Download Local Institutions and the Politics of Urban Growth

Local Institutions and the Politics of Urban Growth
Mark Lubell University of California, Davis
Richard C. Feiock Florida State University
Edgar E. Ramirez de la Cruz Arizona State University
This article uses a political market framework to analyze how the structure of local political institutions affects the relative
political influence of development and environmental interests in the context of urban growth. Using panel data from 406
Florida cities from 1998 to 2003, the empirical analysis finds important interaction effects between the structure of city
executive branch institutions and interest group variables. The economic and political forces driving urban growth do not
operate identically in all cities—they vary as a function of institutional context. Institutional structure helps determine which
interest groups have their preferences reflected in local land-use changes and development patterns. The resulting patterns
suggest a “sustainability paradox” wherein richer, environmental interests push for the preservation of environmental
amenities while at the same time accelerating the number of residential units built in a community.
P
atterns of land-use change and growth remain
one of the most enduring topics of interest in urban politics (Lewis and Neiman 2002; Sonenshein
1996). This article argues that the structure of local political institutions is a crucial variable for understanding
the interactions between development and environmental interests in the context of urban growth. Our focus
on local political institutions seeks to integrate two other
major theoretical frameworks developed to explain local
land-use policy: the property rights and the interest group
models. We direct attention to how political institutions
serve as the governance arena in which interest groups
bargain over property rights.
The “property rights” model of land-use policy argues restrictions on growth will emerge in the face of
scarcity and the overconsumption of common-pool resources (Alchian and Demsetz 1973; Libecap 1989). This
perspective is linked to Tiebout (1956) models, which often argue local communities have an optimum size for
delivery of local public goods. In general, the property
rights model predicts land-use policy will become more
restrictive as land becomes scarce, population increases,
and infrastructure becomes strained. At the same time,
developers seek this scarce land in order to generate the
highest economic returns on their building investments.
“Interest group” models of local politics predict that
local elected officials are more likely to cater to the preferences of those groups that are better able to deliver political resources. The interest group model provides the
theoretical underpinning for “growth machines” ruled
by political alliances between local government officials
and development interests (Logan and Molotch 1987;
Molotch 1976). Development interests have the upper
hand in local politics because they receive concentrated
benefits for prodevelopment policies and are better organized than diffuse public interests. Of course, public entrepreneurs can often organize diffuse public interests to
effectively participate in local political decisions, and local
governments are certainly capable of pro-environmental
policies (Elkins 1995; Goetz 1994). Regardless, interest group models have a modern pluralist perspective
that views policy change as a result of interest group
competition.
In both the property rights and interest group models, political institutions are largely transparent to the
underlying economic or political forces driving urban
Mark Lubell is Professor of Political Science, Department of Environmental Science and Policy, One Shields Avenue, University of California,
Davis, Davis, CA 95618 ([email protected]). Richard C. Feiock is the Augustus B. Turnbull Professor of Public Administration & Policy,
Director of the Center for Sustainable Energy & Governance, and Affiliated Professor of Political Science, Florida State University, 627
Bellamy Building, Tallahassee, FL 32306-2250 ([email protected]). Edgar E. Ramirez de la Cruz is Assistant Professor, School of Public
Affairs, Arizona State University, 411 N. Central Ave., Suite 480, Phoenix, AZ 85004-0687 ([email protected]).
This research was funded by NSF Grant 0350817. Thanks to Christina Liang for assistance in assembling the geographic information
systems data.
American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 53, No. 3, July 2009, Pp. 649–665
C 2009,
Midwest Political Science Association
ISSN 0092-5853
649
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MARK LUBELL, RICHARD C. FEIOCK, AND EDGAR E. RAMIREZ DE LA CRUZ
growth. This oversight is a severe limitation; political institutions are crucial mediators of political and economic
forces and will influence policy dynamics. In response, we
offer a “political market” theory of institutional change
that combines political economy theories of property
rights (Alston, Eggertsson, and North 1996; Libecap 1989;
see also Lubell et al. 2002) with Clingermayer and Feiock’s
(2001; see also Ostrom 1999; Feiock 2002) institutional
analysis of local government structure. The political market framework conceptualizes institutional change as the
result of a dynamic contracting process between the suppliers and demanders of change in a community (Alston,
Eggertsson, and North 1996, 27–28). Generally, the demanders are the private interests in society, and the
suppliers are the government authorities. Interest group
demands are driven by the local economic changes described by the property rights perspective, such as land
scarcity. In return for political resources, elected officials
will supply land-use policies that affect the economic
fortunes of interest groups. Hence, the political market
framework encompasses both existing frameworks.
The political market approach assigns a central role
to local government structures as the arena in which political contracting occurs. Political institutions combine
with the structure of interest organization to determine
the outcome of political contracting. At the same time,
as we will show, there is substantial variation in local political institutions in terms of administrative, legislative,
electoral, and executive powers. Different types of political institutions will favor different types of interests,
either enhancing or reducing the ability of interests to influence patterns of urban growth. For example, we argue
that cities with strong mayors will favor higher socioeconomic interests, which are better at delivering electoral
resources. In other words, the structure of local political institutions helps determine the winners and losers in
land-use policy.
We use land-use policy and development in all 406
incorporated Florida cities as a laboratory for testing our
hypotheses. Florida is an excellent research setting because the 1985 State Growth Management Act (GMA)
requires every city and county to create a comprehensive growth management plan to guide land-use decisions. The plan provides a legally binding constraint
on development decisions because local zoning codes,
land development regulations, and permit decisions must
conform to the provisions of the plan. Each municipal government has the opportunity to amend its plan
twice per year, and the city council in each community may propose some number of amendments and
land-use changes in each cycle. The biannual amendment cycles from 1998 to 2003 are the units of analysis
in our study. Our dependent variable is an index of land-
use change that measures the balance between conservation and development priorities; we use the term “proenvironment amendment” to describe amendments that
favor conservation. We also measure actual new development using the annual number of single-family housing
permits issued; city-years are the unit of analysis for these
models.
Beyond contributing to the theory and empirical
analysis of political institutions, this research also speaks
to the debate about local community sustainability (Portney 2003). Changes in land use and actual residential construction are two of the most important dimensions of
local growth, and how communities integrate the natural
and built environments has direct consequences for overall sustainability. Growth machine cities are traditionally
portrayed as engendering conflict between economic interests that prefer to transform open space into valuable
residential and commercial development versus environmental interests that want to reduce the environmental
costs of development. The empirical results in this article
suggest that political institutions mediate this conflict in a
way that leads to a “sustainability paradox.” Namely, mayoral institutions help richer, environmental interests push
for environmental amenities like open space, but at the
same time accelerate the pace of residential development
with its associated environmental costs.
