The Influence of Environmentalism on Attitudes Toward Local Agriculture and Urban Expansion

Abstract

This article uses the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) to examine attitudes toward local agriculture and land use issues in Santa Barbara County (SBC), California. To do so, we use data collected for the Central Coast Survey in 2010. Although our study has a narrow geographic scope, it has broad implications. Our results suggest that people with stronger pro-environment views support agriculture, and prefer it over urban expansion, but are also critical of agriculture's negative environmental effects. In addition, we find no significant differences between the traditionally pro-agriculture north and the traditionally pro-environment south SBC residents on key policy issues, which suggests that broad political divisions do not dictate attitudes toward rural–environment conflicts.

Keywords:

• agriculture
• environmentalism
• land use planning
• Mumford
• New Environmental Paradigm
• NEP
• urban–rural boundaries

Notes

¹See http://longrange.sbcountyplanning.org/programs/ag_buffer/AgBufferordinance.php.