Suburban Support for No-Growth Policies: Implications for the Growth Revolt

:This article analyzes suburban support for no-growth policies in surveys conducted in rapidly growing Orange County, California. Slow-growth policies are consistently favored by wide margins. However, 64% of the respondents to a 1987 survey were opposed to measures halting all local development. No-growth supporters are a select group, are more likely to live in a rapidly growing area, perceive growth as the biggest problem, rate the local quality of life negatively, express pessimism about the future, and prefer living in small communities. The lack of public support for no growth has a number of important policy implications which are discussed in this article.