Economic Growth, Environmental Quality, and Social Services: Mapping the Potential for Local Positive-Sum Strategies

:This study examines how local leaders in Boulder, Colorado, perceive the linkages among environmental quality, economic development, and social policy issues. The objective is to identify the extent to which declining resources create perceptions of a zero-sum situation forcing policy trade offs and the bases for potentially reframing these issues as a positive-sum agenda. The study utilized Q methodology and cluster analysis to identify different dimensions in participant viewpoints. The most notable finding is that there are more points of consensus than of conflict among leaders. These patterns appear relatively stable over time, but the introduction of social program issues fragments existing community coalitions. The local political context now appears more fluid, more complex, and more competitive with some indication of support across sectors for positive-sum policy strategies.