BOOMTOWN'S YOUTH: THE DIFFERENTIAL IMPACTS OF RAPID COMMUNITY GROWTH ON ADOLESCENTS AND ADULTS.

When adolescents from a rapidly growing community are compared to counter- parts in three nearby communities that are expecting growth of their own, the young persons in the rapidly growing community have significantly lower evaluations of their community, more negative attitudes toward growth, lower levels of satisfaction, and higher levels of alienation. None of these differences are found when adults from the growing community are compared to adults in the same three control communities, and none can be explained by sociodemographic background factors (including length of community residence). The study's ethnographic data strongly suggest that the reasons for the anomalous findings are predominantly social and cultural in nature and are not strongly affected by the types of economic and logistical factors that have been the focus of most analyses to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]