Integrating the Property Rights
and Interest Group Models
Our political market approach argues not only that the
structure of local institutions directly influences land use
decisions, but also that forces and interests identified in
property rights and interest group models are mediated
by local institutions. This section identifies the variables
from these models that will be included in our empirical analysis. At the very least, these variables must be
controlled for to isolate the influence of local political
institutions. More importantly, we later describe hypothesized interaction effects between interest group and political institutions variables. Estimating the parameters of
the interaction effects requires identifying both sets of
variables.
Property Rights Model
The benefits of promoting or restricting growth are related primarily to how growth patterns affect the scarcity
of local land and infrastructure resources. As growth pressures intensify, many citizens will begin to demand growth
management in order to preserve community resources.
LOCAL INSTITUTIONS AND URBAN GROWTH
The benefits of environmental land uses that restrict development are greatest where rates of development are
high but low density, nonurban lands are scarce and open
space is limited. When population density is low and land
is abundant, there is less incentive to protect scarce environmental resources. Thus, we expect measures of population pressure and urbanization to be positively related
to pro-environment amendments, and the availability of
open space to be negatively related. In Florida, growth
pressures are particularly high in coastal communities,
and coastal resources are very sensitive, so the number of
coastal miles should shift the land-use balance towards
environmental protection.
At the same time, environmental amenities increase
land values, especially when population growth causes
land to be scarce. For example, several studies document
a substantial price premium for proximity to wetlands
(Mahan, Polasky, and Adams 2000) and housing prices
are generally higher in coastal communities (Ihlanfeldt
2007). Development interests have an economic incentive to build where land values are high and also tend to
build near existing population centers with better access
to job markets and other economic opportunities. Thus,
we expect more development in larger, more populous,
and coastal cities where there are fewer restrictions on
how land is used.
The traditional view of the property rights model
predicts conflict between development and environmental interests due to competing preferences over the use of
scarce land. Development interests see the opportunity
for economic profit from scarce land near environmental amenities. This is the same land that environmental
interests wish to preserve in order to maintain existing
property values or to retain access to other environmental
services. The concept of sustainable development challenges the traditional view and suggested the possibility of positive synergy between economic development
and environmental protection. In particular, proponents
of “green building” suggest that development projects
can be constructed in ways that preserve environmental amenities (e.g., riparian buffers), and that such practices also help preserve the economic benefits provided by
ecosystems (e.g., flood control). How political institutions
resolve or exacerbate the conflict between competing
property rights preferences is central to understanding
the dynamics of urban growth.
Interest Group Models
Land-use decisions reflect bargaining over property
rights. Developers who wish to utilize their private prop-
651
erty in particular ways are opposed by residents who wish
to restrict how land is used. For development interests,
ownership implies the ability to use the property for personal or economic gain. To neighboring residents and
others in the community, the use of that property creates
congestion, sprawl, and negative externalities that can reduce property values (Barzel 1997). Thus land-use politics
tends to pit narrow economic interests in direct opposition with broader-based citizen interests. Many land-use
initiatives involve economic interest groups promoting
specific development projects and environmental or
community groups opposing their projects (Gerber
and Phillips 2004). In some instances, green building or sustainable development may help reduce this
conflict.
Our primary method for integrating the interest
group model is to measure characteristics of communities that reflect certain types of interests. These
community characteristics then serve as proxies for
interest group participation in the political process.
This approach is justified by Gray and Lowery (1996),
who show that the density of interest groups is a
positive, curvilinear function of the size of the latent constituency. Lubell et al. (2002) also use community characteristics as proxies for interest group
constituencies.
We expect community characteristics such as wealth,
education, and race to influence the demand for restrictions on growth. Previous work suggests high socioeconomic status (income/education) communities will favor
restricting growth in order to isolate themselves from
lower-income individuals and therefore increase their
property values and lower the cost of supplying local public goods (Donovan and Neiman 1992; Ihlanfeldt 2001;
Maser, Riker, and Rosett 1977). The same groups have
also tended to place higher value on protection of the
natural environment.
However, despite the fact that higher socioeconomic
status is usually positively correlated with environmental
values, it is not a perfect proxy for environmental values. Environmental values are more directly expressed
through participation in environmental groups or activities or expenditures on environmental public goods.
In Florida, citizens may support environmental programs
by paying a surcharge for environmentally themed license
plates. We measure per capita expenditures at the county
level in order to have a more direct indicator of environmental values. When included in the same empirical
analysis, socioeconomic status may capture the idea of environmental public goods as a “luxury” good, while the
license plate data are more congruent with underlying
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MARK LUBELL, RICHARD C. FEIOCK, AND EDGAR E. RAMIREZ DE LA CRUZ
environmental values.1 Thus, we expect communities
with a higher per capita personal income, educational
attainment levels, and expenditures on environmental license plates to have more pro-environment amendments
and less new development approved.
Development interests are often organized and well
financed, which enhances their ability to articulate
political demands and gives them advantages in translating their preferences into policy. Another advantage
that development interests possess is their perceived importance to local economies (Schneider and Park 1989).
The growth machine literature typically suggests a substantial degree of cooperation between development interests and public officials (Fleischmann 1986; Logan
and Molotch 1987; Stone 1989). Development and construction interests would be particularly resistant to
pro-environment amendments that restrict development
opportunities, while promoting policy changes that enable new development.
Development and environmental interests feature
important differences in their geographic basis of organization. The typical political science analysis portrays
environmental interests as a diffuse, unorganized constituency that favors some general form of environmental
protection. Some local environmental interests, for example unorganized citizens who worry about runaway
growth, do have this type of structure. However, many
local environmental interests are what Clarke and Gaile
(1989) call “territorial groups” with links to a specific geographical location. These groups are often main players in
Not-In-My-Backyard politics, and include neighborhood
organizations, homeowners associations, and citizen
activists located within geographically defined constituencies. These geographic groups often dominate the
politics of land use, as they resist locally unwanted land
uses like major roads, or clamor for improved environmental amenities like parks and conservation areas.
Development interests, on the other hand, have
less clear-cut connections to geographic interests. These
groups may instead be defined along functional or occupational lines. Such groups might include developers,
1
The distinction between socioeconomic status and environmental
license plate data is not entirely clean, especially because paying a
surcharge for an environmental license plate may require higher
wealth. Even environmental group membership may include a
wealth component, and while it would be nice to measure citylevel environmental group membership, these data are extremely
difficult to acquire due to how privately environmental groups control their membership information. We believe the combination of
socioeconomic status and environmental license plate expenditures
adequately captures the level of environmental interests, although
the license plate data are only available at the county level, which
reduces precision.
realtors, contractors, construction trade unions, and financial institutions (Clingermayer and Feiock 2001). Occupationally organized interests will generally look for
economic opportunities throughout the local community and are less concerned with a particular location.
Geographically diffuse environmental interests cannot
compete in the political market with well-organized development interests unless a strong political entrepreneur
helps environmental interests organize at the broader
community level. These differences in the structure of
interest organization have important consequences for
the influence of local political institutions, as discussed in
the next section.
