revolt against sprawlthe campaign against this road united property owners, business leaders,...

REVOLT AGAINST SPRAWLTransportation and the Origins of the Marin County

Growth-Control Regime

LOUISE NELSON DYBLEUniversity of Southern California

Popular protest stopped a freeway to California’s Point Reyes peninsula in 1966, and along with it plansfor the development of Marin County. The campaign against this road united property owners, businessleaders, conservationists, and politicians. A destiny of parkland, agriculture, and permanent open spacereplaced expectations of suburban development and steady population growth. This vision of Marin’sfuture was institutionalized through policy and planning, which reinforced and defined a growth-controlregime. This regime dominated and ultimately transcended Marin’s fragmented local government, coor-dinating and guiding policy, philanthropy, and multifarious public and private institutions.

Keywords: local government; freeway revolt; growth control; planning; transportation policy; sub-urban development; regime change; Marin County; California

In 1966, a freeway revolt changed the future of Marin County forever, deci-sively defeating a major east–west route intended to accommodate develop-ment and tourism in scenic West Marin. On December 9, an angry crowd ofhomeowners and nature lovers challenged pro-growth assumptions by deci-sively rejecting freeways, confronting state engineers, and threatening torecall the county’s supervisors. The event marked a critical turning point in the politics and government of this peninsula just north of San Francisco.The effort to stop this road galvanized a growth-control movement that cameto dominate Marin politics, led by local politicians and planners including

38

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This research was supported with funding from the University of CaliforniaTransportation Center, Professor Sally K. Fairfax and the Henry J. Vaux Chair in Forest Policy, and UnitedStates Department of Agriculture National Resources Initiative Grant No. 98-35401-6123, under the auspicesof Professors Louise P. Fortmann, Sally K. Fairfax, Lynn Huntsinger, and Nancy L. Peluso of the Departmentof Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley. Thanks to Mark H.Rose, Kathleen A. Brosnan, Richard A. Walker, Matthew W. Roth, Katherine M. Johnson, and Ann L. Browerfor insightful comments and suggestions.

JOURNAL OF URBAN HISTORY, Vol. 34 No. 1, November 2007 38-66DOI: 10.1177/0096144207308049© 2007 Sage Publications

Peter Behr, Margaret Azevedo, and Paul Zucker. A destiny of parkland, agri-culture, and permanent open space replaced expectations of rapid residentialdevelopment in Marin residents’ collective imagination. Transportation policy,critical to protecting this destiny, took on new meaning: limited access becamethe first barrier against development. By 1971, a new local regime had coa-lesced, uniting political and economic interests in support of an agenda dom-inated by growth control, and inscribing Marin’s new future in local policyand planning.1 At that time, county planners boasted that “Marin has the bestenvironment to live in of all the Bay Area counties. Many would claim it isthe best in the nation.” They pointed out the connection between a high qualityof life, limited growth, and transportation: “It is common knowledge that ahome in Marin commands more money than similar homes elsewhere andcommuters go on paying this premium on environment through a costly andinconvenient transportation system all because they largely believe living hereis worth the extra effort and cost.”2 Marin’s transportation infrastructure hasremained almost unchanged since 1966 because of the public understandingof the relationship between limited access, scarcity, and high property values.Transportation policy was one of a wide variety of local public and privateprograms that supported restrictions on development, including a stringentcounty land use plan that quickly became sacrosanct.

One urban planner recently described Marin as “not representative ofanything.”3 Local activists and historians proudly claim that its residents’success in preserving precarious natural resources and open space at theurban fringe is unique and remarkable, inspired by the rare beauty of itswild coastlines, redwood forests, and lush, green pastures.4 In truth, Marinis not exceptional. Its history and politics are similar to those of exclusivesuburban communities around the country, where serene residential sanctu-aries are protected from development by formidable political and institu-tional barricades that have been constructed by local growth-controlcoalitions. Since the late 1960s, many suburban residents have recognizedthe threat that metropolitan area growth posed to the value of their propertyand their lifestyle since the late 1960s, and seized control of local politicsand government to stave it off.5 Marin’s revolt was part of a nationwidemovement questioning prevailing assumptions about growth and develop-ment both within cities and outside of the urban core. Local landowners onthe urban periphery stopped roads and freeways as a preliminary stepagainst sprawl, refuting the inevitability and desirability of growth byrejecting the most basic infrastructure to accommodate it.6 The story ofMarin’s freeway revolt demonstrates that the nationwide rejection of roadsin the 1960s not only marked the end of an era of unchecked construc-tion/destruction in central cities, but also signaled the rise of the growth-control movement, a new and powerful expression of localism andself-interest that shaped the future of suburban and rural areas.

Dyble / REVOLT AGAINST SPRAWL 39

MARIN’S SUBURBAN DESTINY

Marin civic leaders had been actively promoting suburbanization at leastsince the 1906 earthquake. At the end of the 1950s, its political establishmenttypified the “growth machine,” with government closely integrated with realestate and business associations, all pursuing development as the epitome ofprogress and the harbinger of prosperity.7 Large landholders, real estate pro-fessionals, businessmen, and newspaper publishers populated its board ofsupervisors and city councils. The Marin Real Estate Association vied forrecognition as the county’s top civic association with Marvelous Marin, Inc.,a local chapter of the Redwood Empire Association dedicated to promotingroad construction and tourism. Marin boosters’ central goal was to realize thecounty’s potential as a bedroom community for San Francisco: a “mecca forthe homemaker, where suburban life in a beautifully wooded and floweredcountryside may be combined with business of the metropolis.”8 They wereprimarily responsible for financing the Golden Gate Bridge in the 1930s with-out state or federal subsidies or loans—a testament to their vigor and deter-mination to improve access to Marin for commerce, commuters, and tourists.9

By the early 1960s, a development boom in Marin seemed imminent andinevitable. Since World War II, the entire Bay Area had been undergoingrapid, sustained population growth. The South Bay counties of Santa Claraand San Mateo experienced the most dramatic transformation as their popu-lations doubled, and the suburbs and industrial parks of “Silicon Valley” tookthe place of forests, orchards, and farmland. The North Bay was not farbehind; Marin’s rate of growth was ranked third among the nine Bay Areacounties, its total population growing by nearly 70 percent, from 87,700 res-idents in 1950 to 148,800 in 1960. At the same time, the number of registeredautomobiles in the county doubled, increasing from 31,000 to 62,000.10 Still,Marin had only begun to realize its potential as a suburb, and there was everyreason to believe that growth advocates would achieve their goals; by theend of the 1950s policy and plans at every level—local, state, and federal—encouraged the continuation and even acceleration of Marin’s development.

One of the most promising areas slated for development was West Marin,dominated then by pasture, wetlands, and coastal forests. Several parks,including the Muir Woods National Monument, already attracted significantregional tourism, and a major campaign was underway to create a recreation-oriented national seashore on the Point Reyes peninsula; Congressman ClemMiller introduced federal legislation for its authorization and funding in1959. Civic leaders and public officials expected the seashore to generatesteady tourist traffic, commercial development, and high demand for homesin the vicinity. National Park Service planners predicted that it would hostmore visitors than Yosemite, Kings Canyon, and Sequoia National Parks com-bined. They also promised a more permissive environment for Point Reyesvisitors than they could expect at other national parks, in which “all of the

40 JOURNAL OF URBAN HISTORY / November 2007

recreation activities reasonably allowable [would be] frankly encouraged.”11

Developers rushed to secure approval for subdivisions and new constructionin the area, including an ambitious new city of “Marincello” in the Marinheadlands, near the coast northwest of the Golden Gate Bridge. Their prof-itability hinged on improved access for commuters and weekenders. Severalstate transportation projects, including the expansion of existing highways,new east–west thoroughfares, and a second bay crossing in the form of abridge or a tunnel to accommodate increased traffic to and from San Francisco,were indispensable to these plans.12

Marin’s delegation in Sacramento, led by State Senator John F. McCarthy,functioned as an effective cog in the growth machine, working to ensure thatthese state plans were realized. Elected the youngest legislator in Californiahistory in 1950, McCarthy’s primary qualification for office was being the sonof one of the county’s largest construction contractors. McCarthy was amongthe leading advocates of regional transportation planning, fought tenaciouslyfor rapid transit in Marin, and served on the powerful Senate Transporta-tion Committee. He took credit for the state construction of the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge in 1956, the first direct connection between the Marinpeninsula and the East Bay. In the election of 1960, when McCarthy’s primarygoal was a second bridge from Marin to San Francisco, he beat his challengerby three to one and was the county’s “top vote-getter.”13

