From Boosterism to Qualitative Growth

Abstract

In much of the literature on local development, scholars assume a single continuum from progrowth to antigrowth. This article instead begins with the assumption that every city government is prodevelopment provided that it can have development on its own terms. A factor analysis of development policies from a large sample of cities does not support the view that city governments are either exclusively progrowth or antigrowth; no single continuum emerges. This study demonstrates that development approaches are considerably more complex, and the classifications include multifaceted strategies such as promarket (classic booster and entrepreneurial), qualitative growth, historic preservation, environmentally harmful growth, and redistributive growth (linkage and minority-equity strategies).