others (30 percent), the “growth machine” and
neighborhood groups ranked together, equally, as the most active in local
politics. In the remaining suburbs (22 percent), the most active groups
were identified as advocates for the poor, elderly, or minorities, religious
organizations, service groups, individual prominent citizens, county, state,
and federal officials, or political parties.
Because we rely on reports from a variety of respondents, a natural
question is whether these reports are biased by the respondents’ vantage
point. Do mayors and neighborhood associations, planners, and chambers of commerce from the same communities give consistent ratings on
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these variables? This is in part a question of inter-rater reliability, and
we can address it directly for suburbs with multiple respondents. The
correlations between one person’s report and the report of another from
the same suburb (for 657 pairs of respondents) are as follows. On indicators of the level of political activity of the three key organizations on
which our regime classification is based: activity of neighborhood associations, 0.414; of chambers of commerce, 0.418; of real estate developers,
0.251. Reliability of ratings of political activity of other groups range
from 0.144 to 0.400. On evaluation of support that organizations give to
business growth: for neighborhood associations, 0.188; for chambers of
commerce, 0.294; for real estate developers, 0.178. On evaluations of support that organizations give to apartment development: for neighborhood
associations, 0.224; for chambers of commerce, 0.168; for real estate developers, 0.058 (not significant). We consider these to be satisfactory levels
of consistency, given that all are positive and almost all are statistically
significant. These findings do remind us that rating local politics is subjective, complex, and imprecise. However, compared to studies that rely
on a single informant in each community, we believe that measurement
error is reduced by having multiple respondents.
Other analyses reveal one consistent bias that should be taken into
account. Compared to all other types of respondents, neighborhood association leaders tended to rate local growth policy as less pro-growth. However, in a multivariate model predicting growth policy (comparable to the
one reported below, Table 5), an additional variable indicating whether a
neighborhood association leader was a respondent had no effect and did
not change the effects of other variables. Therefore, we conclude that bias
due to the respondent’s formal position is not a problem in this study.
The following analyses use these data to answer four specific questions:
(1) What is the predominant character of political regimes in American
suburbs? (2) What are the sources of variations in political regimes across
communities? (3) How do political regimes affect suburbs’ growth policies? and (4) What are the effects of regimes and growth policies on growth
outcomes over a 10-year period?
THE CHARACTER OF SUBURBAN POLITICAL REGIMES
We define a political regime in terms of two criteria: Who are the most
active groups in local politics? and What are their positions on growth
issues? In a case where the usual members of the growth machine are
united in a pro-growth posture, and neighborhood associations uniformly
oppose growth, a regime could be identified simply in terms of which is
more active (which we take to mean more influential). In fact, although
the tendency is in this direction, there are many contradictory examples,
including a minority of cases where the chamber of commerce or real
estate developers are reported neutral or negative on growth issues, and
many where neighborhood associations are pro-growth or neutral. The
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TABLE 2. Stance of Local Political Actors Towards Business and
Housing/Apartment Growth.
Stance on Business Growth
Favor
Neutral
Oppose
Stance on Housing/Apartment Growth
Favor
Neutral
Oppose
Growth
Coalition
Neighborhood
Associations
244
(82.7%)
50
(16.9%)
1
(0.3%)
106
(35.9%)
122
(41.4%)
67
(22.7%)
170
(57.6%)
123
(41.7%)
2
(0.7%)
43
(14.6%)
131
(44.4%)
121
(41.0%)
situation is summarized in Table 2. This table reports results based on
the average score for the chamber of commerce and real estate developers
(described as the “growth coalition”), and also the score for neighborhood
associations.
The growth coalition is coded as favoring business growth in 83 percent
of suburbs and favoring housing or apartment growth in 58 percent. On
both they are much more pro-growth than neighborhood associations.
