State Growth Management Programs and Central-City Revitalization

Abstract

During the latter part of the 20th century, many U.S. state governments adopted growth management programs for the purpose of establishing a more proactive role in the regulation of land use. Although many scholars have recently begun to critically examine the implementation of these new state initiatives, few have explored their effects on patterns of intraurban land development. In this article, we develop a framework for thinking about the likely effects of state growth management programs on a central city's ability to attract new residential construction activity and investigate this issue using a panel data approach. Multivariate regression results suggest that these programs have observable effects on the spatial distribution of residential construction activity within urban areas. Furthermore, we accept several hypotheses regarding coefficient stability across states, regions, and program designs. These findings suggest that state growth management programs may be an effective tool for promoting the revitalization of central cities.