Abstract
The article discusses the problem of housing distribution with reference California's coast. This is a study of a public management problem posed by the environmental protection program for California's coastline. In private management decision making, allocational efficiency is the sole management criterion, public managers, however, are required by their constituencies to evaluate the distributional aspects of their actions. While private management is concerned with profit maximization, public management must deal with questions of who benefits and who pays by income class. The public manager is thus faced with an additional constraint that greatly limits alternatives. This article deals with distributional equity aspects of the planning process as they relate to housing. An overemphasis on the quality of life might lead to the compromising of the housing aspirations of low- and moderate-income people for the benefit of the affluent. Our particular concern in evaluating this problem is with the California Coastal Plan enacted in part by the California legislature. That plan includes distributional equity criteria in the housing market.