McCarthy had personal ties with Governor Edmond G. “Pat” Brown,putting Marin at an advantage in competing for state projects. The Brownadministration’s aggressive pursuit of roads and highways propelled Californiato the forefront of the national post-World War II construction boom. WhenCongress passed the federal Interstate and Defense Highway Act and estab-lished a Highway Trust Fund in 1956, California’s politicians and public worksofficials were poised to tap into still larger federal subsidies. In 1959, the statelegislature adopted the ambitious California Freeway Program, which consol-idated existing local plans into a statewide system. This document was a land-mark in planning for growth in California, and it made metropolitan areas thefocal points of construction. It included an entirely new freeway system rest-ing on the construction of a second Marin–San Francisco crossing, designed toopen the Pacific Coast for recreation and development. Not only was Highway101, the major north–south route in Marin, to be widened and improved, butthe county was also to get two new east–west highways, Routes 17 and 37, anda greatly expanded Shoreline Highway along the Pacific Coast. All of theseroutes would be built to freeway standards, with limited access and high-speedtraffic. These plans represented a wholesale commitment to the automobile asthe basis of the transportation system, backed by generous federal and statefunding. They provided the basic framework necessary for sustaining the rapidgrowth of Marin, particularly West Marin, into the foreseeable future.14

A 1959 Army Corps of Engineers report detailed expectations for future BayArea land use and development patterns based on the new state transportation


plans. The authors of the report predicted that Marin would grow steadily from151,000 in 1960 to 320,000 in 1990 and a staggering 780,000 in 2020. Out ofa total of 521 square miles, Marin had thirty-three square miles of residentialdevelopment in 1958; by 2020, housing would occupy 166 square miles—mostof the land suitable for development. Detailing when, where, and how thisgrowth would occur, the report predicted that South Marin, already a virtual“dormitory for San Francisco,” would continue to expand its residential areawith major bay fills and thirty to forty square miles of reclaimed wetland.However, most of the population growth was expected in West Marin. Thatarea’s density would increase from fourteen to 344 persons per square mile.Thousands of new homes would be nestled near the San Andreas Fault, in thevalley that ran along eastern edge of the Point Reyes peninsula. The ArmyCorps of Engineers predictions were enthusiastically detailed in Marin’s dailynewspaper, the Independent Journal. Unintentionally, its coverage probably didas much to alarm Marin residents about the implications of such dramaticchange as it did to excite its boosters.15

QUESTIONING THE INEVITABILITY OF GROWTH

Even as state and federal engineers filled in the details of Marin’s suburbanfuture in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the county’s property owners beganto question the idea that prosperity and development were inextricably linked.Planning historian Mel Scott observes that many longstanding residents of thecounty saw even the Golden Gate Bridge as a “mixed blessing,” fearing theconsequences of growth: “The proprietary lovers of ‘Marvelous Marin’ wincedat seeing oaks and madrones cut down to make way for new streets and sub-divisions.”16 In addition, the negative consequences of suburbanization wereapparent around the Bay Area; the fate of Santa Clara County particularly dis-mayed environmentalists and other critics of growth who pointed to the pollu-tion, congestion, and aesthetic degradation that resulted from the uncontrolledrazing of orchards for low-density development.

The first active dissent against growth in Marin combined with oppositionto new traffic in San Francisco. The prospect of another vehicle crossingover the Golden Gate (the relatively narrow channel separating Marin from San Francisco) incited a trans-bay opposition that included some of the wealth-iest and most powerful residents of both counties. Marin County representa-tives had been working for a second crossing to San Francisco since the1940s, and McCarthy supported the cause upon entering the legislature in1950. Success seemed imminent in 1955 when the legislature appropriated$50,000 for a formal engineering study of a bridge via Angel Island. In 1956,the design and location of a span crossing Angel Island and landing on theTiburon peninsula won federal approval (Figure 1). However, most Tiburonhomeowners, including influential Marin Conservation League president and



wealthy philanthropist Caroline Livermore, supported a plan to make AngelIsland a state park. Arguing that a bridge landing would ruin the island’spotential for recreational use, they convinced state Department of Parks and

Figure 1: This map, developed by the California Department of Public Works in con-junction with the Bay Area Transportation Study Commission, illustrates major plansdeveloped for bridges, transit tubes, and vehicular tubes in the Golden Gate Corridor upto 1967.SOURCE: California Department of Public Works, Division of Bay Toll Crossings, San Francisco–Marin Crossing (San Francisco, 1967).

Recreation officials to oppose it. Citizens from both sides of the bay stagedprotests, organized committees, and formed action groups, succeeding in delay-ing state construction plans.17

The campaign against a second crossing inflamed anti-freeway sentimentamong well-to-do residents living in the north San Francisco neighborhoodsmost affected by commuter traffic from the Golden Gate Bridge. Two large-scale freeways were being constructed to alleviate congestion in San Franciscothat would cut through parkland and open space, require the demolition of hun-dreds of homes and apartment buildings, and obstruct many fabulous hillsideviews. In 1959 the San Francisco supervisors embraced the anti-traffic, anti-freeway cause and voted unanimously to halt all state freeway construction inthe city, including federally-funded interstate projects already underway.18

Although San Francisco’s defiance inspired road rebels in Marin and acrossthe country, it shocked and dismayed state officials, engineers, and pro-growthpoliticians, including McCarthy. Undeterred, McCarthy risked his popularityin southern Marin by continuing his campaign for a new bridge. In 1961, stateengineers released plans for an Angel Island span with revised landings (avoid-ing existing residential areas in Marin), but conservationist and anti-trafficopposition was just as bitter and vehement, and once again the project wasdelayed. In 1963, the state Division of Bay Toll Crossings released a reportasserting that, without a second crossing to San Francisco, severe congestionwould result in a “significant economic loss” to the state. The Golden GateBridge was reaching capacity during peak hours; in 1966, bridge officialsdeclared it a “critical bottleneck.”19 At McCarthy’s insistence, a third statestudy of an Angel Island span began in 1966 (Figure 2). Again, it was met withopposition in Marin. More importantly, the San Francisco supervisors reaf-firmed their refusal to allow new freeway construction in the city, including aGolden Gate Freeway that would accommodate traffic coming from Marin.Without this connecting freeway, the idea of a new crossing dumping trafficdirectly onto the crowded downtown streets was ludicrous. State engineersinstead recommended adding a second traffic deck to the Golden Gate Bridge,a proposal that was defeated by San Francisco and Marin opposition by the endof the decade.20

In the meanwhile, traffic problems in Marin and the North Bay grewsteadily worse. What mass transit there was did little to alleviate congestion;Greyhound provided unreliable service to San Francisco commuters on out-dated and uncomfortable buses. Patronage declined steadily; by the mid-1960sthe North Bay line was losing $500,000 a year, and Greyhound was begging tobe released of its obligation to provide service. The Bay Area Rapid TransitDistrict crushed hopes for light rail to Marin when it forced the county to with-draw from the district in 1962 because of the engineering objections of GoldenGate Bridge officials, who controlled the only feasible route for trains to the north. In 1964, voters approved the Marin County Transit District by a 4-1 margin. The agency began studies of a comprehensive bus system and the



potential reintroduction of commuter ferries, but it did not have the funding orthe political weight it needed to provide any service.21 Transportation wasquickly becoming the most urgent political question facing Marin, and the topconcern of its pro-growth political establishment.

The second item on the agenda of the Marin boosters was opening Marinto tourists and new residents via the long-awaited east–west freeways. Thefirst test of public opinion on these projects was the effort to improve the Shoreline Highway, which ran from the Golden Gate Bridge north alongthe Pacific Coast. In 1962, state highway commission hearings began onrouting. As with almost any road expansion, property owners in the path ofconstruction protested vigorously. They managed to convince the countyboard of supervisors to request a delay of the project so that a master plan forWest Marin could be developed, putting road construction in better perspec-tive. The board of supervisors reluctantly agreed, in part to prevent inflationof land values that could hinder the acquisition of land for the Point ReyesNational Seashore. Two years later, county planners released what they con-sidered to be a moderate West Marin Master Plan outlining development forthe region based on the Shoreline Highway as a small, low-speed scenicparkway. However, it only exacerbated opposition among conservationists,who began a campaign to defeat the parkway permanently by purchasingcrucial properties adjacent to the route and fighting state acquisition effortsin court.22

Figure 2. San Francisco Chronicle, September 25, 1961.The hills in the distance representMarin County as seen from San Francisco.

The delay of the Shoreline Highway was one of a series of frustrating set-backs for Marin’s pro-growth ruling coalition, and it was clear that dissentwas increasing among their constituents. A conference on the “Future ofMarin” in 1964 revealed an unbridgeable rift between Marin’s pro-developmentestablishment and a growing coalition of environmentalists, conservationists,and other opponents of development. One observer commented on the adver-sarial atmosphere: “Conservation-minded people sometimes get the idea thatall growth and development are inherently evil and all developers are bad . . .On the other hand, developers sometimes get the idea that all conservationistsare some kind of nuts and that the conservationists’ principal efforts aredirected toward thwarting any and all growth and development.”23 The acri-monious conference demonstrated that there were two completely incompat-ible visions of Marin’s future competing for predominance.

