This book poses two questions: “Why do some communities preserve more open space than others? More specifically, what are the conditions for creating innovative, effective land preservation institutions at the local level?” (p. 1). Daniel Press systematically answers these questions with respect to a single state, California, arguing that its experience offers lessons for all states, inasmuch as “California's experience with rapid growth and land preservation resembles that of the rest of the nation” (p. 50).

Press uses a fairly simple model to direct his investigation of combined government and civil society capacity to preserve open space. External constraints and resources (such as development pressures, landscape features, or mandates from state or federal governments) or internal constraints and resources (fiscal resources or administrative expertise) establish the context for political interaction between a community and its local leaders. The level of policy capacity also depends on the level of civic resources, such as attitudes, expectations, norms, and the amount of civic engagement, as well as the quality of leadership with respect to policy entrepreneurship (networking, mobilization, fund-raising, and technical expertise). This model leads to the less-than-surprising expectation that policy capacity, and consequently policy outputs, will be highest where conditions and problems are visible, administrative and economic resources are available, environmental protection preferences are strong, and local leaders are committed to environmental protection. The policy output that Press mainly focuses on is land acquisition by local organizations or agencies, with the primary unit of analysis being the 47 California counties that are not almost entirely under federal ownership.

The author analyzes the politics of open space preservation using an impressive variety of methods, both qualitative and quantitative, and multiple data sources, including newspaper archives, agency files, a telephone survey of 4,100 Californians, referenda election returns, state and federal databases, and five years' worth of interviews with planners, activists, officials, and agency staff. A historical review in Chapter 2 distinguishes three historical periods, with the third, beginning in the mid-1980s, characterized by planned growth, ballot initiatives, and expanded leadership by local officials and nongovernmental organizations. Most of the rest of the book applies Press's policy capacity model to California counties. He examines the ways that development pressures, landscape features, fiscal resources, administrative resources, and variations in civic environmentalism combine to create different contexts for open space politics in each county. He then explores how local policy entrepreneurs, who come from backgrounds in elected office, activism, business, or appointments to boards and advisory commissions, take advantage of or are stymied by these contexts as they bring to bear an assortment of their own resources, such as networking connections and skills, technical expertise, fund-raising skills, and mobilization skills.

Press finds, again not surprisingly, that his policy capacity model is strongly supported by his analysis. Local attitudes matter, the types of landscapes make a difference, and counties with greater capacity are more likely to protect open space successfully. Moreover, there is no one formula for success, as the mixtures of capacity components differ even among successful counties. Communities vary widely in their emphasis on private versus public open space preservation, in the sources of leadership for preservation efforts, and in the relative public support for spending versus greater regulation of private development in order to protect open space. He concludes with a brief look at emerging issues and trends and three types of policy reforms that might increase policy capacity.

This is not a book that is likely to be of interest to most political scientists. Its narrow focus is a strength that also limits its impact and relevance, even to environmental politics scholarship generally for which it has only a few implications. It presents a research project that was not theoretically inspired or inspiring or driven, and consequently it has little to contribute to our deeper understanding of political phenomena. The results are not the slightest bit surprising or provocative and thus do not suggest an amplifying agenda of urgently needed further research.

But the merits of Saving Open Space do make it of significant value to those political scientists specifically interested in local California politics, local environmental policymaking, or land use politics. Press's ambitious and diverse collection of data and observations, and his comprehensive use of them in an integrated analysis of land preservation politics in California, is truly impressive and most laudable, a model for multimethod, multivariate research. For anyone needing data on this topic, the book is also a useful reference resource, with considerable data packed into 30 pages of appendices, 10 tables, and more than 20 graphs, maps, and scatterplots (including, bizarrely, several graphs printed almost entirely upside down). And, finally, it is clearly written and accessible to a student and general readership, who might not find it exciting reading but who will come away with a solid grounding in the politics of local open space preservation in California.