Article
Residential Development and Hierarchical Governance: Multifamily Housing and Multilevel Analysis
Sang-Chul Park1, Chang Gyu Kwak2, Sung-Wook Kwon3
1Sang-Chul Park is a postdoctoral research associate in the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Hinkley Center. His research interests include hierarchical and local governance, smart growth management, and urban and health policy. E-mail:
sp06m@my.fsu.edu.
2Chang Gyu Kwak is a doctoral student in the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy at Florida State University. His research interests include local governance, technology innovation, and energy policy. E-mail:
ck10e@my.fsu.edu.
3Sung-Wook Kwon (corresponding author) is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Texas Tech University. His research interests include intergovernmental collaboration, economic and sustainable development, local service delivery, and local political institutions. E-mail:
sung.kwon@ttu.edu.
© Copyright 2012 Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Received: Jun 08, 2012; Revised: Jun 26, 2012; Revised: Aug 14, 2012; Accepted: Aug 16, 2012
Published Online: Aug 31, 2012
Abstract
This study investigates factors that influence multifamily housing zoning from a hierarchical governance perspective. Local zoning is a product of interactive processes among various stakeholders and of local politics. Since local zoning represents community interests in land development and has an exclusionary characteristic, multifamily housing zoning is controversial in some localities. We hypothesize that a hierarchical governance structure influences the supply of local multifamily housing zoning. The result of a hierarchical generalized linear model shows evidence that state smart growth reform and state intervention in local land use are positively associated with the establishment of local multifamily housing zoning. The decisions are also affected by local factors such as the supply of land, density restrictions, cost of new infrastructure, and city budget constraints. This study concludes that state authority and smart growth reform make it possible for local governments to commit to multifamily housing zoning to achieve housing affordability and high-density development.
Keywords: multifamily housing zoning; hierarchical governance; smart growth management