FIGHTING FOR THE FUTURE OF MARIN

As the county’s politics became more polarized and the small but vocal con-servationist community garnered increasing attention and support, the Marinpro-growth establishment grew anxious. In January 1966, the editors of thedaily Independent Journal declared that it was “The Time To Pick East-WestMarin Route.” The situation was urgent, they argued: there were still no goodroutes to bring tourists to the planned Point Reyes National Seashore, whichwas being described as the future “Jones Beach on the Pacific.” In addition,eastern cities of Marin were suffering from congestion, and commute times toSan Francisco were increasing rapidly.24 At the request of the county supervi-sors, and under pressure from Marin’s representatives in Sacramento, stateengineers turned their attention to Route 17. They presented four routingoptions to the county board of supervisors and local city councils in Septemberand October, estimating a range of costs between $37 and $100 million, andposted maps throughout the county for public viewing. Highway commissionrepresentatives favored two southerly options, insisting the routes—both ofwhich passed through several cities—would effectively relieve congestion inthe east as well as bring visitors and new residents to the west.25

Chief Engineer Alan S. Hart made it clear that local cooperation wasrequired for progress on Route 17: “The State Highway Commission (whichwill have the final say on routing) has no intention of going through a com-munity that does not sign a freeway agreement . . . we could go over all thestreets, but we’re not going to.”26 Hart was a native of Sonoma County, justnorth of Marin, and he had worked for many years as a highway engineer inrural northern California. He had led the San Francisco district of the statehighway commission—including all nine Bay Area counties—since 1964,and knew from personal experience how powerful freeway opposition couldbe. Nevertheless, Hart expressed optimism that the process of approval would



proceed smoothly in Marin, even speculating that the public hearing sched-uled for November 14 might not be necessary if all local jurisdictions coop-erated. This was not entirely naïve—after all, he was responding to the urgentpleas of local officials for improved access to West Marin, including twounanimous resolutions from the county supervisors. 27

However, winning local approval for a route would not be easy. The crowdsattending engineers’ presentations before city councils, the board of supervi-sors, and the county planning commission grew quickly—by October therewas consistently “standing room only,” and one hearing lasted until after mid-night. City councils could refuse permission from state engineers to close

Figure 3. Marin Independent Journal, November 25, 1966.

streets during construction, and early on those of Fairfax and Ross proclaimedtheir opposition to any construction through their jurisdiction.28 Later, SanAnselmo city officials joined them, pointing out that even the “remaining prop-erty would be devalued because of freeway noise, smog, and views scarred bythe substitution of concrete for trees.”29

Hart tried to answer objections, describing growth projections and trafficstudies, warning that without greater east–west traffic capacity, congestionwould be nightmarish within a decade.30 He also asserted that aestheticswould be an important consideration: “Many people do not seem to realizethat a freeway can also be a scenic highway . . . The blending of a roadwayinto the land and separation of the road beds by varying medians, judicioususe of alignment and grade, and generous slope rounding and end transition-ing are other methods by which a freeway is integrated into the landscape.”Hart promised a “truly scenic freeway and overall transportation asset to thecounty.”31 Hart had a reputation among his peers for sensitivity to the naturalenvironment—even an artistic bent—in designing roadways. He was per-sonally responsible for the rainbow over the Waldo tunnel entrance leadingto Marin from the Golden Gate Bridge.32

Nevertheless, Hart was pragmatic. By mid-November, one of the twofavored southerly routes emerged as the most likely candidate. Both wouldhave displaced a significant number of homes, but the residential area most dis-rupted by this route was Sleepy Hollow, an unincorporated community bor-dering San Anselmo that did not have any authority to stop construction. Thisroute affected the population that was least able to defend itself politically, andprecedent suggested that other community members or groups would rally infavor of the option that did not threaten their immediate interests.33 Hart laterremarked, “We [were] certainly aware that anyone with a freeway routedwithin shouting distance of his home would oppose it.”34

Actually, opposition to Route 17 in Marin was much more profound thanHart expected. It was based on a critique of growth and development that tran-scended the narrow interests of individuals or even neighborhoods, and empha-sized aesthetics and property values. On November 21, the county supervisorsfaced the question of routing recommendations. More than three hundredangry and vocal citizens packed a hearing that night. All thirty-three who tes-tified vehemently opposed construction in their neighborhood. Sue Forest,covering the meeting for Marin’s weekly Pacific Sun, observed that the crowdresponded with “thundering ovation” to the first speaker opposing all routesunder consideration, and it “quickly became evident the audience was anti-freeway in any form.” One speaker asserted enigmatically that the questioninvolved the “morality and integrity of Marin County,” also inspiring an enthu-siastic response.35 Supervisor Peter H. Behr, elected by the commuters ofsouthern Marin and the leading dissenting voice on the board, summed up thetestimony: “A freeway solution, undiluted by more progressive means of movingpeople one place to another, is unacceptable.”36


After lengthy debate, the supervisors voted 3-2 to request postponement offurther consideration of the route pending the development of a “BalancedTransportation Plan” by the county planning commission and the results of anongoing regional transportation study. The majority, including Behr, Thomas T. Storer, and William A. Gnoss, hoped to save the project with compromise andto assuage public opposition with better data and planning. The two dissentingsupervisors, board chairman Byron W. Leydecker and Ernest N. Kettenhofen,argued that the request would put the project in serious jeopardy—no progresshad been made on the Shoreline Highway since it had been delayed four yearsearlier.37 Leydecker angrily summed up the message: “[You’re] telling the StateDivision of Highways to get the hell out of Marin County and forget it.”38 Hartdeclared that he would hold a public hearing a few weeks later anyway, assur-ing them that it would only be a “way station” in the state approval process andthat it would not determine the final decision.39

Despite Hart’s promise, the December hearing dealt the fatal blow to Route 17.Homeowners associations, civic groups, and real estate associations fromaround the county announced their opposition to Route 17 in the followingweeks (Figure 3).40 On December 8, their representatives formed a “parade ofopposition” against any new freeway at a state highway commission hearingin San Rafael. Opponents denounced state engineers for holding any hearingsat all and calling the process a “sham.” Hart responded defensively: “We arenot going to ram this freeway down anyone’s throat. We are not going off inthe middle of the night and have you wake up to find a freeway in your backyard.”41 Most anger expressed at the hearing was directed toward the countysupervisors, however, not the state engineers. One opponent expressed thethreat facing local politicians: “Do we have to have recall elections to stop oursupervisors from voting for a freeway?”42 Hart promised further hearingsrepeatedly during the all-day event, but they never happened. Instead, stateengineers ceased their work on an east–west route for Marin.

This assembly represented a new focal point of social, economic, andpolitical power. Prior to this, pro-growth policies had attracted little atten-tion, and pro-growth politicians had consistently won elections by large margins. As elsewhere, freeway projects had general support and specificopposition. For the first time, opposition to a major transportation projectrepresented the entire spectrum of interest groups and localities in thecounty. It was not the typical array of property owners in the immediatevicinity of the proposed route, who were generally loud but easily dismissedas self-interested. Nor was it the tiny (if influential) conservationist elite thathad participated in previous efforts to stop bridge and highway constructionto preserve parkland and scenery. Rather, it was a broad segment of Marinsociety representing cities and neighborhoods throughout the county, eventhose not directly affected by construction.43 Under tremendous public pres-sure, mayors and city council members had abandoned the growth machine,and soon county-level politics would be transformed, as well.


Marin’s board of supervisors never actually rejected the construction of aneast–west freeway. State highway officials voluntarily withdrew their effortsafter witnessing the opposition that was demonstrated at their public hearing.Never again would east–west highways be seriously considered for Marin.Limited access raised the bar on development of West Marin, and a windowof opportunity closed: funding for state highways started to decline in 1966and plummeted in the early 1970s, putting a damper on constructionstatewide.44 However, the ascendance of Marin’s new growth control regimedid much more than stop state freeway construction; it transformed the pur-pose of transportation policy, precluding any significant increase in infra-structure or mass transit capacity in the county indefinitely.

In the midst of hearings on Route 17 the editors of the Pacific Sundescribed the choice facing the county: “Marin will either be the recreationland of the Bay Area or the . . . subdivision capital. We’ll make our moneyout of tourists or land speculation. While neither alternative appears attrac-tive to those (all of us?) who came here to ‘escape,’ the former is more to theinterests of succeeding generations.”45 However, the defeat of Route 17 madeit impossible to ignore a third possible future for Marin: real estate valuescould rest on scarcity, exclusivity, and natural beauty, with neither subdivi-sions nor tourists at the foundation of the local economy. The “escape” itselfcould have its own economic value.