And in those cases where they do not favor growth, their position is
almost always neutral. Neighborhood associations offer a strong contrast:
they are opposed to business growth in nearly a quarter of suburbs, and
opposed to residential growth in more than two out of five. Hence the
generalization that these two kinds of groups tend to be in conflict with
one another on growth issues is well founded. Clearly, however, this is
only a tendency: in the majority of cases, neighborhood associations are
not anti-growth.
This finding challenges impressions that have evolved in the literature
on growth politics. Let us be clear about our interpretation. In our view,
the impetus for unbridled growth emanates principally from specific sectors of the business community. Residents typically have less to gain
and more to lose from growth. Consequently, when opposition arises to
particular development projects or growth policies, it naturally tends to
arise from organized residential constituencies. But we must take into
account that some neighborhood associations understand their neighborhood’s problems in terms of economic or population decline and welcome
real estate developers as potential partners in community rejuvenation
(Logan and Rabrenovic, 1990). Evidently this phenomenon is found even
in some suburbs.
For this reason, to classify regimes requires that one take into account
not only the activity levels of various groups, but also these groups’
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TABLE 3. Regime Types by Region.
Regime Type
Hegemonic Growth
Contested Pro-growth
Split
Neutral
Anti-growth
San Francisco
Dallas
Chicago
Philadelphia
Total
21
(44.7%)
5
(10.6%)
14
(29.8%)
4
(8.5%)
3
(6.4%)
10
(41.7%)
2
(8.3%)
7
(29.2%)
5
(20.8%)
0
(0.0%)
89
(60.1%)
15
(10.1%)
9
(6.1%)
32
(21.6%)
3
(2.0%)
35
(46.1%)
3
(3.9%)
3
(3.9%)
31
(40.8%)
4
(5.3%)
155
(52.5%)
25
(8.5%)
33
(11%)
72
(24.4%)
10
(3.4%)
positions on growth issues. We propose a new classification scheme with
five categories, whose distribution is provided in Table 3:
1. Hegemonic growth regimes. The most common type is what we call
“hegemonic growth regimes” (n = 155, just over half of the total
sample). These are suburbs in which the most active group (in most
cases the chamber of commerce and/or real estate developers) favors growth, and all other active groups—including neighborhood
associations—are pro-growth or neutral. The term “hegemony” is
used here to indicate the high degree of local consensus on growth
policy .
2. Contested pro-growth regimes. In another type of suburbs, the most
active group is the chamber of commerce or real estate developers,
and this group is reported to have a pro-growth position. Neighborhood associations are reported to be anti-growth, but their activity
level is clearly lower. We refer to these as “contested pro-growth
regimes” (n = 25, about one in 10 suburbs).
3. Split regimes. In a slightly larger number of suburbs, these two
protagonists are both among the most active in local politics and
they adopt opposing positions on growth issues. We call such places,
where the balance of power is unclear, “split regimes” (n = 33).
4. Anti-growth regimes. We found some suburbs in which an antigrowth coalition—always including neighborhood associations,
sometimes including other groups, but almost never including the
chamber of commerce or realtors—is clearly dominant. There are
only 10 such “anti-growth regimes” in our sample.
5. Neutral. There is one other category of places that cannot be placed
on a dimension of pro-growth to anti-growth regimes. In about
a quarter of suburbs (n = 72), the most active groups in local
politics—whether the chamber of commerce, neighborhood associations, and/or some other actor—have taken no position on growth,
and no group with an identified pro- or anti-growth view is active
at all. These are communities where we would judge that growth
issues are not at the heart of local politics and where some other issues would have to be explored in order to understand the political
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regime. These regimes, which we classify as “neutral” in our scheme,
are an important and substantial category. At the same time, conversely, the fact that these include only a quarter of the sample
indicates the power of growth issues in defining regimes.
We might have expected these regime types to be found in quite different proportions in different regions of the country. Yet pro-growth
regimes (combining the hegemonic and contested categories) are in the
majority in all four metropolitan regions: 55 percent in San FranciscoOakland, 50 percent in Philadelphia, 50 percent in Dallas-Ft. Worth, and
70 percent in Chicago. Chicago is the outlier among the four, though
Dallas, which has a reputation as a free enterprise and pro-development
region, is distinctive in having no anti-growth regime among its suburbs.
