ABSTRACT

This study takes a new look at place development, analyzing the power of local business actors as compared to civic society and government in localities across the United States. We address the contested question of who controls place-making with a focus on growth control land-use policies. Theoretically, we draw from sociology’s growth machine framework to provide a comparative account of business actors and to speak to puzzling findings from this literature that policies ostensibly designed to stymie growth across places often promote it. Our study is based on more than 1,700 localities. We find that while business actors call the shots on economic development policy, they appear essentially apathetic about land-use policy. This suggests that land-use policies may be carefully designed to accommodate growth machine business interests. Local governments set the course for land-use as well as economic development policy, but civil society actors have relatively little influence.

摘要

本研究重新审视了地方发展，分析了与美国各地的公民社会和政府相比，当地商业行为者的力量。我们解决了谁控制场所营造的有争议的问题，重点是增长控制土地使用政策。从理论上讲，我们从社会学的增长机器框架中汲取了对商业行为者的比较说明，并与这些文献中令人费解的发现进行了对话，即表面上旨在阻碍跨地区增长的政策往往会促进增长。我们的研究基于 1,700 多个地点。我们发现，虽然商业行为者在经济发展政策上发号施令，但他们似乎对土地使用政策基本上漠不关心。这表明土地使用政策可能经过精心设计，以适应增长机器的商业利益。