CONSOLIDATING GROWTH CONTROL

Marin’s 1966 revolt was not a rejection of automobiles for the sake of theenvironment, nor was it a popular protest against neighborhood destructionresulting from the insensitive planning of engineers. It marked the public rejec-tion of all new transportation in the county in the interest of growth control—it was a revolt against sprawl, as demonstrated by the political and institutionaltransformation of the county that followed. Opposition to Route 17 galvanizedthe anti-growth coalition and postponed development in West Marin at a criti-cal moment. Marin voters defeated all of the pro-growth supervisors on theballot in the 1968 elections, and Peter Behr became the leader of a new major-ity in favor of conservation and growth control. Two years later, growth con-trol propelled Behr into the state senate, extending the dominance of the newregime. The political fate of the incumbent, Jack McCarthy, confirmed that the political tide had turned in the county. Just before the Route 17 debacle,McCarthy ran for reelection as “the North’s best defense against SouthernCalifornia numerical domination” and retained his seat in the state senateeasily.46 In 1969, Behr began to challenge McCarthy directly. Both wereRepublicans, but Behr was solidly on the side of growth control and had arecord of unwavering support for environmental protections, open space, andpublic parks. In the face of almost certain defeat, McCarthy announced his



early retirement at the age of 46, despite the fact that he was steadily movingup the ranks of the Republican Party in Sacramento. With McCarthy out ofthe race, Behr was endorsed by all of the papers in the district, whichincluded Marin and the neighboring counties of Napa and Solano, and wonwithout difficulty.47

After securing significant political power at the county and state levels,growth control advocates in Marin began to institutionalize their vision for thecounty through policy and planning. In 1968, newly-elected growth-controlsupervisors halted all development, threw out existing plans for West Marin,and directed the county planning department to devise an entirely new strat-egy for regulating development. Under the leadership of Paul C. Zucker, anambitious young Berkeley-trained planner, the outspoken county planningcommissioner and activist Margaret Azevedo, and the solidly conservationistcounty administrator Alan Bruce, a series of county-level plans and programswere developed to promote and implement growth control.48 Work on theBalanced Transportation Program was initiated in 1966 in the midst of theRoute 17 protests. It consisted of two reports, both critical of highway expan-sion. The first, published in 1970, included estimates that the local plansadopted in the 1960s would have resulted in a population of as much as 800,000(Figure 4). County planners called for a greater regard for the relationshipsbetween land use and transportation infrastructure, concluding that previousplans “reflect too much land development to be served by too little trans-portation.” 49 They advocated the expansion of mass transit in the form offerries and buses to alleviate congestion instead of highway construction orexpansion. The second report, released a little more than a year later, laid outa transportation plan that included provisions for mass transit, but very littleroad improvement. The authors stated flatly, “No new freeways should bebuilt.” Marin county’s planners tied transportation directly to land use:“Providing a balanced system without strong land-use controls is virtuallyimpossible.”50 They described transportation policy as a means of limitingpopulation growth and development—a major reversal—recognizing thatlocal government officials could effectively reduce pressure for growth andnew development by putting a halt to road construction. The report includedmaps showing that, despite the grand expectations of 1959, Marin’s systemof roads had changed little since 1950 (Figure 5). Under the new recom-mendations, reinforcing existing transportation patterns would permanentlyrestrict growth and population to existing urban areas in the eastern portionof the county.

Marin’s innovative and powerful Countywide Plan, released publicly in1971, elaborated on the basic principles of the Balanced TransportationProgram and provided the template for all subsequent growth-control efforts.It described three permanent land use zones: a “City Centered Corridor” inthe east along Highway 101; a central “Inland Rural Corridor” reserved foragriculture and compatible land uses; and the western “Coastal Recreation


Corridor,” including the planned Golden Gate National Recreation Area andthe Point Reyes National Seashore (Figure 6). Designed to appeal to the gen-eral public, the plan was accompanied by a polemical and emotional reportby the county planning commission, Can the Last Place Last?51

Several public referenda following the introduction of the CountywidePlan demonstrated support for the vision that it represented. In 1972, a

Figure 4. Cartoon from Marin County Planning Department, An Evaluation of LocalPlans: Balanced Transportation Program (San Rafael, CA, 1970).


pipeline to bring water from the Russian River in Sonoma to supply antici-pated West Marin population growth was decisively defeated at the polls,putting the last nail in the coffin of several private developments. The sameyear, voters easily approved the creation of the Marin Open Space Districtalong with a new property tax.52 Its mission statement tied the new agencyexplicitly to the Countywide Plan: “. . . to enhance the quality of life inMarin through the acquisition, protection, and responsible stewardship ofridgelands, baylands, and environmentally sensitive lands targeted forpreservation in the Countywide Plan.”53 Soon after, the Marin MunicipalWater District, with considerable watershed land in the inland rural corridor,adopted new restrictions for the use of its property that precluded develop-ment.54 In the meanwhile, federal legislation creating the Point ReyesNational Seashore and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area passed in1972. Conservationists began the effort to secure funding for land acquisitionand to finally ensure the preservation of much of Marin’s coastal wilderness.

County leaders promoted the goals expressed in the Countywide Plan withfunding as well as regulation. The western “rural corridor” was dominated bypasture—Marin dairies had supplied San Francisco markets since the Gold

Figure 5. Map from Marin County Planning Department, A Transportation Plan forMarin: Balanced Transportation Program, Phase I (San Rafael, CA,1972).


Figure 6. Map from Marin City/County Planning Council, Marin Countywide Plan,prepared by Marin County Planning Department (San Rafael, CA, 1972).


Rush—but by the late 1960s the handful that remained were failing, makingthe area all the more vulnerable to speculation and development. A somewhatcircular argument justified preserving these enterprises through local action:agriculture was desirable because it was part of the plan for West Marin, and itwas viable if that plan was enforced and supported with public policy.55 MarinCounty supervisors responded by creating an “agricultural preserve” to allowfarmers to take advantage of state tax breaks, and by enforcing a 60-acre parcelminimum in the area. They also granted ranchers $2 million to meet new dairywater quality standards in 1974, and provided them with more financial assis-tance and a county water-hauling program during a drought in 1977–1978.56

Nevertheless, agriculture in West Marin remained precarious, making theinland rural corridor the most vulnerable element of the Countywide Plan. To make matters worse, California’s 1978 tax revolt hamstrung county andmunicipal governments by severely limiting property taxes, the main source offunding for Marin’s various open space and agricultural preservation programsuntil that point.57 In response, a series of private initiatives bolstered andextended the power of public programs and plans, demonstrating the resilienceand extent of Marin’s growth-control regime. The most significant was theMarin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT), founded in 1980 by a biologist, PhyllisFaber, and dairy owner, Ellen Straus. The first land trust in the United Statesdevoted entirely to preserving farmland, MALT began purchasing easements onagricultural land in the “rural corridor” designated in the Countywide Plan,thereby preventing development in perpetuity and providing capital to help keepfarms afloat. A non-profit corporation with a closed decision-making process anda tightly-knit board of directors, MALT has nevertheless won significant publicfunding. Its first easement was funded primarily by the Marin County OpenSpace District, which continues to transfer a set percentage of its revenues to MALT. The county supervisors voted unanimously to grant MALT the $15 million dollars earmarked for the acquisition of agricultural conservationeasements in Marin County from the California Wildlife, Coastal, and Park LandConservation Bond Act in 1988. The state Coastal Conservancy also funded anumber of its acquisitions.58 As of 2006, MALT had easements on 38,000 acres,or 48 percent of Marin’s private farmland.59

As MALT coordinated open space preservation in West Marin, in the east-ern, urban corridor municipalities acted on behalf of growth control, adoptingsevere restrictions on construction and development. A 1982 revision of theCountywide Plan reiterated the county’s commitment to protecting environ-mental quality in the county and limiting growth. It included a “transportationsystem that emphasizes traffic management rather than capital investments”that was actually scaled back from the 1973 version, specifying “no expan-sion of road capacity” in West Marin and reducing goals for mass transporta-tion.60 It also called for the adoption of “urban service boundaries” bymunicipalities, as well as stricter zoning and growth management ordinances.In addition, Marin’s cities responded to calls for growth restrictions, addingmeasures to preserve the character of existing neighborhoods.


Layer upon layer, growth control became an integral part of Marin, insep-arable from the county’s government, landscape, community politics, and cul-ture, and transcending the public/private divide. Transportation policy was thelever that initiated this transformation, and Marin residents continued to rec-ognize its importance to staving off development. Between 1973 and 1983,Marin voters overwhelmingly defeated three tax measures to fund local publictransportation. Marin County officials met a 1988 study of extending BayArea Rapid Transit (BART) over the Golden Gate Bridge—an extremely pop-ular proposal in the Bay Area as a whole—with icy hostility.61 In 1992 and1997, Marin voters crushed initiatives that would have widened the county’scongested north–south highway and improved its meager mass transportationsystem, even as they won landslides in neighboring counties.