THE SOURCES OF VARIATIONS IN POLITICAL REGIMES
What is the source of these different types of local political regimes?
Table 4 presents the results of a multinomial logistic regression model
predicting the type of regime. Because hegemonic growth regimes are by
far the most common type, we use them as the reference category; each
column in Table 4 pits this category against one of the other four.
Taken together, these contrasts reveal that the type of growth regime is
most strongly influenced by the socioeconomic status of the community’s
population. We estimated this effect in two ways, using education level
and median income as indicators. Both had significant effects; here we
report the effect of the percentage of the population that is college educated. Higher-educated populations are significantly less likely to produce
a hegemonic growth regime relative to nearly all other types of regime.
Especially pronounced is the impact on the appearance of an anti-growth
regime. The coefficient in the first column indicates that a 10-point increase in the percentage of the population that is college educated more
than doubles the odds of having an anti-growth regime (compared to a
hegemonic growth regime: e(6.305)(10) = 2.411). Higher levels of educational
attainment also significantly increase the likelihood of a split regime or a
neutral regime, though by a smaller margin.
Few other factors significantly influence the type of regime that prevails
in these suburban communities. The table shows that a higher proportion
of renters (considered in the literature above to represent less active participants in local politics) reduces the odds of having an anti-growth,
split, or neutral regime (compared to a hegemonic growth regime), but
only one of these coefficients is significant. Suburbs with a higher level of
local employment (considered an indicator of business presence) are less
likely to have an anti-growth or a neutral regime, but more likely to have
a contested pro-growth regime (the latter effect is not in the expected
direction, but is almost significant even with a two-tailed test). Among
the racial and ethnic composition variables, there is only one significant
coefficient. And although three of the coefficients for population growth
125
126
TABLE 4. Multinomial Logistic Regression of Regime Type (Unstandardized Regression Coefficients and Standard Errors,
n = 295).
Independent Variable
Anti-growth
vs.
Hegemonic Growth
B
a
∗
SE
B
−1.696
−1.665∗
−4.330
4.523
−0.006
2.286
3.029
1.026
8.152
9.720
0.008
2.674∗∗
0.688
—
2.019
6.305∗∗∗
Contested Pro-growth
vs.
Hegemonic Growth
SE
B
SE
−4.096∗∗∗
−0.836∗∗
1.282
5.017
−0.005∗∗
1.163
1.520
0.333
1.267
3.404
0.002
3.706∗∗
1.722
1.916
0.452
2.387
5.132
0.002
2.394
0.488
0.794∗
−9.284∗
1.284
−0.004
1.776
2.049
0.408
5.203
5.068
0.003
1.028
—
1.112
−0.865
0.550
1.396∗∗∗
0.668
0.658
0.442
1.739∗∗
2.068∗∗∗
0.079
0.676
0.692
0.916
0.212
0.927
−0.299
0.731
0.930
0.808
1.635
−0.562
0.661
−3.920∗∗∗
1.024
−3.184∗∗∗
a
−4.605∗∗∗
Split
vs.
Hegemonic Growth
a
−1.509
0.568
0.529
0.802
0.001
a
Reference category.
p < 0.05 (one-tailed tests), ∗∗ p < 0.05 (two-tailed tests), ∗∗∗ p < 0.01 (two-tailed tests).
B
SE
a
1.036
CITY & COMMUNITY
% College Educated
% Rental Units
% Employed in Community
% African–American
% Hispanic
Change in Population,
1970–1980
Region
San Francisco-Oakland
Dallas
Philadelphia
Chicago
Constant
Model χ 2 = 126.328
Neutral
vs.
Hegemonic Growth
POLITICAL REGIMES & SUBURBAN GROWTH
in the previous decade are negative, again only one (for neutral regimes) is
significant. We regard these findings as weak and inconsistent, compared
to the strong and consistent effects of socioeconomic composition.
