The Consumer's Stake in Environmental Regulation

Local governments across the country have been enacting new growth control regulations, usually in the name of environmental protection. The effects of these new controls can be seen most clearly in northern California, where a large number of San Francisco suburbs have all tightened their restrictions on home building. The new control systems have made it easy for groups that oppose growth to block or curtail new housing developments. Growth control tactics and the environmental politics that surround them have succeeded in reducing the amount of housing built in many new developments, restricting competition among home builders, raising costs to consumers, and restricting the locational choices available to families with average incomes. At the same time, they have contributed little to the improvement of the public environment, but have protected many established suburban communities against the inconveniences of growth and the loss of open land. By blocking growth in locations close to job centers, opponents have shifted home building to the suburban fringe, where the environmental costs are usually greater.