ABSTRACT
Santa Cruz, California is a city of 50,000 located on the northern rim of Monterey Bay on the central California coast. Favored by both nature and circumstance, it enjoys a mild Mediterranean climate, a picturesque physical setting as well as proximity to Silicon Valley. In addition, its economy is bolstered by large employment bases in city and county government as well as by a University of California campus (UCSC) with more than 10,000 students. Until the early 1970s, politics in Santa Cruz were dominated by the pro-growth forces instrumental in attracting the UCSC campus to the community during the previous decade. In a sense, Santa Cruz was, in microcosm, a typical sunbelt community with most key decisions made by the chamber of commerce whose influence was strongly felt in city government ( Parker and Feagin 1990 ). By 1989, the year of the Loma Prieta Earthquake, UCSC's impact on the local economy was measured at $373 million, increasing to $666 million in early 1999 (Doyle 1989; University of California 1999).
