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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 649 650 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 652 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). 654 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. 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