There is also some regional variation in regimes. We saw in Table 3
that Chicago suburbs are the most likely to have a hegemonic growth
regime. In the multivariate analysis, compared to Chicago, suburbs in either San Francisco-Oakland or Dallas are more likely to have split regimes.
Philadelphia suburbs, compared to Chicago’s, are more likely to be neutral
or anti-growth regimes.
Still, the main finding from this part of the analysis is that suburban
political regimes are influenced primarily by the socioeconomic status of
residents. Hegemonic growth regimes are least likely in communities with
higher-income or higher-educated populations.
HOW POLITICAL REGIMES AFFECT GROWTH POLICIES
Our third major research question deals with the relationship between
political regimes and growth policies. We address this question through
a multiple regression analysis examining variation in the five-item progrowth policy scale. Results are presented in the first column of Table 5,
in which the predictors include dummy variables indicating the local
regime type along with controls for regional location. We find a very close
relationship between policies and regime type. In comparison to all other
types, hegemonic growth regimes tend to implement policies that are
intended to be significantly more conducive to local growth. As expected,
the greatest contrast is with the few anti-growth regimes, followed by
places that are growth-neutral, and then places with split regimes. The
smallest contrast is between places with contested pro-growth regimes
and those with hegemonic growth regimes, although this difference is
also statistically significant.
Independent of the political regime type, the extent to which local
policies are intended to promote growth is significantly influenced by
the regional location of the community. Consistent with the depiction
of the southwest as a pro-growth region, suburban municipalities near
Dallas tend to adopt policies that are more favorable to local growth
when compared to communities in Chicago. In contrast, communities
near Philadelphia and especially in the San Francisco-Oakland area tend
to adopt growth policies that are significantly more growth restrictive.
These relationships are confirmed but weakened when we also introduce other suburban characteristics into the equation (the second column in Table 5). Independent of regime type and region, pro-growth
policies are substantially less likely in suburbs of higher socioeconomic
status. They are more likely in suburbs that had grown more in the
previous decade and in communities with a larger African-American
population.
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CITY & COMMUNITY
TABLE 5. Ordinary Least Squares Regression of Pro-Growth Policy (n =
295, Standard Errors in Parentheses).
Independent Variable
Regime type
Anti-growth
Neutral
Split
Contested Pro-growth
Hegemonic Pro-growth
Model 1
Model 2
−3.380∗∗∗
(0.682)
−1.029∗∗∗
(0.296)
−0.960∗∗
(0.384)
−0.844∗∗
(0.418)
−2.089∗∗∗
(0.589)
−0.719∗∗∗
(0.257)
−0.542*
(0.326)
−0.353
(0.354)
a
a
% College Educated
—
% Rental Units
—
% Employed in Community
—
% African-American
—
% Hispanic
—
Change in Population, 1970–1980
—
Region
San Francisco-Oakland
Dallas
Philadelphia
Chicago
Constant
Model R2
a
∗
−6.625∗∗∗
(0.753)
–0.576
(0.865)
0.246
(0.193)
2.254∗∗
(0.813)
−2.171
(2.106)
0.005∗∗∗
(0.001)
−1.398∗∗∗
(0.338)
0.797∗
(0.421)
−0.638∗∗
(0.289)
–0.403
(0.335)
0.188
(0.378)
−1.427∗∗∗
(0.294)
a
a
7.673∗∗∗
(0.182)
0.221
9.791∗∗∗
(0.422)
0.472
Reference category.
p < 0.05 (one-tailed tests), ∗∗ p < 0.05 (two-tailed tests), ∗∗∗ p < 0.01 (two-tailed tests).
