Progressive Policy, Regressive Outcome: State Preemption & Local Land Use Policy

• In Event: Poster Session: Current and Classical Topics in Political Psychology & State Politics and Policy
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: State Politics and Policy

Abstract

The United States is currently facing an inflection point in terms of federalism and its impact on greater trends of democracy. Federalism or the sharing of powers by different levels of government is now overwhelmingly utilized as a rallying cry for more power to be devolved to the states. The move toward extreme devolution has caused a crisis of democracy, eroding traditional institutions at the government level, but also changing the way that everyday citizens are able to participate in government. While most attention is focused on state and federal conflict, there are increasing conflicts characterized by state to state conflict and state and local conflict. Especially in states with urban/rural divides, state preemption is being used to push legislation with little to no local civic engagement. Additionally, research suggests that this conflict at the local level is what drives state and eventually federal polarization and conflict.
Conflict is glaringly evident in the role of housing policy.
Housing represents a particular vexing policy problem in that it relies entirely on a federalist structure of devolved policy making. Counties and cities now, more than ever are empowered to alleviate systemic barriers of affordability and segregation through incredibly localized progressive policies, and yet, segregation still exists in many of the United States’ most robust housing forward cities. This paper reviews the impacts of policy but also, it reviews the push and pull between local and state devolution and preemption, and how this process impacts civic engagement. In a state like Oregon for example, state preemption has forced the hand of many cities to produce missing middle housing. Without the democratic process as the local level, surveys show major cleavages between urban and rural towns, which may increase polarization over time. If the policy itself alleviates income inequality, one might argue that the resulting urban/rural conflict is a typical social policy outcome. But when both Eastern and Southern Oregon are calling for succession into Greater Idaho and the State of Jefferson, the extreme polarization that results from these policies is hard to ignore.
This paper explores whether state preemption and the erosion of the traditional democratic process at the local level decreases civic inclusion and engagement. Using ACS time series data, across three “progressive cities”, I look at variety of different factors, pre and post preemption. Additionally, I review council meetings for resident discourse changes during this time period. If people feel as if the state government is going to make decisions without local input, what incentive do they have to be engaged in the deliberation process and does this change the ways in which policy is passed and implemented. Further, does it change the way people think about the policies, does it increase polarization? Finally, once this policy is implemented, what impact does it have on actual income inequality?

Author

• Mary Follo, University of Oregon