The Structure of Local Political
Institutions and Land-Use Change
Like many subfields in political science, urban politics has
rediscovered institutions (Knott and Miller 1987; Maser
1998; Svara 1990). We make two central arguments with
respect to how the structure of local institutions influences land-use change and urban growth. First, local governments exhibit substantial variance in the structure of
political institutions. This variance belies the traditional
dichotomy introduced by the Progressive reform movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
between administrative (reformed) and political (unreformed) forms of government, which has been the subject of decades of urban political research (Lineberry and
Fowler 1967; Ostrom, Ostrom, and Bish 1988; Ruhil 2003;
Svara 1999). As we will show, the variance in institutional
structure is measurable and serves as a central independent variable in our analysis.
Second, political institutions determine the rules and
procedures for making collective decisions and thus shape
the incentives of local actors whose decisions, in turn, have
a direct influence on the amount and nature of land-use
change (Clingermeyer and Feiock 2001; Feiock 2002).
The structure of local political institutions will amplify or
mute the influence of different interest groups on land-use
decisions. The effects of local institutions may be additive
and direct, as in a basic linear model. However, we are also
hypothesizing interaction effects between political institution variables and interest group variables. Instead of
assuming the political process operates identically across
different settings, the political process will change as a
function of different institutional arrangements (Feiock
and Kim 2001). Testing for these specific, theoretically
driven interaction effects is an important scientific contribution of this research.
LOCAL INSTITUTIONS AND URBAN GROWTH
The Structure of Executive Branch
Institutions
The most frequently analyzed and politically debated feature of local institutions is the balance of electoral versus
administrative/managerial power in the executive branch
of city government. The Progressive reform movement
was critical of the strong mayor system, which is distinguished by an elected partisan mayor with many executive powers to control local administrative decisions
(Schiesl 1977). The Progressive reform movement treated
mayor-council systems monolithically and linked them to
inefficiency and corruption. The Progressives advocated
replacing the strong mayor form of government with a
system of reformed institutions embodied in the model
charter distributed by the National Municipal League
(Hofstadter 1956). These reforms were proposed in an
effort to create a “nonpolitical, essentially technical organization and management” (Knott and Miller 1987,
3).
The “reform” council-manager system of government essentially abolished the political position of the
mayor as chief executive. Instead, the council was to hire
a professional administrator to conduct daily administrative decisions. The mayor was reduced to little more than
a ceremonial figurehead by making the position part-time
with little political or administrative power. The reform
charter included a small council elected at-large on a nonpartisan ballot, as well as provisions for direct democracy.
By the end of the 1960s the majority of cities had adopted a
council-manager form of government (Ruhil 2003; Svara
1990).
The political market perspective argues the institutional structure of the executive branch determines the
balance of administrative and electoral power in any given
city. Lineberry and Fowler (1967) make a similar argument by arraying city governments from unreformed to
reformed based on an additive index of whether they had a
council-manager form, at-large representation, and nonpartisan elections. More recently, Frederickson and his
associates argue that an executive-centered administrative/political dimension is the most salient for structural
influence on local policymaking (Frederickson and Johnson 2001; Frederickson, Johnson, and Wood 2004). They
demonstrate that almost 80% of cities do not have a pure
political or pure administrative form, and argue that local institutional structures evolve over time to match local
political and economic circumstances. The institutional
character of mayor and manager authority shapes the incentives of persons holding those positions, and it also
influences the costs of political participation for groups
in the community. Forms of government embodied in a
653
municipal charter can be viewed a constitutional contract
that determines the transaction costs experienced by various actors and interests in their efforts to influence public
decisions (Maser 1985; Miller 1985).
Mayoral power varies as a function of how much
control the mayor has over city policy decisions: full-time
status, the authority to formulate and administer budgets, appoint key administrators with council approval,
and veto statutes approved by council. Strong mayors have
incentives to pursue short-term political gain in their development choices (Frant 1996) and constrain the roles
of the council and professional administrators in influencing policy (Feiock, Jeong, and Kim 2003; Sharp 1997).
The prevailing view on mayoral power is that mayors are more responsive to broader community interests
and thus may favor the production of pro-environmental
policies. Sharp (1997) describes how mayoral power
can translate into outcomes responsive to interest group
activism, mass political pressures, and entrepreneurial
action because transaction costs are lowered for neighborhood and other interests that lack the financial, political, and organizational resources to articulate demand.
Elkins (1995) also finds that the institutional strength of
the mayor’s office predicts adoption of progressive development policies that impose constraints on new development. We anticipate that the political incentives for
mayors to oppose development will be greatest when there
are wealthy residential constituencies opposing growth.
Higher socioeconomic status communities are generally more supportive of environmental issues. Hence,
we expect cities with strong mayors to have more proenvironment land-use amendments and less new development permitted.
The prevailing view on city managers links managers’
professional advancement to success in promoting efficiency and economic development (Stein 1990). A strong
professional manager position insulates administrative
decisions from intervention by city councils, mayors, or
broader community interests (McCabe et al. 2008; Miller
2000). This type of insulation increases the transaction
costs of participation for the broader community and
territorial-based interests that usually seek to constrain
growth and support environmental land-use changes. It
is less costly for functional interests represented by existing trade associations or labor unions to influence policy than for more diffuse interests that rely on public
entrepreneurs. To the extent that the benefits of antidevelopment amendments are diffuse (i.e., reduced pollution, lessened highway congestion, or protection of environmentally sensitive lands), it is difficult to generate
collective effort to restrict growth (Lewis and Neiman
2002).
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MARK LUBELL, RICHARD C. FEIOCK, AND EDGAR E. RAMIREZ DE LA CRUZ
The following hypotheses summarize these two prevailing views about how the institutional balance of power
in the executive branch affects the political market of urban growth:
H1a: Cities with governmental institutions that emphasize managerial power will have fewer proenvironment land-use changes and permit more new
development than cities with institutions that emphasize mayoral power.
H1b (interactive): Higher socioeconomic/environmental
interests will have a greater positive influence on
pro-environment land-use changes and restrict development in cities that emphasize mayoral power,
while construction/development interests will have a
stronger negative relationship with pro-environment
land-use changes and promote development in cities
that emphasize administrative power.
Hypothesis 1b represents an interaction between the
structure of institutions and the influence of interest
groups on policy. These interaction effects are the key
theoretical insight about how institutions structure the
operation of the political market.
While the above hypotheses represent the prevailing view, there is not complete consensus on whether
mayors or managers will be more supportive of development or environmental interests. Clingermayer and
Feiock (2001) contend that elected mayors may attempt
to claim political credit on both sides of development
issues, depending on the position of the median voter
on particular issues at different times. Schneider and
Teske (1993a, 1993b) found the presence of strong mayors predicted emergence of both progrowth and antigrowth entrepreneurs. A popularly elected executive officer provides greater access to decision making because this
form of government attracts politically ambitious leaders
with different orientations and career interests than weak
mayors.
