314
Opinion of Souter, J.
for a similar regulation. What is clear is that the evidence of reliance must be a matter of demonstrated fact, not speculative supposition.
By these standards, the record before us today is deficient in its failure to reveal any evidence on which Erie may have relied, either for the seriousness of the threatened harm or for the efficacy of its chosen remedy. The plurality does the best it can with the materials to hand, see ante, at 297-298, but the pickings are slim. The plurality quotes the ordinance's preamble asserting that over the course of more than a century the city council had expressed "findings" of detrimental secondary effects flowing from lewd and immoral profitmaking activity in public places. But however accurate the recital may be and however honestly the councilors may have held those conclusions to be true over the years, the recitation does not get beyond conclusions on a subject usually fraught with some emotionalism. The plurality recognizes this, of course, but seeks to ratchet up the value of mere conclusions by analogizing them to the legislative facts within an administrative agency's special knowledge, on which action is adequately premised in the absence of evidentiary challenge. Ante, at 298. The analogy is not obvious; agencies are part of the executive branch and we defer to them in part to allow them the freedom necessary to reconcile competing policies. See Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 843-845 (1984). That aside, it is one thing to accord administrative leeway as to predictive judgments in applying " 'elusive concepts' " to circumstances where the record is inconclusive and "evidence . . . is difficult to compile," FCC v. National Citizens Comm. for Broadcasting, 436 U. S. 775, 796-797 (1978), and quite another to dispense with evidence of current fact as a predicate for banning a subcategory of expression.3 As
3 The proposition that the presence of nude dancing establishments increases the incidence of prostitution and violence is amenable to empirical treatment, and the city councilors who enacted Erie's ordinance are in a
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