Local Institutions and the Politics of Urban Growth Mark Lubell

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 determinewhich 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. Patterns of land-use change and growth remainone of the most enduring topics of interest in ur-ban politics (Lewis and Neiman 2002; Sonenshein 1996). This article argues that the structure of local po-litical institutions is a crucial variable for understanding the interactions between development and environmen-tal interests in the context of urban growth. Our focus on local political institutions seeks to integrate two other major theoretical frameworks developed to explain loca