The preferences of many managers are shaped by
the modern norms of professional planning associations
and public administration schools, which stress ideas like
sustainable development and smart growth as ways to
reconcile conflicts between economic and environmental
values (Nalbandian 1989). At the same time, professional
managers are typically granted a certain degree of discretion in the exercise of public trust (Miller 2000), and
this discretion is enhanced by institutional structures that
confer administrative powers to the manager. To the extent that professional managers seek to exercise modern
planning ideals, cities that emphasize managerial power
would be more likely to have pro-environment amendments and less new development.
The Structure of Local Legislative
Institutions
Both legislative and executive institutions can shape the
responsiveness of land-use rules to territorial or occupationally organized interests. Possibly the most important characteristic of legislative institutions is the extent
to which they feature district-based rather than at-large
elections. Formally, district versus at-large representation
would not make a difference because the outcome of a vote
by representatives elected in districts should be the median of the medians and thus converge on the at-large median (Maser 1998). In practice, however, empirical studies
demonstrate that at-large elections advantage economically powerful interests that can provide the instrumental
political resources necessary to win a citywide campaign.
Segregation in housing by race and income facilitates
minority candidates’ success in appropriately configured
districts (Langbein, Crewson, and Brasher 1996; Welch
and Bledsoe 1988). Both a greater number of seats on
the council and district-based representation tend to increase inclusion of minority interests (Clingermayer and
Feiock 2001). District-based elections result in more fragmented council decision making in which the outcome
of the permitting process is more complex and subject to
more intense negotiations. Fewer permits result as some
developers are unwilling to enter into long, complex negotiations (Mayer and Sommerville 2000).
Because of their geographic basis, municipalities with
district elections may empower environmental interests,
and reduce the influence of development interests. Atlarge elections force local legislators to respond to a much
broader set of political interests than are typically found
in a single district and thus more incentives to favor wellorganized, occupational interests that can provide instrumental political resources over territorial-based environmental interests. The following hypotheses summarize
our theoretical expectations with respect to legislative (L)
institutions:
H2a: There will be more pro-environment land-use
changes and less new development permitted under
district than at-large systems of representation.
H2b (interactive): Socioeconomic status/environmental
interests will have a stronger positive relationship
with pro-environment land-use changes and stronger
negative relationship with development permits under district representation.
H2c (interactive): Construction and development interests will have a stronger negative relationship
with pro-environment land-use changes and stronger
positive relationship with development permits under at-large representation.
LOCAL INSTITUTIONS AND URBAN GROWTH
The Structure of Direct Democracy
Empirical evidence indicates that majoritarian interests
are more likely to prevail when choices are made through
the direct democracy institutions employed by many
cities (Gerber 1999; Tolbert 1998). An initiative provision
grants citizens the right to submit a proposal to a public vote when officials have failed to act. A referendum
provision grants citizens the right to submit a proposal
to a public vote after officials have acted. A recall provision grants citizens the right to strip elected officials of
their rights to act. Even if direct democracy is rarely exercised, mayors and council members operate under the
shadow of these institutions. The potential for direct citizen action discourages elected officials from being inattentive to constituent interests (Maser 1997). Where direct democracy mechanisms are available, policy choices
are anticipated to more closely match the median voter’s
preferences (McCabe and Feiock 2005).
Gerber and Phillips (2004) argue that some interests
have turned to initiatives in an attempt to shift the balance of political power over land-use decisions in their
communities and to slow growth. Recent work reveals
that when local policies such as urban growth boundaries are made through direct democracy institutions,
it advantages slow-growth interests (Gerber and Phillips
2004, 2005). The rationale is that diffuse or territorial
interests such as environmentalists will be able to influence the protection of their interests by the use of direct
democracy. A straightforward hypothesis that emerges
from these findings is that in those cities with high levels of direct democracy, a growth machine is less likely
to control land-use changes. If direct democracy amplifies median voter preferences, we would expect the link
between SES and land-use decisions to be stronger in
governments with direct democracy:
H3a: Cities with direct democracy provisions will have
more pro-environmental land-use changes and permit less new development than cities without direct
democracy.
H3b (interactive): Higher socioeconomic interests will
have greater influence in cities with direct democracy provisions.
Research Design and Analysis
The research design measures three main sets of variables for 406 Florida cities: (1) local land-use changes as
recorded in comprehensive plan amendments and hous-
655
ing permits; (2) the structure of local political institutions;
and (3) the social, economic, and geographic characteristics of cities. These variables are assembled together in
a panel data set ranging from 1998 to 2003 with biannual
observations for the comprehensive plan amendments
and annual observations for single-family housing permits. The basic analytical strategy will be to estimate the
influence of city political institutions and other characteristics on the direction of comprehensive plan amendments and the number of housing permits. As we mentioned earlier, these dependent variables constitute two of
the most important aspects of urban growth: changes in
local property rights and the actual built environment.
Dependent Variable Measurement
We construct a conservation index of comprehensive plan
amendments that reflects the balance of pro-environment
and pro-development land-use changes in any given
amendment cycle. As mentioned in the introduction,
Florida state law allows local governments to amend
their comprehensive plans two times per year, and every amendment is collected by the Florida Department of
Community Affairs and deposited in a library in Tallahassee. We developed a coding form for these amendments
that was designed to classify each amendment in terms of
pro-environment or pro-development. Previous research
(Lubell, Feiock, and Ramirez 2005) suggested that changes
in the land-use element of the comprehensive plan were
the most important because they directly determined onthe-ground property rights by changing allowable types
and densities of land use in a particular area.
Based on advice from state planners and our analysis of the land-use plans, we assigned an ordinal scale
of development intensity to each land-use category (see
Table 1), where higher values indicate more environmentally beneficial land uses.2 Then for each amendment, we
calculated a change score equal to new land use minus old
land use. For example, an amendment that changed land
from Commercial/Institutional to Conservation would be
2
The land-use change index assumes the relative environmental and
development consequences of each land-use type are adequately
captured by their placement on the scale. We do not have precise
enough measurements of the consequences of land-use changes to
have a more refined scale, and the consequences of different landuse changes probably vary by location. Hence, we suspect our scale
does contain significant random measurement error, which will
decrease the precision of our statistical estimates. Further research
is needed to better measure land-use changes, perhaps with GIS
and remote sensing technology. We also examined the language
justifying any increase in density to see if cities were trying to
increase density in the central city; the incidence of such urban
in-fill changes is extremely rare.
MARK LUBELL, RICHARD C. FEIOCK, AND EDGAR E. RAMIREZ DE LA CRUZ
656
TABLE 1 Coding Schemes for Land-Use Types
0.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Multiple Uses
Industrial
Commercial/Institutional
Mixed (Commercial-Residential)
High Density Residential
Medium Density Residential
Low Density Residential
Rural
Agricultural
Open Space–Recreational
Conservation
scored 10 − 2 = 8. Cities would often submit a package
of multiple amendments during each cycle; thus we sum
the change scores for each individual amendment into an
index for a particular cycle. For example, a city with three
amendments with change scores of 5, −6, and 0 would
have an index equal to −1. The resulting amendmentlevel index measures the balance between environmental
changes and development for each cycle; it is normally
distributed with a mean of −2.24, a maximum of 43, and
a minimum of −77. On average, the land-use changes
favored higher-intensity development. The single-family
housing building permits are annual measurements collected by the University of Florida Bureau of Economic
and Business Research.
