Spillover effects of central cities on sustainability efforts in a metropolitan area
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Spillover effects of central cities on sustainability efforts in a metropolitan area Hyunjung Ji1 · Mark Patrick Tate Jr.2 Accepted: 11 November 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Metropolitan cities can serve as laboratories of sustainable development by experimenting with innovative sustainability programs while leveraging the advantages of metropolitan areas. With the importance of cities’ sustainability efforts, scholars have increasingly explored what factors motivate local governments to implement voluntary sustainability programs by focusing on internal government and community characteristics. However, what is missing in the previous discussion is whether city governments respond to sustainability efforts by other government entities, especially neighboring local governments. Drawing on institutional and policy diffusion theories, we analyzed the sustainability programs of 251 suburban cities in 66 metropolitan areas. We find that suburban cities are likely to consider sustainability efforts of central cities in the same metropolitan area when determining the extent to which they implement their sustainability programs. However, they are not necessarily responsive to sustainability efforts of nearby suburban cities. Our research sheds light on how local governments’ sustainability policy decisions are affected by their relationships with other local governments. It also provides policy implications for the important role of central cities in facilitating collective sustainability efforts in metropolitan areas. Keywords Sustainability policy · Neighboring effects · Mimetic pressures · Local governments · Central cities
* Hyunjung Ji [email protected] Mark Patrick Tate Jr. [email protected] 1
Department of Political Science, University of Alabama, 310 ten Hoor Hall, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA
2
Department of Political Science, University of Alabama, 314 ten Hoor Hall, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA
13
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Policy Sciences
Introduction Human-induced climate change poses an unprecedented threat to society, leading to increases in extreme weather events, sea-level rise, and diminished Arctic sea ice (IPCC 2014). Cities have been blamed for climate change in that about 70% of energy-related greenhouse gas (GHG) is emitted from cities, especially those located in highly urbanized metropolitan areas (Hoornweg et al. 2011). Those emissions are expected to grow further as about seven billion people are expected to live in metropolitan areas by 2050 (World Bank 2009). With the growing GHG attribution of cities, scholars and practitioners alike have increasingly underscored the role of local governments in mitigating and adapting to climate change by decreasing GHG emissions (Hoornweg et al. 2011). Local governments, especially those in metropolitan areas (Ostrom 2010; Varone et al. 2013), can serve as laboratories of sustainability efforts by experimenting with innovative programs while leveraging the advantages of metropolitan areas, such as conce
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