Community Power and Population Increase: An Empirical Test of the Growth Machine Model

Attempts to relate community power to policy outputs have been criticized for lacking theoretical relevance and statistical significance. To overcome these criticisms, this research employs a power-policy model based on a political economy framework which utilizes Molotch's conpetion of the community as a growth machine. Analysis of the Permanent Community Sample provides strong power-policy relationships that support the major tenets of the growth machine explanation: As members of the business elite gain power, they can successfully promote population growth that provides them with greater profits through higher property values. The most widely cited common good for growth, lower unemployment, does not accrue. This supports the relevance of a political economy approach to community phenomena and suggests different directions for community power research.