Independent Variable Measurement
Data on local government political institutions were collected in five stages. First, information on forms of government and provisions for appointed manger positions
were collected for all Florida cities from directories of
the Florida League of Cities. Second, charter provisions
regarding mayoral powers, district and at-large council representation, and direct democracy provisions were
recorded for the Florida respondents to the ICMA’s 2001
Form of Government survey. Third, online charter documents available from the Municipal Code Corporation
were used to identify powers and provisions for cities that
did not respond to the ICMA survey. Fourth, the city
clerk for the municipality was contacted to complete the
data set for any remaining missing information. Finally,
we had staff at the Florida League of Cities review the
accuracy of our coding based on their understanding of
the structure of these cities.
Following the lead of Maser (1985, 1998) and Bryant
(1976), we use factor analysis to measure the structure
of local government institutions. The following dichotomous (Yes = 1; No = 0) variables were used in the factor analysis: elected mayor, mayor-council city, mayor
budget control, mayor full-time, mayor without term
limits, mayor has veto, professional city manager, councilmanager form of government, manager has budget authority, citizen initiative provision, citizen referendum
provision, and citizen recall provision. Given the dichotomous variables, we used tetrachoric correlations to construct the correlation matrix, and principal components
factors were extracted with oblique rotation. The advantage of the factor analysis is that it does not assume a
simple classification of government type captures all relevant institutional variance, and also that each observed
variable may contribute differentially to any underlying
latent component of institutional structure.
The factor analysis produced three factors with eigenvalues greater than one; the factor loadings are reported
in the appendix. The first two factors were clearly interpretable as measuring the structure of local institutions.
The first factor has high loadings for all of the mayor and
manager power variables, with mayoral power positively
correlated and manager power negatively correlated. This
factor can be interpreted as the relative balance of power
between elected mayors and professional city managers,
with higher factor scores indicating greater emphasis on
mayoral power. All of the direct democracy variables load
on the second factor, which can be interpreted as the extent of direct democracy. Regression-based factor scores
for these first two factors constitute two measurements of
institutional structure: Mayor-Manager Balance and Direct Democracy. These are the same as two of the factors
identified by Maser (1985).
The utility of the institutional structure factor analysis is shown in Table 2, which displays the average, minimum, and maximum values of the mayor-manager factor
score for each form of government. As can be seen, the
factor score is highest for mayor-council cities and lowest
for manager-council cities. But there is diversity within
each type of government: mayor-council cities have scores
as low as –.03, while manager-council cities have scores as
high as .39. Our more nuanced measures of mayoral and
managerial power are better representations of institutional structure because the powers available to managers
or mayors vary within each form of government.
Legislative structure is measured by percent district
seats, which divides the number of district-based council
seats in a city by the total number of council seats. We did
not have multiple measures of legislative structure and
thus did not estimate the legislative factor score found by
Maser. Of the 403 cities for which we have legislative data,
356 of them are cities with five council seats, and among
LOCAL INSTITUTIONS AND URBAN GROWTH
657
TABLE 2 Balance of Mayor-Manager Power by Form of Government
Form of Government
Mayor-Council (N = 134)
Manager-Council (N = 255)
Commission Only (N = 7)
Average Mayor-Manager
Factor Score
Min. Mayor-Manager
Factor Score
Max. Mayor-Manager
Factor Score
.50
−.17
.07
−.03
−.38
−.16
.97
.39
.27
those cities with five council seats the average percentage
of district seats is 13.9%. Only five cities have greater than
seven council seats, and these cities tend to be larger and
have a higher proportion of district-based seats. A greater
proportion of district-based seats in the larger cities reflects the difficulty of representing diverse constituencies
(Carr and Karuppusamy 2009; Maser 1998).
A wide variety of archival data was collected to measure the relevant social, economic, and geographic characteristics of each city. These variables are designed to operationalize the major factors identified by the economic
property rights model and political interest group models. Proportion construction industry measures the strength
of development interests as the proportion of city establishments in the construction industry; the data come
from the U.S. Census Bureau Zip Code Business Patterns
with GIS matching zip codes to city boundaries. The socioeconomic index combines median income, percent of
population with college degrees or greater, and median
housing value. Each component of the socioeconomic
scale is normalized to range between 0 and 100 and then
averaged; the resulting reliability is Cronbach’s alpha =
.88. Per capita environmental license plate expenditures are
measured at the county level to provide an alternative
measurement of environmental values. The link between
socioeconomic status and environmental support is corroborated by a Pearson’s correlation = .33 between the
socioeconomic index in each city and environmental license plate expenditures. The construction industry and
environmental license plate variables change for each year
of the study (i.e., time variant), but the socioeconomic index is constant (i.e., time invariant).
The property rights model is operationalized with
several demographic and geographic variables. Population density 2000 is the city population density from the
2000 U.S. Population Census; this variable is highly correlated with population density per road mile. Log Land
Miles 2 is the natural log of the square miles of land area
covered by a city, also from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Shoreline miles is the number of shoreline miles within
city boundaries from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Proportion land in natural areas is
the proportion of land area in each city identified in the
Florida Natural Areas Inventory as protected or sensi-
tive land managed by federal, state, or local governments.
These variables are constant over the time period of our
study.
Analysis Results: Predicting Patterns of
Local Land-Use Change and Development
The analysis in this section presents two multivariate
panel models using the land-use amendment index and
housing permits as dependent variables. One of the most
important characteristics of the land-use amendment index is that amendments were not offered in every cycle; amendments were only submitted in 473 (9.8%) of
the 4,836 amendment cycles that we observe from 1998
to 2003. Because the decision to submit an amendment
package is probably nonrandom, we estimate Heckman
selection bias models where the selection equation uses
the property rights variables to predict which cycles are
observed, and the outcome equation uses the political institutions and interest group variables to predict the score
on the aggregated land-use change index. The use of the
property rights model variables in the selection equation (beyond the purpose of helping identify the model)
follows our previous work (Lubell, Feiock, and Ramirez
2005), where we argue that the economic variables constitute the basic context in which the political market operates. This does represent a specific theoretical assumption, where bargaining over property rights only occurs
when resource scarcity reaches a certain threshold.3 Robust standard errors clustered at the city level are used to
correct standard errors for within-city error correlations
and heteroskedasticity caused by the panel structure of
the data (Cameron and Trivedi 2005).
3
In response to a reviewer comment, we also estimated Heckman
models that included the significant property rights variables in the
outcome equation. While an exclusion restriction is not technically
needed to estimate the Heckman model via MLE, other work has
found excluded variables increase parameter stability, and thus
percentage of lands in natural areas is excluded from the outcome
equations. None of the property rights variables were significant in
the outcome equation, and the substantive results of the analysis
remain unchanged. Contact corresponding author for the model
results.