GROWTH CONTROL PREVAILS

Marin’s freeway revolt sparked a dramatic change in land use policy forMarin County, a change that was enforced and promoted with the CountywidePlan. The plan’s basic characteristics and goals remained essentially unchangedthrough the 1982 and 1994 revisions. A 2004 plan update draft continuedthe tradition, embracing the basic goals and concepts of the 1973 plan, andeven enhancing its emphasis on environmental protection with the additionof a new, protected “Baylands Corridor” carved out of the city-centeredcorridor on the peninsula’s eastern shore. And significantly, transportationrestrictions remain an important element of growth control and environ-mental protection; the county reiterates its determination to “limit West Marinroads to two lanes.”62

The county’s population reflects the power of Marin’s transportation-basedgrowth control. Between 1970 and 2000, Marin’s population increased by only30,000 residents, well below the expectations of the 1950s and 60s, even as therest of the Bay Area grew rapidly. During the following three decades, the pop-ulation of Marin remained well below even the most parsimonious targets ofthe anti-sprawl crusaders (Figure 7). While goals of environmental preserva-tion and growth control in West Marin were realized, goals for housing, den-sity, mixed-use development and community diversity and were not. Marin’scities added on their own measures protecting the character of existing neigh-borhoods. The result was commercial development and job growth accompa-nied by worsening traffic congestion, increasing housing costs, and socialhomogenization. In the 1970s, when Marin’s growth rate was approachingzero, its neighbor to directly the north, Sonoma County, was the fastest grow-ing county in the entire Bay Area.63 Marin’s policies have exacerbated the per-sistent housing shortages of the Bay Area, making the problems of sprawl andthe pressure for development all the worse for its neighbors. Its steadily rising property values, resulting in part from the scarcity created by its growth


control measures, have made it the wealthiest county in the United States. Ithas the most highly-educated population in California, and also has the high-est proportion of white residents of any metropolitan-area county in the state.Most significantly, in 2005 the median price of a single-family home in Marinwas $819,000, nearly double the statewide figure.64

Today, strictly enforced local growth control measures including zoningand urban growth boundaries, as well as a myriad of parks, easements, andpreserves, protect its natural beauty and open space. West Marin remainsrural, and the extensive parkland along the Pacific Coast is some of the mostspectacular in the United States. Neither the Point Reyes National Seashorenor the Golden Gate National Recreation area is overrun with visitors; naturelovers can make the trek into their backlands and feel genuinely removedfrom the crush of people and automobiles that characterizes the rest of theSan Francisco Bay Area. On the other hand, these parks are not easy to enjoy.

Figure 7. Marin Population Projections Versus Actual PopulationSOURCES: U. S. Army Engineer District, San Francisco Corps of Engineers, Future Developmentof the San Francisco Bay Area 1960-2020, prepared by the United States Department ofCommerce, Office of Area Development ([Washington, D.C.], 1959); Association of Bay AreaGovernments, Regional Plan 1970: 1990, San Francisco Bay Region (Berkeley, 1970); Associationof Bay Area Governments, Projections 1979: 1980-2000: Population, Employment, Housing for theSan Francisco Bay Area (Berkeley, 1979).

There is no equivalent to Jones Beach for the region’s urban masses on theweekends, and most Marin residents would be horrified at such a prospect.The deliberately primitive (and dangerous) roads that serve the area arejammed with cars on weekends, crawling along at a snail’s pace. The masstransit that does exist, a few infrequent shuttles, actually serve fewer visitorsthan did the tourist railroads of the early twentieth century. While restrictedaccess to the area means that the natural beauty and pristine conditions of theparkland were much easier to preserve, it also means that it has not fulfilledits potential and original purpose as a regional park and resource for theentire Bay Area.65

West Marin initially escaped development despite official county and statepolicy. Marin was part of a metropolitan area that sustained rapid growth afterWorld War II. Its close proximity to San Francisco made it a prime candidatefor suburban development; it was clear that the funding was readily availableto realize the extensive system of roads and bridges necessary to accommo-date it. Without the vigorous efforts of conservationists and broad-basedpublic protest, the 1959 vision for Marin could easily have come to be.Despite the dominance of the pro-growth political establishment in Marinthroughout the 1960s, the construction of freeways was a discrete and criticalstage in the process of development that was particularly vulnerable to publicprotest. The halt of Route 17 provided the opportunity for a coalition of con-servationists, environmentalists, and open space advocates to rally behind thecause of preservation. Ultimately, this coalition secured its power and victo-ries by taking over the local state and embedding growth-control in local insti-tutions and policy. As an expression of popular dissent against traditionalgrowth-oriented politics, the 1966 freeway revolt marked the beginning of arevolution in the politics of development and land use in Marin County. Itmade the level of investment required to change land use policy in Marinimmense. A close look at the dynamics of regime change in Marin reveals thatpower in the county shifted only when the real value of exclusivity, openspace, and natural beauty became clear to property owners. Marin’s cele-brated environmentalism was founded on the value of real estate.

CONCLUSION

Throughout the United States, popular protest against the construction offreeways and roads was part of an important historical watershed. For themost part, historians have focused on urban areas in exploring its implica-tions; outside of cities, the critique of highway construction had very differ-ent meanings and consequences. There, property owners and activists refutedthe inevitability and desirability of growth by rejecting freeways and thebasic infrastructure to accommodate them. Freeway revolts were some of theearliest manifestations of a nationwide growth control movement, which



changed the purpose of planning and the orientation of many local govern-ments as their collective power increased with the new federalism of the1980s. The case of Marin County demonstrates some of the best and theworst results of this movement and the local regimes that it empowered: openspace and environmental resources were protected at the expense of afford-able housing, accessibility, and social integration.

Since the early twentieth century, transportation has been primarily a publicenterprise—if not directly publicly administered, then heavily subsidized andbolstered by monopolies and protections. As such, it is one of the important,direct ways in which public policy and government can shape the physicallandscape, and through it society and the economy as a whole. The exis-tence of a unified political regime in Marin, which effectively planned for theabsence of development by controlling and coordinating various elements ofthe local state despite its decentralization, testifies to the potential power andcoherence of local political institutions and policy.

For the most part, historical accounts of freeway revolts focus on federal poli-cies’ impact on cities, urban neighborhoods, and minority groups, without muchdiscussion of regional context or attention to suburban or undeveloped areasoutside of cities.66 However, the anti-freeway movement extended beyond urbanboundaries, and when seen in suburban or rural contexts, it has very differentmeanings and consequences. There, widespread popular protest against the con-struction of freeways and roads was part of another important historical water-shed. As dissent spread throughout the United States during the 1960s amongintellectuals and activists alike, the pro-growth assumptions and traditions oflocal politics came into serious question for the first time. Freeway revoltscontributed to the proliferation of growth control measures in California andthroughout the United States in the late 1970s and 1980s, including urbangrowth boundaries, strict zoning measures, and development caps. The case ofMarin County demonstrates some of the best and the worst results of thisshift in local policy: its endangered open space and sensitive environmentalresources were protected, but at the expense of affordable housing, accessibil-ity, and social integration.

Since the publication of Joel Garreau’s influential Edge Cities in 1988,many scholarly and journalistic studies have emphasized the distinctivenessand independence of suburbs from cities, often seeking explicitly to counterperceptions of their secondary status within the political economy of theUnited States, and making an undeniable case for the diversity of suburbaninhabitants and experiences.67 The studies that emphasize suburban diversityalso generally seek to counter the “suburban myth” by deconstructing theincreasingly inaccurate image of white, wealthy exclusivity traditionally asso-ciated with low-density communities. However, the insulated, insular, andsocially homogenous suburban communities that are the basis for that myth


remain very much intact and influential, and often influence metropolitanlandscapes well beyond their borders. Geographers James S. Duncan andNancy C. Duncan examine one such community in upstate New York. Theircase study reveals an extreme example of wealth, privilege, and exclusivity in“exurbia” (a landscape somewhere between rural and suburban, as much ofMarin). Duncan and Duncan point out the social consequences of the exclu-sivity that Bedford’s residents support in the name of aesthetics, includingracial exclusion, poverty, and housing shortages.68 While Marin is on the oppo-site coast and opposite end of the political spectrum, many of their obser-vations apply there, where growth control in Marin drove population anddevelopment to surrounding counties with few regulations. Marin’s experiencehighlights the interdependence of metropolitan areas—the intimate social, eco-nomic, and political connections between San Francisco and this bedroomcommunity to its north are obvious.69 Marin residents have always been veryaware that the fate of the county hinged upon access to the urban core. Thedegree to which Marin was integrated with or protected from the rest of themetropolitan area largely determined the county’s economy, landscape, anddemographics.70 Strict controls on growth, lacking a regional planning context,make the very problems that they are designed to address in Marin worseeverywhere else. To point out the negative consequences of overzealous sub-urban growth control is not to endorse the abandonment of planning, or toimply that unimpeded low-density suburban development would be moredesirable, as some scholars have suggested.71 Rather, the central problem withMarin’s growth control regime was its narrowness of purpose and perspective,its disregard for consequences to people and places outside of the county’swell-guarded perimeter.

The goals of Marin’s new growth-control regime, starting with the rejectionof Route 17, were institutionalized in governmental or quasi-governmentalpolicies, programs, and agencies, and in the landscape itself. Regardless ofwhether changing modes of transportation directly determine patterns of devel-opment, whoever controls transportation infrastructure (or the lack thereof) caneither shape and encourage growth or effectively prevent it, as Marin officialsrecognized well before 1966. Marin’s Countywide Plan was so effective in partbecause it emerged from and was reinforced with transportation policy. Variedinterests allied in support of a common vision for the future, and created aprogram that transcended and at the same time unified and directed policywithin the county at all levels. They seized control of the local state andbroadly defined the lens through which federal and state programs inevitablypass. Propelled to power by the 1966 revolt against sprawl, they effectivelydefeated growth and development, constructing lasting institutional barriersagainst them. Remarkably, Marin’s growth-control regime created anddefended a static sanctuary in the midst of a booming metropolis.


