Does Growth Management Matter? The Effect of Growth Management on Economic Performance

Abstract

Growth management attempts to improve the ordering of development to improve outcomes. To taxpayers, growth management promises more efficient delivery of public facilities and services. To developers, growth management promises more certainty. To citizen activists, growth management promises resolution of development problems in advance, instead of on an ad hoc basis. These promises are heroic. Nonetheless, even if only partly successful, communities engaged in growth management should out-perform other communities in overall economic output. This paper evaluates the economic performance of 182 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) with 1990 populations between 100,000 and 500,000 over the period 1972 to 1992 with respect to presence or absence of growth management efforts such as urban growth boundaries, urban service limits, and state or regional oversight of local planning. We find a positive association between the presence of growth management and economic performance; communities engaged in growth management realized marginal improvements in economic performance relative to other communities, ceteris parnbus.

Compact City and Urban Sprawl

“…Porter (1997) showed that land price increases in cities with growth management were largely caused by increases in attractiveness. Nelson and Peterman (2000) showed that cities with growth management on average are more successful than cities without, and Downs (2002) demonstrated that house prices in Portland have not grown faster than in other comparable metropolitan areas in the United States.…”

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Regulatory Growth Management Programs

“…After subsiding briefly in the early 1980s, state-level land use reforms went through a period of rapid expansion and have since been broadened to include a wide range of quality-of-life issues. Most state and regional planning programs focus on containing urban sprawl but recognize the need to accommodate growth through coordinated, wellplanned land use (DeGrove 1992;Gale 1992;Nelson et al 1995;Burby and May 1997;Porter 1997;Nelson and Peterman 2000). Although the actual degree of authority varies, federal policy (especially the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act [ISTEA] and subsequent Transportation Equity Act [TEA21]) and renewed state interest have served to broaden the powers of regional planning organizations considerably.…”

State growth management, smart growth and urban containment: A review of the US and a study of the heartland

“…The second phase commenced with revisions to Florida's land-use laws in 1984 and1985 and continued into the early 1990s with new legislation in Delaware, Maine, Rhode Island and Vermont (DeGrove & Miness, 1992, p. 1;Gale, 1992;Burby et al, 1997, p. 2). It is distinguished from the first phase in its efforts to balance economic and environmental sustainability and equity (Nelson & Peterman, 2000;DeGrove, 2005, p. 4). In this phase, ''consistency, concurrency, compact urban forms,'' and ''quality of life issues'' took on more importance (DeGrove, 2005, p. 4).…”