A Closer Look at “Local Control”: Communities, Commodities, and the Collapse of the Coast1

Abstract Particularly when discussing the effects of large-scale industrial projects, the existing community literature exhibits a curious duality about relationships between local communities and outside forces. While explicitly noting the external origins of large-scale industrial projects, the literature shifts to a focus on local planning when discussing the management of any resultant disruptions. Little attention is devoted to the possibility that the magnitude of external boom-bust forces may be so great as to overwhelm even the best-prepared communities. This exploratory study examines the extent of external influences on two resource-dependent parishes (counties) in coastal Louisiana with long histories of offshore oil and gas development—one a predominantly blue-collar area and the other an administrative center. The drop in oil prices since 1981 created differently structured but equally devastating impacts on the two. Simple indices suggest that the parishes experienced four-to-ten times as much instability over the past two decades as the nation as a whole. In both parishes, simple regression equations using commodity-related variables that are completely outside the control of local communities are found to explain over 90 percent of the variation in total employment and over 70 percent of the change in employment that cannot be explained by preexisting conditions.