Changing Sources of Suburban Support for Local Growth Controls

Abstract

Surveys conducted over time in the Orange County, CA, suburban region are used to test hypotheses about the predictors of support for local growth controls. Between 1982 and 1993, public support for local growth controls first increased and then declined. Negative community perceptions are consistently related to support for local growth controls, while higher municipal growth rates are never significant. Higher socio-economic status is related to support for stricter growth controls only at the early stage, while perceived rapid growth is a significant factor at later times. Personal characteristics that have been related to environmentalism (i.e. age, liberalism) become significant predictors of perceiving rapid growth in the latest stage. The changing sources of suburban support for local growth controls help to explain why previous studies taken at one point in time have contradictory findings.