Everybody always complains about growth but nobody ever does anything about it. That, at least, is one way to view the March 7 election returns. According to most polls, sprawl tops many lists of community problems these days. But voters in almost a dozen California communities rejected the opportunity to use "ballot-box zoning" to stop growth and development. And it will be interesting to see whether that trend continues in the November election — when some very big anti-growth initiatives are scheduled to appear on local ballots in numerous parts of the state. Pro-growth forces throughout California easily carried the day on Super Tuesday, winning 11 of 15 land-use contests on local ballots throughout the state, according to an analysis by California Planning & Development Report. The pro-growth vote was strong and uniform throughout the state, including such traditional slow-growth bastions as Ventura County, Monterey, and Palo Alto. The only slow-growth victories came in the small college towns of Davis and San Luis Obispo, and in Orange County, where opposition to a proposed airport at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Base apparently motivated a large turnout to support future restrictions on jails, hazardous waste facilities and airports. A slow-growth argument also carried the day in the eastern Alameda County city of Livermore. In Ventura County, the first countywide test of the SOAR initiative — which requires voters to approve the rezoning of agricultural land or open space before development can occur — resulted in overwhelming victory for the applicant. Residential growth limits were narrowly defeated in the San Joaquin Valley commuter town of Tracy, where the imbalance of jobs and housing has become a major issue. Significantly, voters in three suburban cities — Glendora, Huntington Beach, and South San Francisco — approved big-box retail projects. A large retail project in Seal Beach also survived an initiative challenge. The 73% pro-growth success rate was one of the highest in any recent election. In the November 1999 election, pro- and slow-growth forces split 18 local ballot issues almost evenly. What's going on? Aren't California voters supposed to be ticked off about growth, the way Ventura County voters were in 1998 when they approved the SOAR open-space protection initiatives? Well, yes and no. It's true that California is unlike any other state in the way that local citizens frequently use "ballot-box zoning" to hash out development disputes. But unlike, say, the tax revolt kick-started by Proposition 13, we've never seen a full-blown revolution in land-use planning touched off by initiatives. In general, land-use initiatives are limited to select parts of the state where there exists a long tradition of ballot-box zoning — including some parts of the Bay Area, Ventura County, the Central Coast, and the San Diego area. During real estate booms, ballot measures expand into unlikely areas, such as the Inland Empire and the Central Valley, but the trend usually does not stick. When the real estate market tanks, local ballot activity in the land-use arena tails off. And slow-growthers haven't ever "broken through" to create an effective statewide movement. Unlike other states — including Washington and Arizona — we have not seen a statewide growth initiative in recent years, partly because California is so big and diverse nobody can figure out how to write one that stands a chance of winning. In the current real estate boom, California is following this historical trend. The traditional centers of ballot-box zoning are popping with activity. The number of measures statewide appears to be on the rise. And the whole business has not quite reached the point where it is a statewide movement. Indeed, an argument exists that the latest round of ballot-box zoning peaked with passage of the Save Open space and Agricultural Resources (SOAR) protections in Ventura County 18 months ago, even though SOAR was widely played in the national press as the leading edge of a trend. Since then, some minor ballot-box zoning measures have passed around the state, but all the big ones have lost, including the East Bay's Citizens Alliance for Public Planning (CAPP) initiatives last fall. But the final act may still lie ahead: the November 2000 ballot. Right now, the November ballot is shaping up as the most important test of ballot-box zoning since the election of November 1988 — the height of the 1980s real estate boom, when growth control measures appeared simultaneously on the ballot in Orange, Riverside, and San Diego counties. In the East Bay, the Sierra Club is likely to launch a major urban growth boundary initiative in Alameda County. Boundaries will also be on the ballot in the fast-growing Central Valley town of Modesto. A SOAR-style, open-space initiative will be voted on in San Luis Obispo County. And if recent history is any guide, we're likely to see two or three dozen smaller ballot-box zoning measures throughout the state. So will the voters become more impatient with growth between now and November? And will ballot-box success translate into an enduring statewide slow-growth movement at last? The answer is maybe. History would suggest that the longer a real estate boom lasts, the wearier of growth the voters become. And even in the mostly pro-growth results last Tuesday, there were some signs that slow-growth sentiment is spreading. Even though they were outspent something like 40 to 1, the slow-growth activists in Tracy came within 300 votes of victory — a remarkable achievement in an area represented in Congress by Richard Pombo, a real estate broker and militant property-rights advocate. The Tracy slow-growthers may well put their initiative back on the ballot in November, and they're likely to make a serious run at the City Council as well. If ballot-box zoning passes this November in both Tracy and Modesto — two Valley towns not known for electing environmentalists — that result might take slow-growth politics in California to a new plateau. If the fast-growing Central Valley were finally perceived as being ripe for slow-growth politics, a statewide movement might be viable after all. Yet, at the same time, there is no guarantee that even victories in Tracy and Modesto would spark a statewide movement. Two other high-profile ballot-box zoning contests in November will take place at the county level, in San Luis Obispo and Alameda. Past experience has shown that it is very difficult for slow-growth activists to win at the county level, where walking precincts is not as important as big mailers and media campaigns. The history of California is littered with voter revolts that almost happened. Over the next few months, we'll find out whether ballot-box zoning has enough "legs" as a political issue to create a political earthquake — or whether, instead, it will continue to cause nothing more than a series of minor tremors throughout the state.