Abstract
Tiebout's (1956) model of "voting with one's feet" offers a longstanding theoretical basis for the desirability of having many local governments in a metropolitan area to provide the different local revenue and expenditure mixes desired by the variety of citizens that usually exist in such areas. This paper draws upon these longstanding theoretical models of local public finance and subnational government structure to better understand and analyze the current movement in Sacramento County, CA for greater local governance. Sacramento County is a primarily urban county of nearly 1,000 square miles and one and a quarter million residents (1,252 population density). The study is on track and these first-round findings indicate that the results of an analysis of the second set of survey results should be very informative in regard to drawing final conclusions on the efficacy of Sacramento County's efforts at bringing greater local control to land use decisions through Community Planning Councils.