THE EFFECTS OF REGIMES AND GROWTH POLICIES
ON GROWTH OUTCOMES
Local political structures play a major role in determining the types of
growth policies that are adopted in a municipality. Do they affect actual
growth outcomes? Table 6 presents a series of multivariate regression
models intended to address this question. Three different outcomes are
examined in these models: change in the size of the population of the
community over a 10-year period, change in the racial composition
(African-American percentage) of the population, and change in the median income of families during that same period. For each of these population characteristics, the 1990 value is used as the dependent variable and
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POLITICAL REGIMES & SUBURBAN GROWTH
TABLE 6. Ordinary Least Squares Regression Models Predicting Total Population, Percent African-American, and Median Family Income, 1990 (n = 295, Standard Errors in Parentheses).
Independent Variable
Regime Type
Anti-growth
Neutral
Split
Contested Pro-growth
Hegemonic Pro-growth
Pro-growth Policy
Total Population, 1980
% African–American, 1980
% Hispanic
Median Family Income, 1980
% College Educated
% Rental Units
% Employed in Community
Region
San Francisco-Oakland
Dallas
Philadelphia
Chicago
Constant
Model R2
a
∗
Total
Population
4.015
(3.544)
0.447
(1.534)
−2.111
(1.943)
1.407
(2.085)
Percent
African–American
0.757
(2.495)
1.542
(1.080)
1.677
(1.368)
0.399
(1.468)
Median Family
Income
−0.635
(1.494)
0.254
(0.650)
−1.190
(0.835)
0.770
(0.879)
a
a
a
0.566
(0.359)
1.065∗∗∗
(0.024)
−3.182
(4.819)
7.155
(12.440)
—
0.209
(0.253)
0.000
(0.000)
111.917∗∗∗
(3.393)
−5.692
(8.758)
—
8.822∗
(4.991)
−1.794
(5.080)
0.587
(1.131)
−2.143
(3.514)
−3.542
(3.576)
−0.593
(0.796)
−0.241
(0.154)
−0.0003∗∗
(0.0001)
−0.753
(2.073)
14.126∗∗∗
(5.275)
1.952∗∗∗
(0.077)
13.053∗∗∗
(2.756)
0.164
(2.955)
−0.400
(0.477)
−4.470∗∗
(1.970)
−4.393∗∗
(2.204)
−0.263
(1.804)
−1.779
(1.387)
0.617
(1.552)
−1.731
(1.270)
6.310∗∗∗
(0.842)
0.654
(0.965)
5.926∗∗∗
(0.798)
a
−5.787
(4.359)
0.918
a
a
2.600
(3.069)
0.833
−8.409∗∗∗
(2.745)
0.945
Reference category.
p < 0.05 (one-tailed tests), ∗∗ p < 0.05 (two-tailed tests), ∗∗∗ p < 0.01 (two-tailed tests).
we include as predictors in each of these models the 1980 measure of the
dependent variable. This procedure is equivalent to predicting changes
in these population characteristics over the 10-year period. Also included
in these models are dummy-coded variables indicating the area’s regime
type, the growth policy index, and controls for other sociodemographic
factors that may affect growth.
In none of these equations does political regime have a significant effect, and its coefficients are not significant even when the potentially
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CITY & COMMUNITY
intervening policy variable is excluded (equations not shown). Nor does
growth policy itself affect change in population, race, or income level. In
short, we find that local politics and policy have little import for rate of
growth or community composition over time.
No variable other than initial racial composition affects racial change
in our model. Only education and the variables indicating the regional location of the community appear to be significant predictors of population
change. In comparison to communities near Chicago, suburban communities in the San Francisco-Oakland and Dallas areas tended to experience
significantly less population growth between 1980 and 1990.
Finally, change in median income has both regional and local variation. Compared to Chicago suburbs, those in both San Francisco and
Philadelphia experienced stronger gains in income. Smaller suburbs and
those with more highly educated populations in 1980 had greater income gains. And those with larger Hispanic populations also had larger
increases in income.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
The results of this study can be simply summarized. This is the first
large-scale study that could provide an assessment of the incidence of
different kinds of regimes. A key finding is that the governments of a
clear majority of suburbs can be characterized as hegemonic pro-growth
regimes. Such regimes are somewhat less likely to be found in higher-status
communities, and residents of such places are better able to formulate and
put into effect an anti-growth or slow-growth agenda. Conversely, progrowth regimes are most likely to be found in lower-status suburbs, and
they succeed in adopting policies that are intended to favor development.
