URBAN AFFAIRS REVIEW / July 2001Hogen-Esch / SECESSION IN LOS ANGELES URBAN SECESSION AND THE POLITICS OF GROWTH The Case of Los Angeles

Angeles exposes significant weaknesses in the existing literature on urban fragmentation. By constructing a theoretical framework, the author explains the effort as primarily a conflict between interest groups over the power to control urban growth. Second, existing scholarship cannot explain why progrowth Valley business organizations and slow-growth Valley home-owner associations have aligned to form a potent, though seemingly unlikely, urban coalition. The author concludes that these traditional land-use foes share far more common ground on growth issues than conventional theories predict. In particular, both share elements of a suburban land-use vision that provides a substantive foundation for collective action. Recently, numerous communities in American cities have turned to a rela-1tively new empowerment strategy, urban secession. Unlike the process of suburbanization, in which individuals exercise the option to flee, urban secession movements represent group mobilizations of “exit ” over “voice ” or “loyalty ” (Hirschman 1970). Municipal independence, therefore, offers dis-satisfied communities of interest many advantages of exit but “without the inconvenience of moving ” (Briffault 1992). The author examines the Valley Voters Organized Toward Empowerment (Valley VOTE) (1996 to present) secession movement in Los Angeles. Dur-ing the summer of 1996 in Los Angeles, business groups in city of Los Angeles portions of the San Fernando Valley aligned to revive their long-standing dream of municipal independence. As in previous efforts, Valley business organizations cited an unresponsive city hall, the belief that they were shortchanged in city services, and the need for more local control over community affairs as reasons to seek independence. The Valley VOTE move-ment, however, represents a departure from this historical pattern. What makes the effort unique is that progrowth Valley business interests hav