658
MARK LUBELL, RICHARD C. FEIOCK, AND EDGAR E. RAMIREZ DE LA CRUZ
The second analysis uses the annual number of singlefamily home permits as the dependent variable and estimates a random intercept model with robust standard
errors clustered at the city level to provide correct standard errors.4 The random intercept model also takes advantage of the panel structure of the data by assuming
there are unobserved variables in each city that may affect the average number of housing permits (Cameron
and Trivedi 2005; Wooldridge 2002). This helps control
for any larger economic processes in each city that may
be affecting growth patterns and industry dynamics, but
which may not be captured by our measured variables.
Another reason for using the random intercept model is
that it allows for the estimation of regression parameters for time-invariant independent variables; most of the
variables in this analysis are time invariant.
In both models, the key consideration is estimating
the effects of the political institutions. The political market theory suggests both direct and interactive effects of
institutions; different types of institutions are expected
to increase or decrease the influence of different interest
group constituencies. To test for these interaction effects,
we estimated models with separate interaction terms for
each political institution factor score by interest variable
that was hypothesized by our theory (the interactive hypotheses stated earlier). These interaction terms involve
different combinations of the same variables; if they are
entered into one model all at the same time, there is a
large amount of multicollinearity and parameter instability. Hence, our strategy was to estimate interaction models
with each hypothesized interaction term one at a time and
then report models that retain those interactions significantly different from zero at the p < .10 level. We found
no significant interactions with the direct democracy factor score or the legislative structure variables. However,
there were significant interactions between the mayormanager factor score and the construction industry and
socioeconomic variables. In each of the tables below, the
first column shows the model without any institutional
interactions, the second column shows the model with
the retained significant interactions, and the third column shows models including the environmental license
plate data.
Table 3 reports the results of the Heckman model
of the land-use change index. The first results to note
are the estimates for the interest groups and property
rights variables in the noninteractive model. Reflecting
4
We also estimated the models with panel-corrected standard errors
as recommended by Beck and Katz (1995). The PCSE errors are
much smaller than the random intercept model, and nearly all of
the coefficients are significantly different from zero at p < .05. Thus
the random intercept model represents a more conservative set of
assumptions.
the traditional growth machine theory, higher socioeconomic status communities and those with higher environmental license plate expenditures tend to have more
pro-environmental land-use changes, while communities with higher levels of the construction industry will be
more pro-development. Larger communities with higher
population densities are more likely to submit an amendment package, while cities with more shoreline and natural areas are less likely to submit a package. Because the
average amendment package is pro-development, the results of the selection equation can be interpreted as larger,
more populous and inland cities adjusting property rights
to allow more intense development.
The political institution factor scores have no significant direct effects in the land-use change model, and
there is no evidence in this analysis that legislative or direct democracy institutions influence land-use changes.
However, there is a significant positive interaction effect between the mayor-manager factor score and socioeconomic status. Figure 1 graphs the marginal effects of
socioeconomic status and proportion construction as a
function of mayor-manager balance. The marginal effects
are calculated by taking the partial derivative with respect
to the interest group variables that have significant interactions with the mayor-manager factor score from the
estimates in column 2 of the table (without the environmental license plate data).
Consistent with Hypothesis 1b, Figure 1 shows how
the positive influence of socioeconomic status on the
direction of land-use change is much higher in cities
that emphasize mayoral power (high mayor-manager factor scores). When manager power is high (low mayormanager factor scores), then higher socioeconomic individuals have a reduced influence on the direction of
land-use change. From the reverse perspective, mayors
are more likely to favor pro-environmental amendments
as socioeconomic status increases, reflecting their electoral incentives. The positive but statistically insignificant
(possibly due to the imprecision of the county-level measure) interaction effect between environmental license
plate expenditures and mayor-manager balance reported
in column 3 is also consistent with this argument. Political institutions that favor mayoral power thus enhance
the conflict between development and wealthy (possibly
environmental) interests predicted by the property rights
models, and at the same time may break the growth machine monopoly of development interests by increasing
the relative power of wealthy (possibly environmental)
interests. But as it turns out, the growth machine perspective is the norm in Florida cities because the mode
of the mayor-manager factor score = −.14 (mean = .04),
where an increase in socioeconomic status has a relatively
small influence on the direction of land-use change.
LOCAL INSTITUTIONS AND URBAN GROWTH
659
TABLE 3 Heckman Selection Bias Models of General Plan Amendment Conservation Index
(1998–2003)
Without
Interaction
With
Interactions
With Interactions
and Environmental
License Plate Data
Outcome Equations: Conservation Index
Interest Group Variables
Proportion White
Socioeconomic Index (0–100)
Proportion Construction Industry
Per Capita Environmental License
Plate Expenditures
Institutional Variables and Interactions
Direct Democracy
Mayor-Manager Balance
Percent District
Mayor-Manager ∗ Socioeconomic
Mayor-Manager ∗ Construction
Mayor-Manager ∗ Environmental
Constant
.01 (.04)
.15 (.05)∗∗
−19.04 (9.01)∗∗
—
.002 (.03)
.22 (.05)∗∗
−12.70 (9.75)
—
−.02 (.03)
.17 (.05)∗∗
−14.53 (9.73)∗
4.71 (1.65)∗∗
.14 (1.61)
−1.88 (2.08)
.01 (.01)
—
—
—
−3.97 (4.17)
.85 (1.56)
−15.36 (9.11)∗
.015 (.01)
.59 (.28)∗∗
42.11 (45.88)
—
−5.02 (4.37)
1.00 (1.58)
−17.32 (9.80)∗
.01 (.01)
.43 (.24)∗
45.32 (45.09)
6.59 (7.91)
−6.10 (4.29)
Selection Equations: Amendments Submitted or Not
Property Rights Variables
Population Density 2000
Log Land Miles 2
Shoreline Miles
Proportion Land in Natural Areas
Constant
Rho
Sigma
Lambda
Wald Test of Independent Equations
Wald Test of Model Fit
Observations
.00002 (.00001)∗
.38 (.03)∗∗
−.002 (.0005)∗∗
−.24 (.53)
−1.95 (.08)∗∗
−.002 (.18)
8.47 (.89)∗∗
.02 (1.57)
␹ 2 (1 d.f.) = .07
␹ 2 (7 d.f.) = 22.7∗∗
Censored = 4308
Uncensored = 437
.00002 (.00001)∗
.37 (.03)∗∗
−.002 (.0006)∗∗
−.24 (.53)
−1.95 (.08)∗∗
−.03 (.20)
8.43 (.86)∗∗
−.26 (1.69)
␹ 2 (1 d.f.) = 0.02
␹ 2 (7 d.f.) = 30.48∗∗
Censored = 4308
Uncensored = 437
.00002 (.00001)∗
.37 (.03)∗
−.002 (.0005)∗
−.24 (.53)
−1.95 (.08)∗
−.005 (.19)
8.37 (.84)∗
−.041 (1.56)
␹ 2 (1 d.f.) = 0.01
␹ 2 (10 d.f.) = 35.63∗∗
Censored = 4308
Uncensored = 437
Note: Probability of observed data, given parameter = 0, ∗ p = .10; ∗∗ p < .05.