In terms of the content of local politics, then, we conclude that it is
reasonable to think not only of the city, but also of the suburb, as a
growth machine.
Yet neither political regime nor local policy affects development over
a 10-year period in any of three central dimensions: population, racial
composition, or income level. Even the few suburbs with anti-growth
regimes in our sample developed over the decade at the same rate and
in the same direction as those with pro-growth regimes, controlling for
other characteristics. Of course this is not to say that growth policies
are always ineffective. Clearly, some communities are able to formulate
growth policies that have real impacts on the pace or nature of growth in
the area. But the relative success of these communities is likely more than
balanced by a large number of communities that enter into the competition to attract population growth and tax revenues or, alternatively, to
control the pace of growth but formulate policies that prove to be futile
(Donovan et al., 1994; Rubin and Rubin, 1987). It is also possible that
the null finding regarding the impact of growth policy reflects at least in
part our specific measures. For example, perhaps measures that tap other
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POLITICAL REGIMES & SUBURBAN GROWTH
aspects of growth policies (e.g., use of tax abatements or bonds) or other
growth-related outcomes (e.g., changes in the number of firms moving
into the area or changes in the local tax base) might reveal more substantial impacts of growth policy. However, our finding that growth policies
have little if any impact on growth is quite consistent with the majority
of previous studies. The growing weight of this evidence presents several
challenges to current thinking.
First, it exposes the Achilles’ heel of theories of urban policy that
presume that cities must adopt pro-growth policies or face being outcompeted in the long run by other cities. Peterson (1981) is the most
influential academic advocate of this view, which mirrors the arguments
made by growth advocates themselves in practical politics. Peterson acknowledged a potential conflict among the priorities of local governments
between developmental and redistributive policies, that is, policies designed to subsidize and promote growth, and policies designed to provide
directly for the collective welfare. Despite his sympathy for the latter, he
argued that redistributive policies are utopian for localities: they pose too
great a burden on investors with choices about where to locate. Developmental policies, he concluded, are the only alternative. This view has
been attacked on a variety of substantive and theoretical grounds (see, for
example, Logan and Swanstrom, 1990). But what if developmental policies, implemented by a hegemonic pro-growth regime, are a paper tiger?
What is the justification for competitive growth strategies if, on average,
they make no difference? In our view, greater attention should now be
given to the political and ideological aspects of these strategies. Perhaps,
on a project-by-project basis, pro-growth regimes do succeed in providing
payoffs to specific members of the governing coalition. These could take
the form, for example, of tax subsidies, lucrative public-private partnerships, provision of public infrastructure for private development projects,
or approval of development plans despite public opposition. Or perhaps
these regimes play a broader role in public support for larger trends in
American politics, reflecting and legitimating at the local level the national shift toward privatization, business subsidy, and contraction of the
welfare state. Or perhaps their effects should be evaluated in terms of
what alternative policy issues do not reach the local agenda, particularly
the redistributive policies that Peterson emphasizes.
A second implication of this finding is that suburban anti-growth
regimes do not necessarily have exclusionary effects. It is self-evident, as
critics of suburban land-use policies have pointed out, that suburbs can
effectively limit their class composition, and therefore indirectly their
racial composition, through restrictive zoning (Danielson, 1976; more recently, Kirp et al., 1995). Yet although some have claimed that slowgrowth policies result in artificially high land and housing prices, we find
no evidence that they affect who is able to live in the community. Not
only do anti-growth regimes, or other regimes where pro-growth policies
are contested, fail to limit population growth, they also experience no
different trajectories of class or racial change than do other comparable
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CITY & COMMUNITY
suburbs. Hence simple assumptions about exclusionary policies need close
scrutiny on a case-by-case basis. There may be instances in which restrictive growth measures are intended to be exclusionary, or in which exclusion is an unintended consequence. But such effects cannot be taken for
granted.