NOTES

1. In describing this coalition and accounting for its enduring power and coherence, I turn to regimetheory as delineated by Stephen Elkin in City and Regime in the American Republic. Unlike ClarenceStone’s more influential concept of regime, Elkin’s recognizes the importance of state structures and insti-tutions in reinforcing and perpetuating the coalitions that construct them. The persistent disregard for theactive influence of state institutions in analysis of urban politics (what Terrence McDonald has describedas “functionalism”), despite the enormous influence of new institutionalism in political science and soci-ology generally, reflects Stone’s legacy. Elkin’s more complex regime combines some of the most com-pelling elements of historical institutionalism as associated with Theda Skocpol (specifically the “feedbackeffect” of policy), with the basic recognition of the role of political interests in the decision-making processthat is very effectively and intuitively expressed in regime as it is commonly used. Stephen L. Elkin, Cityand Regime in the American Republic (Chicago, 1987); Clarence N. Stone, Regime Politics: GoverningAtlanta, 1946–1988 (Lawrence, KS, 1989); Terrence J. McDonald, “The Problem of the Political in RecentAmerican Urban History: Liberal Pluralism and the Rise of Functionalism,” Social History 10 (1985):323–45; McDonald, “Putting Politics Back into the History of the American City,” American Quarterly 34(1982): 200–9; Theda Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy inthe United States (Cambridge, MA, 1992); Skocpol, “Bringing the State Back In: Strategies of Analysis inCurrent Research,” in Bringing the State Back In, Theda Skocpol, ed., (Cambridge, MA, 1985), 3–367.Regime theory has been the subject of considerable revision since its ascent in the late 1980s. Many havesought to expand its narrow focus on a dualistic public/private alliance to include the social and culturalenvironments in which local politics takes place. A few have devoted attention to institutions and institu-tional structures in urban contexts, following Elkin’s lead, including Barbara Ferman, Joe Painter, andMeredith Ramsay. Barbara Ferman, Challenging the Growth Machine: Neighborhood Politics in Chicagoand Pittsburgh (Lawrence, KS, 1996); Joe Painter, “Entrepreneurs Are Made, Not Born: Learning andUrban Regimes in the Production of Entrepreneurial Cities,” in The Entrepreneurial City: Geographies ofPolitics, Regime, and Representation, Tim Hall and Phil Hubbard, eds., (Chichester, UK, 1998); MeredithRamsey, “The Local Community: Maker of Culture and Wealth,” Journal of Urban Affairs 18 (1996):95–118. On institutionalist theory generally, see Peter A. Hall and Rosemary C. R. Taylor, “PoliticalScience and the Three New Institutionalisms,” in Institutions and Social Order, Virginia Haufler, ed., (AnnArbor, 1998), 15–43; Colin Hay and Daniel Wincott, “Structure, Agency and Historical Institutionalism,”Political Studies 46 (1998): 951–57; James G. March and Johan P. Olsen, “The New Institutionalism:Organizational Factors in Political Life,” American Political Science Review 78 (1983): 734–49; James G.March and Johan P. Olsen, Rediscovering Institutions: the Organizational Basis of Politics (New York,1989); Donald D. Searing, “Roles, Rules, and Rationality in the New Institutionalism,” AmericanPolitical Science Review 85 (1991): 1239–60; Ellen M. Immergut, “The Theoretical Core of the NewInstitutionalism,” Politics & Society 26 (1998): 5–34; Ira Katznelson, “The Doleful Dance of Politics andPolicy: Can Historical Institutionalism Make a Difference?” American Political Science Review 92 (1998):191–98; B. Guy Peters, Institutional Theory in Political Science: The “New Institutionalism,” (rev. ed.,London, 2005); Kathleen Ann Thelen and Sven Steinmo, “Historical Institutionalism in ComparativePolitics,” in Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis, Sven Steinmo,Kathleen Ann Thelen, and Frank Longstreth, eds., (Cambridge, UK, 1992).

2. Marin County Planning Department, Can the Last Place Last? Preserving the EnvironmentalQuality of Marin (San Rafael, 1971), 1.

3. Tom Duane, Remarks, “Round Table: the Politics of Growth Control,” presented at “On the Edge:Metropolitan Growth and Western Environments, Past, Present and Future,” Conference of the Center forthe Study of the North American West, Stanford University, April 17, 2004.

4. Local accounts of the Marin growth control movement generally credit the selfless environmentalismand philanthropy of a few individuals, ignoring or downplaying the powerful financial interest of propertyowners in maintaining the exclusivity and beauty of the landscape. Harold Gilliam, Island in Time: the PointReyes Peninsula (San Francisco, 1962); Evelyn Morris Radford, The Bridge and the Building: the Art ofGovernment and the Government of Art, rev. ed., (New York, 1974); John Hart, San Francisco’s WildernessNext Door (San Rafael, CA, 1979); Nancy Wise, Marin’s Natural Assets: An Historic Look at Marin County(San Rafael, CA, 1985); John Hart, Farming on the Edge: Saving Family Farms in Marin County, California(Berkeley, 1991); L. Martin Griffin, M.D., Saving the Marin-Sonoma Coast: The Battles for AudubonCanyon Ranch, Point Reyes, and California’s Russian River (Healdsburg, CA, 1998); Amy Meyers, NewGuardians for the Golden Gate: How America Got a Great National Park (Berkeley, 2006).

5. The growth control movement is a widely recognized phenomenon, and its emergence in Californiahas received particular attention. William Fulton describes the movement there as “on the cutting edge” ofa national trend that began in the late 1960s and continues. Some notable discussions: William Fulton,“Sliced on the Cutting Edge: Growth Management and Growth Control in California,” in GrowthManagement: the Planning Challenge of the 1990s, Jay M. Stein, ed., (Newbury Park, CA, 1993); JamesS. Duncan and Nancy G. Duncan, Landscapes of Privilege: The Politics of the Aesthetic in an AmericanSuburb (New York and London, 2004); Michael F. Logan, Fighting Sprawl and City Hall: Resistance toUrban Growth in the Southwest (Tuscon, 1995); Madelyn Glickfield and Ned Levine, Regional Growth . . .Local Reaction: The Enactment and Effects of Local Growth Control and Management Measures inCalifornia (Cambridge, MA, 1992); Sydney Plotkin, Keep Out: The Struggle for Land Use Control(Berkeley, 1987); William A. Fischel, “An Economic History of Zoning and a Cure for its ExclusionaryEffects,” Urban Studies 41 (2004): 317–40; Jon C. Teaford, Post-Suburbia: Government and Politics in theEdge Cities (Baltimore, 1997), ch. 6; Bernard J. Frieden, The Environmental Protection Hustle (Boston,1981); Michael N. Danielson, The Politics of Exclusion (New York, 1976).

6. Compared to the substantial literature on urban freeway revolts (see n. 66), little scholarly researchhas been done on the phenomenon outside of cities. Examples of successful suburban challenges in thelate 1960s and early 1970s include the halt of the Southwest expressway (I-95) by the Greater BostonCommittee on the Transportation Crisis, which included a significant contingent of suburban residentswho were concerned about preserving open space. In the Hudson River Valley in upstate New York, amiddle-class freeway revolt helped consolidate a strict growth-control regime. In California, local oppo-sition defeated freeways that would have brought new suburban development to rural areas of Napa, SanMateo, and Santa Barbara counties, as well as planned routes near Mt. Diablo and Lake Tahoe. In addi-tion, public protest protected wilderness areas throughout the country from the intrusion of interstatehighways. Alan Lupo, Frank Colcord, and Edmund P. Fowler, Rites of Way: The Politics of Transportationin Boston and the U. S. City (Boston, 1971), esp. ch. 16; Michael K. Heiman, The Quiet Evolution: Power,Planning, and Profits in New York State (New York, 1988), 238–57; Stephanie Pincetl, TransformingCalifornia: a Political History of Land Use and Development (Baltimore, 1999), 148–49; Richard A.Walker, Country in the City: the Greening of the San Francisco Bay Area (Seattle, 2007), 159-181; AmericanAssociation of State Highway and Transportation Officials, The States and the Interstate, 63–69; BenKelley, The Pavers and the Paved (New York, 1971), 91–125.

7. John Logan and Harvey Molotch famously describe American cities as “growth machines,” withpolitical systems dominated by profit-driven real estate developers backed by socioeconomic elites. John R.Logan and Harvey Luskin Molotch, Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place (Berkeley, 1987).

8. Redwood Empire Association, Brief History of the Redwood Empire Association (SanFrancisco, 1926).

9. Radford, The Bridge and the Building; Louise Nelson Dyble, Paying the Toll: A Political Historyof the Golden Gate Bridge (Philidelphia, forthcoming 2008).

