Cascading drop-downs in MVC 3 Razor view

Let's illustrate with an example. As always start with a model:

public class MyViewModel
{
    public string SelectedProvinceId { get; set; }
    public string SelectedCityId { get; set; }
    public string SelectedSuburbId { get; set; }
    public IEnumerable<Province> Provinces { get; set; }
}

public class Province
{
    public string Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

Next a controller:

public class HomeController : Controller
{
    public ActionResult Index()
    {
        var model = new MyViewModel
        {
            // TODO: Fetch those from your repository
            Provinces = Enumerable.Range(1, 10).Select(x => new Province
            {
                Id = (x + 1).ToString(),
                Name = "Province " + x
            })
        };
        return View(model);
    }

    public ActionResult Suburbs(int cityId)
    {
        // TODO: Fetch the suburbs from your repository based on the cityId
        var suburbs = Enumerable.Range(1, 5).Select(x => new
        {
            Id = x,
            Name = "suburb " + x
        });
        return Json(suburbs, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);
    }

    public ActionResult Cities(int provinceId)
    {
        // TODO: Fetch the cities from your repository based on the provinceId
        var cities = Enumerable.Range(1, 5).Select(x => new
        {
            Id = x,
            Name = "city " + x
        });
        return Json(cities, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);
    }
}

And finally a view:

@model SomeNs.Models.MyViewModel

@{
    ViewBag.Title = "Home Page";
}

<script type="text/javascript" src="/scripts/jquery-1.4.4.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
    $(function () {
        $('#SelectedProvinceId').change(function () {
            var selectedProvinceId = $(this).val();
            $.getJSON('@Url.Action("Cities")', { provinceId: selectedProvinceId }, function (cities) {
                var citiesSelect = $('#SelectedCityId');
                citiesSelect.empty();
                $.each(cities, function (index, city) {
                    citiesSelect.append(
                        $('<option/>')
                            .attr('value', city.Id)
                            .text(city.Name)
                    );
                });
            });
        });

        $('#SelectedCityId').change(function () {
            var selectedCityId = $(this).val();
            $.getJSON('@Url.Action("Suburbs")', { cityId: selectedCityId }, function (suburbs) {
                var suburbsSelect = $('#SelectedSuburbId');
                suburbsSelect.empty();
                $.each(suburbs, function (index, suburb) {
                    suburbsSelect.append(
                        $('<option/>')
                            .attr('value', suburb.Id)
                            .text(suburb.Name)
                    );
                });
            });
        });
    });
</script>

<div>
    Province: 
    @Html.DropDownListFor(x => x.SelectedProvinceId, new SelectList(Model.Provinces, "Id", "Name"))
</div>
<div>
    City: 
    @Html.DropDownListFor(x => x.SelectedCityId, Enumerable.Empty<SelectListItem>())
</div>
<div>
    Suburb: 
    @Html.DropDownListFor(x => x.SelectedSuburbId, Enumerable.Empty<SelectListItem>())
</div>

As an improvement the javascript code could be shortened by writing a jquery plugin to avoid duplicating some parts.

UPDATE:

And talking about a plugin you could have something among the lines:

(function ($) {
    $.fn.cascade = function (options) {
        var defaults = { };
        var opts = $.extend(defaults, options);

        return this.each(function () {
            $(this).change(function () {
                var selectedValue = $(this).val();
                var params = { };
                params[opts.paramName] = selectedValue;
                $.getJSON(opts.url, params, function (items) {
                    opts.childSelect.empty();
                    $.each(items, function (index, item) {
                        opts.childSelect.append(
                            $('<option/>')
                                .attr('value', item.Id)
                                .text(item.Name)
                        );
                    });
                });
            });
        });
    };
})(jQuery);

And then simply wire it up:

$(function () {
    $('#SelectedProvinceId').cascade({
        url: '@Url.Action("Cities")',
        paramName: 'provinceId',
        childSelect: $('#SelectedCityId')
    });

    $('#SelectedCityId').cascade({
        url: '@Url.Action("Suburbs")',
        paramName: 'cityId',
        childSelect: $('#SelectedSuburbId')
    });
});

Thanks Darin for your lead to the solution. It greatly helped me to arrive to the point. But as 'xxviktor' mentioned, I did got circular ref. error. To get rid of it, I've done this way.

    public string GetCounties(int countryID)
    {
        List<County> objCounties = new List<County>();
        var objResp = _mastRepo.GetCounties(countryID, ref objCounties);
        var objRetC = from c in objCounties
                      select new SelectListItem
                      {
                          Text = c.Name,
                          Value = c.ID.ToString()
                      };
        return new JavaScriptSerializer().Serialize(objRetC);
    }

And to achieve auto cascading, I've slightly extended jQuery extension this way.

        $('#ddlCountry').cascade({
            url: '@Url.Action("GetCounties")',
            paramName: 'countryID',
            childSelect: $('#ddlState'),
            childCascade: true
        });

And the actual JS is using this parameter as below (inside JSON request).

                // trigger child change
                if (opts.childCascade) {
                    opts.childSelect.change();
                }

Hope this helps someone with similar issue.

be aware, that this solution doesn't work directly with EF 4.0. It causes "A circular reference was detected while serializing..." error. Here are possible solutions http://blogs.telerik.com/atanaskorchev/posts/10-01-25/resolving_circular_references_when_binding_the_mvc_grid.aspx , I've used second one.