III. The Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) Region SCAG was formed in 1964 pursuant to a state government-mandated joint powers agreement between member county and city jurisdictions (Bollens 1997). SCAG has evolved into the largest of nearly 450 COGs in the United States. [This num- ber varies depending upon the source. Levy (2000) reports 450, Bollens (1997) reports 300, and the SCAG website reports 700.] It functions as a regional planning organization for Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura, and Imperial Counties (fig. 11). The region encompasses a population exceeding 15 million people in an area of more than 38,000 square miles (www.scag.ca.gov). SCAG has three primary roles as a regional planning body: (1) Under Federal and State law, SCAG is responsible for preparing growth forecasts for the region and then drawing up a series of plans, (2) SCAG functions as the authorized re- gional agency for intergovernmental review of programs proposed for Federal financial assistance and development activities, and (3) SCAG initiates the de- velopment of sub-regional COGs that deal with local land use and development issues on a sub-regional (but larger than municipal) scale. SCAG is mandated by the Federal government to research and draw up plans for transportation, growth management, hazardous waste management, and air quality in the region. In the process, SCAG develops growth forecasts to aid plan development. Other mandates for SCAG come from the State. For example, State government mandates SCAG to develop growth projections, which are used in the Regional Housing Needs Assessment. The State requires that each municipality provide its fair share of affordable housing based on population size, income level, and income distribution. SCAG works with the State Department of Housing and Community Development to determine each city’s “fair share.” SCAG also functions as the authorized regional agency for intergovernmen- tal review of projects proposed for Federal financial assistance. Thus, if Federal money is set aside for a transportation project in the region, the funds are allocated through SCAG after its review and approval of the project. SCAG’s power derives from its role in the allocation of Federal and State funds as well as through the publication of growth forecasts and plans for the region. A perception by local government is that once SCAG publishes a plan, the ideas earn legitimacy and may be used by other arms of the Federal government to require counties and cities in the region to provide facilities they did not intend to provide (Fulton 1997). Currently, there is debate in the SCAG region regarding the 1998 Adopted Forecast. SCAG forecasts 22.3 million people, 10.6 million jobs, and 10.2 million employed people in the region by 2020. The sub-regional COG effort is to reduce the forecast by one million people and one million jobs. If SCAG reduces the forecast, the next issue will be how those numbers are re-allocated to the sub- regions (Choi 1999, Schuiling 1999). Counties that do not agree with SCAG’s current forecasts have hired economists and demographers to develop alternative projections that they believe more accurately reflect economic conditions. Since job projections drive population projections (Schuiling 1999), economists at the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy have been contacted by some sub-regional COGs to help in developing revised numbers for the region. SCAG tries to reduce the gap between their population projections and DOF

USDA Forest Service Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-187. 2003. 31 Section III THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF GOVERNMENTS (SCAG) REGION THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF GOVERNMENTS (SCAG) REGION Section III

projections, but the fact that economic forecasts are used by SCAG in their forecasts and are not used by DOF accounts for at least some of the disparity in the two sets of numbers for each county. The less influence economic var