A third and broader implication is that research on urban growth
must take into account more explicitly the extra-local dimensions of local
places. There is an inherent tension between local and global approaches:
one is emphasized at the risk of neglecting the other. In their theoretical work, urban social scientists are mindful of this dilemma. No serious
discussion of globalization fails to acknowledge the relevance of local variations and political interventions; equally, no theory of political economy
at the local level dismisses the vertical linkages of communities. Yet most
empirical studies, and particularly those that reach beyond case studies
of specific places, are solidly grounded in the locality as the basic unit of
analysis. It is the politics and policies of the locality, and the locality’s
growth trajectory, that lie at the heart of research. In the present study,
for example, the only extra-local consideration is the possibility that there
are regional differences in political culture and development. How can the
embeddedness of localities in larger arenas be more fully conceptualized
and studied?
One promising approach is to model more directly the external inputs into local development. Hooks (1994) has done this for metropolitan
regions, asking how local political connections at the federal level affected
the location of federal military investments and bases, and how these in
turn affected local development in other respects. This specific set of
questions is well suited to quantitative analysis, because at least some aspects of local-federal relationships can be measured. Immigration streams
and networks between immigrants and their countries of origin represent another measurable connection: surely the fortunes of some places,
even some relatively confined neighborhoods or suburbs, have been determined by the creation of such a linkage. Another type of connection is
to extra-local coalitions of advocacy groups, such as have formed in the
environmental, housing, and civil rights arenas. Perhaps all places have
potential or latent ties of this type, waiting to be initiated; more likely,
the capacity to call such ties into play is a variable attribute of places.
Another approach is to make more effective use of comparative studies
across nations or regions of the world. Given the ubiquity of pro-growth
regimes in the United States, it may be reasonable to treat the growth machine system as a characteristic of urbanization in the country as a whole,
rather than an attribute of any specific city. West European scholars
(see, for example, Harding, 1991) argue that in some respects there is
convergence toward North-American-style growth regimes. At the same
time, they have emphasized that the dynamics of local politics and especially of growth politics appear differently outside the United States, due
to differences in such system characteristics as state-local relations, the
organization of the real estate industry, and the class bases of political
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POLITICAL REGIMES & SUBURBAN GROWTH
parties. What are the similarities and differences in these systems? Studies of other countries offer the prospect of identifying the unique impacts
of the North-American model. Following up on questions posed above,
for example, does growth crowd out other kinds of issues from the local agenda in American cities, compared to the issues that are at the
forefront in other countries’ cities? There have already been efforts to
address such questions, mainly based on overviews of one or two cities
abroad (Kantor et al., 1997; Terhorst and van de Ven, 1995). New studies
of the type reported here, with representative samples of cities in even
a single other country, could answer such basic questions as: What are
the issues around which local politics is organized? Who are the active
participants and what are their views on these issues? What policies have
been adopted, and with what consequences? From this baseline it would
be possible to reach further: How should the system as a whole be characterized? How does it differ from the one in this country? and What are
the ramifications of these differences?
Both these alternative approaches, cross-national comparisons or explicit modeling of extra-local linkages, would extend theories of the
growth machine and of urban regimes into new territory. In this way
they might represent more faithfully the realities of a multilocational,
sometimes even transnational, era when the locus of control over urban
futures is increasingly found beyond the city limits.
Acknowledgments
This research was partly supported by a grant from the National Science
Foundation (SES 8606586) and by the Lewis Mumford Center for Comparative Urban and Regional Research. The Center for Social and Demographic Analysis, University at Albany, provided technical and administrative support through grants from NICHD (P30 HD32041) and NSF
(SBR-9512290). We gratefully acknowledge the help of Peggy Schaeffer
King in the coordination of the Suburban Governments Survey.
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