10. California Department of Finance, Population Research Unit, Estimates for California Counties:July 1947–1969 (Sacramento, 1970); California Department of Motor Vehicles, “Number of VehiclesRegistered” ([Sacramento, 1951, 1961]).

11. United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Region Four Office, Report onthe Economic Feasibility of the Proposed Point Reyes National Seashore (San Francisco, 1961).

12. Legislation to create Point Reyes National Seashore passed and was officially authorized byPresident Kennedy in 1962, but the acquisition of land took much longer. Griffin, Saving the Marin-SonomaCoast; Laura Watt, “Managing Cultural Landscapes: Reconciling Local Preservation and InstitutionalIdeology in the National Park Service” (PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 2001); Hal K.Rothman, The New Urban Park: Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Civic Environmentalism(Lawrence, KS, 2004); Hart, San Francisco’s Wilderness Next Door; United States Department of theInterior, National Park Service, Land Use Survey: Proposed Point Reyes National Seashore (Oakland, 1961),21–22, 26.

13. Independent Journal, November 14, 1960.14. California Department of Public Works, Division of San Francisco Bay Toll Crossings, A

Preliminary Report to Department of Public Works on a San Francisco—Tiburon Crossing of San FranciscoBay (Sacramento, 1957); California Department of Public Works, Division of Highways, The CaliforniaFreeway System: A Report to the Joint Interim Committee on Highway Problems of the CaliforniaLegislature (Sacramento, 1958); David W. Jones, California’s Freeway Era in Historical Perspective(Berkeley, 1989), 240–41. On the federal freeway program, see Mark H. Rose, Interstate: Express Highway


Politics, 1939–1989, (rev. ed., Knoxville, 1990); Tom Lewis, Divided Highways: Building the InterstateHighways, Transforming American Life (New York, 1997).

15. United States Army Engineer District, San Francisco Corps of Engineers, Future Development ofthe San Francisco Bay Area 1960–2020, prepared by the United States Department of Commerce, Officeof Area Development ([Washington, D.C.], 1959); Independent Journal, November 28, 29, 30, December 1,2, 1960.

16. Mel Scott, The San Francisco Bay Area: A Metropolis in Perspective, (2nd ed., Berkeley, 1986), 238.17. California Department of Public Works, Division of San Francisco Bay Toll Crossings,

Preliminary Report; California Department of Public Works, Division of San Francisco Bay TollCrossings, San Francisco–Marin Crossing; Independent Journal, March 11, 12, 21, 1955, January 14,February 9, 1956, January 7, 1957, March 7, 1957; San Francisco Examiner April 30, 1957, May 8, 1957,July 18, 1957; San Francisco News June 4, 1957; San Francisco Chronicle May 9, 1957. See also Walker,Country in the City, ch. 4.

18. William Issel, “‘Land Values, Human Values, and the Preservation of the City’s TreasuredAppearance’: Environmentalism, Politics, and the San Francisco Freeway Revolt,” Pacific HistoricalReview 68 (1999): 611–46; Jones, California’s Freeway Era.

19. Independent Journal, October 22, 1966.20. San Francisco Chronicle, March 22, 29, 1966; California Department of Public Works, Division

of San Francisco Bay Toll Crossings, San Francisco–Marin Crossing, 107–10; Dyble, Paying the Toll.21. The first effort to establish a county transportation agency was vetoed by Governor Edmond

Brown, who argued that it would hinder the creation of a region-wide agency. Independent Journal,May 2, 10, 11, 15, 18, 1962 and July 19, 27, 29, 1963; Marin County Transportation District, Report onPublic Transportation in County of Marin, prepared by Coverdale and Colpitts (San Rafael, CA, 1966);Robert L. Harrison, “The Financial Resources of the Marin County Transit District,” (MA thesis, Universityof California, Berkeley, 1968); Arthur C. Jenkins, “Report on Western Greyhound Fare Case,” (1964).

22. Independent Journal, September 7, 1963; People for Open Space Farmlands Conservation Project,A Search for Permanence: Farmland Conservation in Marin County, California (San Francisco, 1981);Griffin, Saving the Marin–Sonoma Coast, 71–78; Marin County Planning Commission, West MarinMaster Plan, prepared by Mary Sumners, Dan Sumners and Dan Coleman Associates (San Rafael, 1964).

23. Independent Journal, February 5, 1964.24. Hart, San Francisco’s Wilderness Next Door, 49; Independent Journal, January 22, 1966.25. Independent Journal, September 20, October 4, 6, 10, 11, 1966; Pacific Sun, September 14,

October 6, 1966.26. Independent Journal, October 10, 14, 1966.27. Historians Bruce E. Seely and Mark H. Rose have shown that the ideological proclivities and pro-

fessional interests of engineers made them relentless advocates of road and highway construction, largelyunconcerned about dissent. They have also pointed out the surprise, and even shock, most highway engi-neers felt at encountering opposition in the 1960s. Nevertheless, by this time the power of Bay Area anti-freeway coalitions could not easily be ignored. Mark H. Rose and Bruce E. Seely, “Getting the InterstateSystem Built: Road Engineers and the Implementation of Public Policy, 1955–1985,” Journal of PolicyHistory (1990): 24–55; Bruce E. Seely, Building the American Highway System: Engineers as PolicyMakers (Philadelphia, 1987); American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, TheStates and the Interstate: Research on the Planning, Design and Construction of the Interstate andDefense Highway System (Washington, DC, 1991): 61–63. California Highways and Public Works 43(July/August 1964): 55; Pacific Sun, September 24, 1966, November 23, 1966; Marin County Board ofSupervisors, Resolution No. 8903 was passed on May 3, 1966, and affirmed on May 24, 1966.

28. People for Open Space, Search for Permanence, 10; Independent Journal, October 11, 14, 26,November 10, 11, 20, 1966.

29. Pacific Sun, November 12, 1966; Independent Journal, November 16, 18, 1966.30. Independent Journal, November 12, 1966.31. Independent Journal, November 14, 1966.32. Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers 159 (1994): 554–55; California

Highways and Public Works 32 (March/April 1953), 53.33. California Department of Public Works, Division of Highways, Marin 17: Route 101 to Nicasio

([Sacramento], 1966); Independent Journal, November 21, 1966;34. Independent Journal, December 9, 1966.35. Pacific Sun, November 23, 1966.



36. Independent Journal, November 22, 1966.37. Marin County Board of Supervisors, Resolution No. 9161, December 6, 1966; Pacific Sun,

November 26, 1966.38. Pacific Sun, December 10, 1966.39.Pacific Sun, December 3, 1966.40.Independent Journal, November 30, 1966.41. Independent Journal, December 8, 1966.42. Independent Journal, December 9, 1966.43. Zachary Schrag also points out that when the right people protest, hearings make a difference.

Zachary Schrag, “The Freeway Fight in Washington, DC: the Three Sisters Bridge in ThreeAdministrations,” Journal of Urban History 30 (2004): 648–73.

44. Brian D. Taylor, “Public Perceptions, Fiscal Realities, and Freeway Planning: The CaliforniaCase,” Journal of the American Planning Association 61 (1995): 43–56.

45. Pacific Sun, October 15, 1966. The editor of the Pacific Sun, which was founded by Merril D. andJoann S. Grohman in 1963, claimed that it was “perhaps the most consistently conservationist public pressin the Bay Area.” Pacific Sun, November 5, December 10, 1966. For a retrospective on the paper by itspublisher and editor Steve McNamara, who took over the paper in December 1966 and became a vehe-ment supporter of growth-control, see Pacific Sun, August 18, 2004.

46. Pacific Sun, September 21, 24, 1966; Independent Journal, November 9, 196647. Independent Journal, December 26, 1969, September 24, 1970; Peter H. Behr, oral history inter-

view by Ann Lage (Sacramento, 1988), 28–29, 91–98.48. Paul C. Zucker relates his experience in Marin in his memoir, What your Planning Professors

Forgot to Tell You: 117 Lessons Every Planner Should Know (Chicago, 1999), 73–114. Alan Bruce is oftenmentioned as influential in promoting planning during this critical period as a top bureaucrat and the county“budget writer.” E. G. Hart, Farming on the Edge, 31; Point Reyes Light January 2, 1997. Margaret W.Azevedo was one of the important behind-the-scenes players in this controversy, as well as in many otherMarin County and Bay Area struggles. At the time of the hearings on Route 17, she was ambiguous aboutthe proposed freeway, publishing a lengthy commentary in the Pacific Sun under the headline “Razing ofParis, Marin Style.” Although she contributed significantly both to the “Balanced Transportation Program”and the restrictive 1972 Countywide Plan and has recently been lauded as a champion of open space inMarin, she never entirely embraced the growth-control agenda. After sixteen years on the planning com-mission she was “sacked” in 1979 because of her support for high-density housing. Pacific Sun, December 14,1966; Independent Journal, June [27], 1969; San Francisco Examiner, August 8, 1979.

