Politics, Institutions, and the Implementation of Growth Management Policy in Florida Cities

This study originated from the following two questions: to what extent do city governments engage in policy actions to restrict development and manage growth; and how do local political institutions shape the restrictiveness of local growth management? To answer the questions, first of all, this dissertation identifies variations in the exercise of growth management powers across cities based on financial data gathered from fiscal reports filed with the Florida Comptroller, and policy implementation/adoption data gathered in a mail survey conducted by the author in collaboration with Richard Feiock and Antonio Tavares. Information on city level political institutions and governing structures is gathered from the International City Management Association's (ICMA) 2001 Form of Government Survey. Based on information about growth management expenditure and policy adoption/implementation, this study examines a broad set of government institutions extended to include the size and organization of city councils and standing committees. This research focused on the implementation and exercise of discretionary powers as well as policy adoption in relation to growth management based on a political market approach. In the political market approach, focusing on the demander and supplier help us understand internal forces of growth management policy. Finally, acknowledging that the underlying theory of institutions in this work is applicable to cities, this study attempts to identify cities' spatial impact on expenditures for growth management. Referring to policy diffusion theory, we review the impact of neighboring cites' on comprehensive planning expenditure as identifying the internal and external forces by using of political market and spatial effect model. In this research, the followings are the core parts we focus on implementation of growth management policy: local comprehensive planning expenditures, zoning request approval, and policy enforcement of the innovative policies. We considered the role of local institutions as supplier, political economy demands, and municipal context. For the hypotheses tests, we employ three different kinds of statistical analysis: spatial regression, ordered probit, and probit analysis.