State Growth Management and Urban Sprawl Reduction: Lessons from Florida

Abstract

Several U.S. states have used state growth management regulations for many years to try to reduce urban sprawl. Although these regulations can theoretically reduce sprawl, there is very little empirical evidence to demonstrate that they do so. Existing studies examining this issue provide conflicting evidence. Moreover, most of these studies use cross-sectional research designs (that have the choice of end-points problem). This paper reports findings from a study of the effects of the Florida Growth Management Act (GMA) on jobs in the entire construction industry—housing and nonhousing. The study used time-series data from all counties in the state for a 24-year period from 1977 to 2000 in a before–after quasi-experimental research design. The findings suggest that Florida’s growth management policies did reduce the size of the construction sector in a statistically significant manner, likely caused spatial relocation of construction jobs, and therefore was effective in checking sprawl.