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Local Government Capacity to Respond to Environmental Change: Insights from Towns in New York State

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Abstract

Local governments attempting to respond to environmental change face an array of challenges. To better understand policy responses and factors influencing local government capacity to respond to environmental change, we studied three environmental issues affecting rural or peri-urban towns in different regions of New York State: climate change in the Adirondacks (n = 63 towns), loss of open space due to residential/commercial development in the Hudson Valley (n = 50), and natural gas development in the Southern Tier (n = 62). Our analysis focused on towns’ progression through three key stages of the environmental policy process (issue awareness and salience, common goals and agenda setting, policy development and implementation) and the factors that affect this progression and overall capacity for environmental governance. We found that—when compared to towns addressing open space development and natural gas development—towns confronted with climate change were at a much earlier stage in the policy process and were generally less likely to display the essential resources, social support, and political legitimacy needed for an effective policy response. Social capital cultivated through collaboration and networking was strongly associated with towns’ policy response across all regions and could help municipalities overcome omnipresent resource constraints. By comparing and contrasting municipal responses to each issue, this study highlights the processes and factors influencing local government capacity to address a range of environmental changes across diverse management contexts.

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Notes

  1. For each variable, we report the range across the three regions.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of multiple project collaborators including Cornell Cooperative Extension, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. This work was supported by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Hatch and Smith-Lever project funding. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of NIFA or the USDA.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Parks, Recreation, & Tourism Management, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, 27695, USA

    Lincoln R. Larson & Bethany B. Cutts

  2. Department of Natural Resources, Cornell University, 105 Fernow Hall, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA

    T. Bruce Lauber

  3. Department of Development Sociology, Cornell University, 275E Warren Hall, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA

    David L. Kay

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  1. Lincoln R. Larson
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Correspondence to Lincoln R. Larson.

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Larson, L.R., Lauber, T.B., Kay, D.L. et al. Local Government Capacity to Respond to Environmental Change: Insights from Towns in New York State. Environmental Management 60, 118–135 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-017-0860-1

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