49. Marin County Planning Department, An Evaluation of Local Plans: Balanced TransportationProgram (San Rafael, CA, 1970).

50. Marin County Planning Department, A Transportation Plan for Marin: Balanced TransportationProgram, Phase II (San Rafael, CA, 1972), x–xii.

51. Marin County Planning Department, Can the Last Place Last?; Hart, Farming on the Edge,33–35.

52. Marin Countywide Plan 1973, Section 2, p. 17.53. Marin County Open Space District, Policy Review Initiative (San Rafael, CA, [2004]).54. Marin Countywide Plan 1973, p. 139–50.55. Marin County Board of Supervisors, The Viability of Agriculture in Marin, prepared by Baxter

McDonald & Smart, Inc. (San Francisco, 1973).56. Thomas Melvin Dodson, “The California Land Conservation Act of 1965 (Williamson Act): Its

Effect on Land Stabilization in Marin, Sonoma and Mendocino Counties” (MA Thesis, University ofCalifornia, Berkeley, 1973); Hart, Farming on the Edge, 58–64; People for Open Space, Search forPermanence.

57. Jeffrey I. Chapman, Proposition 13 and Land Use: A Case Study of Fiscal Limits in California(Lexington, MA, 1981); Terri A. Sexton, Steven M. Sheffrin, and Arthur O’Sullivan, Property Taxes andTax Revolts: the Legacy of Proposition 13 (Cambridge, MA, 1995); Sexton, et. al., “Proposition 13:Unintended Effects and Feasible Reforms,” National Tax Journal 52 (1999): 99–115.

58. Point Reyes Light, June 6–7, 1987; Marin County Board of Supervisors, Resolution no. 88-298,November 8, 1988; [Marin Agricultural Land Trust], “The Story of MALT” (http://www.malt.org/articles/maltstor .htm, accessed March, 2005); Mary E. Handel and Alvin D. Sokolow, Farmland and Open SpacePreservation in the Four North Bay Counties (Davis, CA, 1994), 24–29; Marin Agricultural Land Trust,

Tenth Anniversary Report (Point Reyes Station, CA, 1990); Marin Agricultural Land Trust, EasementReport (Point Reyes Station, CA, 1990); Phyllis Faber, “The Land Trust Experience in Marin County,” inCalifornia Farmland and Urban Pressures: Statewide and Regional Perspectives, Albert G. Medvitz et al., eds., (Davis, CA, 1999).

59. Marin Agricultural Land Trust, MALT Map, http://www.malt.org/farming/map.html, accessedMay 2006.

60. Marin County Planning Department, The Marin Countywide Plan: Countywide Plan UpdateProgram (San Rafael, CA, 1982), i, iv, 4–5.

61. San Francisco Chronicle, October 26, 1988, March 11, 1989, April 7, 1989, July 7, 1989, July 19,1989; Marin Independent Journal, July 7, 1989; Pacific Sun, August 4, 1989; Bay Area Rapid TransitDistrict, San Francisco–North Bay BART Connection: A Conceptual Study, prepared by Bechtel, Inc. (SanFrancisco, 1989); Marin County Planning Department, Marin Countywide Plan (1983), Section 4, 1.

62. Marin Community Development Agency, Marin Countywide Plan 2004, 3–149.63. For a discussion of relations between Marin and Sonoma in this period, see Frieden, “The

Exclusionary Effect of Growth Controls,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and SocialScience 465 (1983): 123–35.

64. Marin’s per capita income was $65,642 in 2003; the next highest was San Francisco’s $55,720.51.3 percent of Marin residents had a bachelor’s degree or higher in 2000; San Francisco followed with45 percent. A total of 95.5 percent of Marin’s population was white in 1970; in 2004 the county was 78percent white. Most of the shift was due to an increase in the “Asian or Pacific Islander” population,though the number of Hispanic residents has also increased in the last ten years, particularly in WestMarin’s agricultural corridor. Marin’s African American population had remained steady since the 1940sat 3 percent. Of Marin’s 7,000 African-American residents, approximately 1,150 live in Marin City, apoor, unincorporated community founded for shipyard workers during World War II, and 2,500 areinmates in San Quentin State Prison. United States Census Bureau, Small Area Income and PovertyEstimates, county-level estimates, income year 2000, http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/saipe/; CensusBureau, County and City Data Book 2000, table B-5; California Department of Finance, CaliforniaStatistical Abstract (Sacramento, 2006); County of Marin Assessor-Recorder, Annual Marin Real EstateSales for 2005, http://www.co.marin.ca.us/depts/AR/main/sales2005/Salesannual.cfm, accessed April 9,2006; California Department of Corrections, Data Analysis Unit, Prison Census Data: California StatePrison, Offenders by Ethnicity and Gender as of December 31, 2005 (Sacramento, 2006).

65. The West Marin Stagecoach operates two routes four times a day, Monday through Friday. On thehistory of mass transportation in West Marin, see Golden Gate Recreational Travel Study, Golden GateRecreational Travel Study: Summary Report ([Berkeley], 1977); Hart, San Francisco’s Wilderness NextDoor, 127–33; Ted Wurm and Al Graves, The Crookedest Railroad in the World, (rev. ed., Glendale, CA,1983).

66. Richard O. Baumbach and William E. Borah, The Second Battle of New Orleans: a History of theVieux Carrâe Riverfront Expressway Controversy (University, AL, 1981); Raymond A. Mohl, “Race andSpace in the Modern City: Interstate-95 and the Black Community in Miami” in Urban Policy inTwentieth-Century America, ed. Arnold R. Hirsch and Raymond A. Mohl (New Brunswick, NJ, 1993);Issel, “Land Values, Human Values, and the Preservation of the City’s Treasured Appearance”; Lewis,Divided Highways, 179–211; Schrag, “The Freeway Fight in Washington, DC”; Raymond A. Mohl, “Stopthe Road: Freeway Revolts in American Cities,” Journal of Urban History 30 (2004): 674–706; Jon C.Teaford, The Rough Road to Renaissance: Urban Revitalization in America, 1940–1980 (Baltimore,1990), 93–99, 162–65; Gary T. Schwartz, “Urban Freeways and the Interstate System” SouthernCalifornia Law Review 49 (1976), 406–513. Neglect of freeway opposition outside of central cities mayin part reflect scholarly reaction against the technological determinism of many early histories of sub-urbanization, such as Sam Bass Warner, Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston, 1870–1900(Cambridge, MA, 1978); Robert M. Fogelson, The Fragmented Metropolis: Los Angeles, 1850–1930(Cambridge, MA, 1967).

67. Joel Garreau, Edge Cities: Life on the New Frontier (New York, 1988); Paul Mattingly SuburbanLandscapes: Culture and Politics in a New York Metropolitan Community (Baltimore, 2001); Marian J.Morton, “The Suburban Ideal and Suburban Realities: Cleveland Heights, Ohio, 1860–2001” Journal ofUrban History 28 (2002): 671–98; Becky M. Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven: Life and Politics in theWorking-Class Suburbs of Los Angeles, 1920–1965 (Chicago, 2002); Andrew Wiese, Places of their Own:African American Suburbanization in the Twentieth Century (Chicago, 2004). For discussion, see AnnDurkin Keating, “Cities, Suburbs, and Their Regions,” Journal of Urban History 27 (2001): 650–57;


Richard Harris and Robert Lewis, “The Geography of North American Cities and Suburbs, 1900–1950:A New Synthesis,” Journal of Urban History 27 (2002): 262–92; Margaret Pugh O’Mara, “SuburbanReconsidered: Race, Politics and Property in the Twentieth Century,” Journal of Social History 39 (2005):229–44.

68. Duncan and Duncan, Landscapes of Privilege.69. The interdependence of cities and suburbs, particularly in the post-World War II period, has been

relatively neglected by urbanists, despite repeated calls for regional context and regionalist perspectives.For example, Raymond A. Mohl, “City and Region: the Missing Dimension in U.S. Urban History,”Journal of Urban History 25 (1998): 3–22; Keating, “Cities, Suburbs and their Regions”; Michael N.Danielson and Paul G. Lewis, “City Bound: Political Science and the American Metropolis,” PoliticalResearch Quarterly 49 (1996): 203–20; H-Urban discussion thread: “New Suburban History CourseReflections,” December 2003.

70. This interdependence is also something that the new suburban history tends to downplay in por-traying independent and varied suburbs. The idea of a “polynucleated metropolis,” for example, de-emphasizes the relationships between places in the metropolis. See Amanda I. Seligman, “The NewSuburban History,” Journal of Planning History 3 (2004): 312–23.

71. For example, Robert Bruegmann Sprawl: A Compact History (Chicago, 2005).

Louise Nelson Dyble is the Associate Director for Research of the Keston Institute forPublic Finance and Infrastructure Policy at the University of Southern California. HerUC Berkeley dissertation, “Paying the Toll: A Political History of the Golden GateBridge and Highway District, 1923–1971,” won the 2004 Urban History AssociationAward for Best Dissertation in Urban History. A book by the same name will be pub-lished by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2008.


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