Rethinking the approach to urban growth views

Views on general urban, commercial, and light industrial growth are analyzed to determine the effect of substantive differences. While consistency across issues is often assumed, public opinion theory and recent findings on environmental concern suggest otherwise. Also, "utility-maximizing" actors (Coleman, 1986) may be influenced by the tax and employment benefits of economic growth. As suggested, growth views varied across issues and intercorrelations were only moderate. Strongest support was for attracting light industry. Bivariate and regression analyses of the effects of sociodemographic and community evaluation variables indicated that while no predictor was significantly related to all three growth issues, the strongest were city's performance controlling growth, age, and homeownership. Best predicted were views toward general growth, while views on attracting industry were least explained. An index of growth views resulted in generally weaker relationships although one variable, sex, became significant.