Table 4 reports the results of the models for singlefamily housing permits. The property rights variables
have similar effects in both the interactive and noninteractive models: new building is more likely to occur
in cities with larger land area and more shoreline miles.
A larger land base provides more space for new development, and the justifiably famous Florida shoreline is
one of the traditional lures for new homeowners. At the
same time, the percentage of land in natural areas places
more restrictions on land supply for new homes and thus
reduces the number of permits.
Turning to the interest group variables in the noninteractive models, it appears the construction industry has
a very large positive influence on the number of housing permits.5 But the results of the socioeconomic status
5
A plausible hypothesis is that there are reciprocal effects between
the number of housing permits and the size of the construction
industry, where more construction enterprises migrate to fastgrowing cities. We estimated some two-stage least squares analysis
of this question, and found no empirical evidence that the number of housing permits increased the construction industry. The
empirical reason for this is that there is very little variance in the
proportion of construction industry across the years of our analysis in a given city, while there is much more variance in housing
permits. Thus we are capturing a relatively short-term snapshot
of in-place development interests advocating for growth. We surmise that any market adjustment for new construction industries
MARK LUBELL, RICHARD C. FEIOCK, AND EDGAR E. RAMIREZ DE LA CRUZ
660
FIGURE 1 Marginal Effects of Interest Groups Variables as
Function of Mayor-Manager Balance
0
.2
Socioeconomic Index
.4
.6
.8
Conservation Amendment Index
-.5
0
.5
Mayor-Manager Balance
1
0
1000
2000
Proportion Construction
8
6
-1000
4
2
Socioeconomic Index
10
3000
Housing Permits
-.5
0
.5
Mayor-Manager Balance
1
Marginal Effect of Socioeconomic Index
Marginal Effect of Proportion Construction
and environmental license plate variables are surprising
and inconsistent with the traditional property rights perspective. Unlike the land-use amendment change model,
higher socioeconomic status and license plate expenditures produce more building permits.
moving to growing towns is a longer-term process, and further research may uncover those dynamics. Contact corresponding author
for results of two-stage least squares analysis.
This surprising finding is even more apparent in the
interaction of the mayor-manager factor score with the
interest group variables, which again is the most interesting result because it shows how the influence of interest
communities depends on the structure of political institutions. The mayor-manager factor score has a positive
interaction with socioeconomic status, but a negative interaction with proportion construction industry. Figure 1
LOCAL INSTITUTIONS AND URBAN GROWTH
661
TABLE 4 Random Intercept Panel Model for Single-Family Home Permits (1998–2003)
Interest Group Variables
Proportion White
Socioeconomic Index (0–100)
Proportion Construction Industry
Per Capita Environmental License
Plate Expenditures
Institutional Variables and Interactions
Direct Democracy
Mayor-Manager Balance
Percent District
Mayor-Manager ∗ Socioeconomics
Mayor-Manager ∗ Construction
Mayor/Manager ∗ Environmental
Property Rights Variables
Population Density 2000
Log Land Miles 2
Shoreline Miles
Proportion Land in Natural Areas
Constant
Model Fit
Rho
Number of Observations
Without
Interactions
With
Interactions
With Interactions
and Environmental
License Plate Data
−1.03 (.65)
3.364 (1.11)∗∗
1466.33 (383.45)∗∗
—
−1.23 (.68)∗
4.34 (1.25)∗∗
1442.33 (376.62)∗∗
—
−1.16 (.69)∗
4.06 (1.37)∗∗
1341.48 (388.22)∗∗
92.09 (48.83)∗
62.40 (32.97)∗
80.25 (38.19)
−.75 (.47)
—
—
—
62.40(26.18)∗∗
180.59 (94.22)∗∗
−.77 (.48)
5.77 (2.57)∗∗
−2205.88 (907.04)∗∗
—
65.43 (26.64)∗∗
181.75 (110.62)∗
−.88 (.48)∗
3.65 (2.89)
−2622.55 (914.91)∗
123.65 (127.88)
.003 (.003)
99.14 (21.36)∗∗
3.45 (.87)∗∗
−316.25 (128.75)∗∗
−227.97 (86.23)∗∗
R2 = .54
2
␹ (10 d.f.) = 75.80∗∗
.57
1538
.003 (.003)
99.61 (21.38)∗∗
3.43 (.87)∗∗
−309.64 (129.91)∗∗
−234.83 (86.46)∗∗
R2 = .55
2
␹ (12 d.f.) = 77.24∗∗
.57
1538
.006 (.004)
107.46 (22.21)∗∗
2.33 (1.55)
−285.09 (146.45)∗
−283.25 (86.86)∗
R2 = .32
2
␹ (14 d.f.) = 58.80∗∗
.58
1514
Note: Probability of observed data, given parameter = 0, ∗ p = .10; ∗∗ p < .05.
displays the marginal effects of construction and socioeconomic status as a function of mayor-manager balance.
The positive interaction term between mayoral power
and the socioeconomic status index suggests that mayors
enhance the preferences of wealthier citizens. When the
balance of executive branch power favors mayors (high
mayor-manager factor scores), socioeconomic status has
a larger positive influence on the number of housing permits and development interests have a smaller influence.
Conversely, the negative interaction with the construction industry suggests that the construction industry has
a more powerful influence on the number of housing
permits when the balance of power favors managers (low
mayor-manager factor scores). The structure of city executive branch institutions shapes the power of the interest
groups—mayors favor the preferences of higher socioeconomic classes, while managers favor the preferences of
the construction industry.
These results suggest that high socioeconomic communities may be experiencing some type of demand
trade-offs—more wealthy individuals prefer to have environmental amenities, but they also want to own a house
that is close to those environmental amenities. Such a
dynamic may explain the collective-action problems experienced by many communities with high levels of environmental amenities such as Florida beach towns and
western mountain towns. People move to those communities because they want to enjoy the natural environment, but then everybody builds a house as close to those
amenities as possible (e.g., right on the beachfront, or
against the mountains), and thereby decreases the overall value of those amenities through air, water, or visual
pollution.
This “sustainability paradox” of a preference for environmental amenities concurrent with accelerated building is apparent in development controversies throughout
662
MARK LUBELL, RICHARD C. FEIOCK, AND EDGAR E. RAMIREZ DE LA CRUZ
Florida. In coastal communities, environmental demands
for beach protection and restoration have been matched
by demands for expanded coastal development. In Tallahassee, Florida, the community is notable for “canopy
roads” shaded by centuries old moss-draped live oaks,
sweet gums, and hickory trees with limbs that meet in a
towering canopy. These canopy roads have been the focus
of environmental activism, comprehensive plan amendments, and local tree protection ordinances. They have
also been a magnet for residential building and high-end
development. Sprawling subdivisions built along these
roads take advantage of residential demand to live next to
these symbols of the community’s rural past and smalltown appeal. Ironically, cuts in the canopy and increased
congestion result, as these new subdivisions empty onto
the canopy roads. Such conflicts are emblematic of how
the desire to live near environmental amenities threatens
the very values which attract people in the first place.
Another potential interpretation for this surprising
finding is that wealthier and environmental interests are
expressing preferences for sustainability by attempting
to merge development with environmental amenities. If
this is true, an additional prediction would be that the
proportion of housing permits abiding to sustainability principles should be higher in wealthier communities. While we cannot test this prediction here, the proportion of green building throughout the United States
remains relatively small and unlikely to outweigh the
environmental costs of urbanization. For example, the
United States Green Building Council (USGBC) reports
that only 234 neighborhood developments in the country are registered in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building rating system,
and while the sustainability trend is stronger in commercial buildings, only 10% of commercial new construction is expected to be green by 2010 (USGBC 2008).
Furthermore, while the LEED system is rightly noted
for having strong standards, there remain many doubts
about whether green building truly delivers environmental benefits rather than being a symbolic marketing
label.
The direct democracy factor score increases the number of permits in all models. This is contrary to the work of
Gerber and Phillips and the predictions of Hypothesis 3a;
there may be differences between how direct democracy
affects policies versus day-to-day permitting decisions.
Gerber and Phillips examined provisions for referenda
requirements for large-scale development rather than the
general availability of direct democracy provisions. Perhaps the availability of these safeguards reduces the risk
of permitting new development (Maser 1998).
Conclusion
This article investigates the influence of political institutions on the politics of local growth and land use in
Florida cities. The contribution of the political market
framework is to integrate the interest group and property
rights perspectives on local politics, with an eye towards
how local political institutions provide a context for political contracting. The analysis shows that the traditional
distinction between reform and nonreform governments
is too simple; there is a variety of institutional arrangements that shape the balance of power between mayors
and city managers. The most important empirical prediction is that there will be interaction effects between
indicators of interest group strength and the structure of
political institutions. The direction of these interaction
effects depends on assumptions about the political incentives of different types of actors, as well as the structure
of interest representation.
The empirical analysis provides some intriguing evidence for the influence of institutions on political contracting. Mayors appear to have a strong connection to
higher socioeconomic status interests in a community.
As mayoral power increases, higher socioeconomic status
shifts the balance of land-use change to be more proenvironmental, but at the same time increases the rate
of building permits. In both cases, mayors appear more
responsive to socioeconomic status, but the results do
suggest a potential tension between the preferences of
wealthy communities. City managers, on the other hand,
appear to play a more straightforward role with respect
to the construction industry—a role that supports the
growth machine hypothesis that city managers are driven
by economic development incentives and thus more open
to influence from concentrated development interests.
A surprising finding is that higher socioeconomic
interests want to change land use in ways that preserve
environmental amenities, but at the same time would like
the option of buying a single-family home. The potential
conflict between these preferences creates a sustainability
paradox that leads to people lamenting a loss of environmental amenities and services caused by too much
growth. The sustainability paradox is directly related to
tragedy of the commons models in the sense that each residential unit added reduces the availability of the public
goods produced by environmental land-use changes. The
emerging “green building” movement grapples directly
with this paradox.
It is important to note the limitations of this current
study in order to motivate similar research in the future.
We cannot claim that this study alone confirms the utility
LOCAL INSTITUTIONS AND URBAN GROWTH
663
of the political contracting framework or the broad role
of political institutions. A variety of other research directions are needed to accumulate knowledge and generate
a much broader understanding of institutional dynamics. First, we do not measure the emergence of political
institutions in this study; we hold them constant over the
time frame of our observations. But other urban politics
research (Ruhil et al. 1999) suggests that political institutions are created endogenously through some type of
political contracting process.
Second, there are some measurement problems that
deserve attention. The conservation amendment index is
admittedly crude; better measures of the environmental
and economic consequences of land-use decisions should
be developed (geographic information systems and satellite land-use data are possibilities). More precise measures
are needed of environmental values at the city level that are
not conflated with wealth; geographically explicit survey
data may be one solution. There are also other measures
of legislative institutions that may be important but were
not available in this study, such as legislative professionalization, term limits, and electoral competitiveness. However, these measures of legislative institutions will only
be interesting to the extent they can be connected to the
political incentives of different types of interest groups.
Third, the study needs to be replicated outside of
Florida. Florida has some important advantages as a study
site, including substantial variance in the structure of local
TABLE 1A
governments, temporally well-defined moments when institutional change can occur, and a state-level policy for
consolidating records. But Florida also has a unique political culture and natural environment, which may have
consequences for the dynamics of local political institutions. As studies from other locations accumulate, there
will probably be some institutional effects that are consistent across areas while others will vary. For example,
the tendency for managers to favor development interests while mayors favor wealthy interests may be a general feature of local politics. However, a study outside of
Florida that produces different findings would not reduce
the value of this particular analysis. Rather, it serves as a
foundation for developing theories about how contextual
variables that vary across locations will have effects on
institutional dynamics.
Fourth, political contracting and institutional structures should matter for local policies other than growth
and land use. For example, Peterson’s (1981) classic work
on “city limits” divides policies into redistributive, distributive, and allocational. While it is not entirely clear
what category environmental policies fall into, Peterson
shows important differences in political dynamics across
issue types. Given our findings about the relationship between socioeconomics and mayoral power, a comparative
study of redistributive policy may be particularly fruitful
because socioeconomic status will be a strong shaper of
policy preferences.
Local Institutions Factor Analysis
Factor 1
Factor 2
Factor 3
Uniqueness
Mayor-Manager Institutions
Elected Mayor
Mayor-Council Form of Government
Mayor has Budget Control
Mayor is Full-Time
Mayor has No Term Limits
Mayor has Veto
Mayor has Full-Time Staff
Professional Manager
Council-Manager Form of Government
Manager has Budget Control
.27
.97
.79
.59
.48
.68
.67
−.93
−.96
−.93
.03
−.01
.08
−.01
−.04
.02
.12
.08
.05
.01
.79
−.01
.23
.39
−.70
.26
−.11
.15
.05
−.01
.25
.06
.29
.45
.33
.44
.58
.12
.07
.13
Direct Democracy Institutions
Citizen Initiative
Citizen Referendum
Citizen Recall
.03
−.07
.04
.93
.93
.89
.05
−.09
.01
.13
.13
.23
Note: Entries are rotated factor loadings using principal factors method, oblique rotation, and tetrachoric correlation
matrix to account for dichotomous variables.
MARK LUBELL, RICHARD C. FEIOCK, AND EDGAR E. RAMIREZ DE LA CRUZ
664
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