Challenging the Growth Machine

Challenging the Growth Machine PDF Author: Barbara Ferman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
Economic development and urban growth are the contested grounds of urban politics. Business elites and politicians tend to forge "pro-growth" coalitions centered around downtown development while progressive and neighborhood activists counter with a more balanced approach that features a strong neighborhood component. Urban politics is often shaped by this conflict, which has intellectual as well as practical dimensions. In some cities, neighborhood interests have triumphed; in others, the pro-growth agenda has prevailed. In this illuminating comparative study, Barbara Ferman demonstrates why neighborhood challenges to pro-growth politics were much more successful in Pittsburgh than they were in Chicago. Operating largely in the civic arena, Pittsburgh's neighborhood groups encountered a political culture and institutional structure conducive to empowering neighborhood progressivism in housing and economic development policymaking. In contrast, the pro-growth agenda in Chicago was challenged in the electoral arena, which was dominated by machine, ward-based politicians who regarded any independent neighborhood organizing as a threat. Consequently, neighborhood demands for policymaking input were usually thwarted. Besides revealing why the development policies of two important American cities diverged, Ferman's unique comparative approach to this issue significantly expands the scope of urban analysis. Among other things, it provides the first serious study to incorporate the civic sector-neighborhood politics-as an important component of urban regimes. Ferman also emphasizes institutional and cultural factors-often ignored or relegated to residual roles in other studies-and expounds on their influence in shaping local politics and policy. To add an analytical and normative dimension to urban analysis, she focuses on the "non-elite" actors, not just the economic and political elites who compose governing coalitions. Ultimately, Ferman takes a more holistic and balanced view of large cities than is typical for urban studies as she argues that neighborhoods are an important, integral part of what cities are and can be. For that reason especially, her work will have a profound impact upon our understanding of urban politics.

Challenging the Growth Machine

Challenging the Growth Machine PDF Author: Barbara Ferman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 214

Get Book Here

Book Description
Economic development and urban growth are the contested grounds of urban politics. Business elites and politicians tend to forge "pro-growth" coalitions centered around downtown development while progressive and neighborhood activists counter with a more balanced approach that features a strong neighborhood component. Urban politics is often shaped by this conflict, which has intellectual as well as practical dimensions. In some cities, neighborhood interests have triumphed; in others, the pro-growth agenda has prevailed. In this illuminating comparative study, Barbara Ferman demonstrates why neighborhood challenges to pro-growth politics were much more successful in Pittsburgh than they were in Chicago. Operating largely in the civic arena, Pittsburgh's neighborhood groups encountered a political culture and institutional structure conducive to empowering neighborhood progressivism in housing and economic development policymaking. In contrast, the pro-growth agenda in Chicago was challenged in the electoral arena, which was dominated by machine, ward-based politicians who regarded any independent neighborhood organizing as a threat. Consequently, neighborhood demands for policymaking input were usually thwarted. Besides revealing why the development policies of two important American cities diverged, Ferman's unique comparative approach to this issue significantly expands the scope of urban analysis. Among other things, it provides the first serious study to incorporate the civic sector-neighborhood politics-as an important component of urban regimes. Ferman also emphasizes institutional and cultural factors-often ignored or relegated to residual roles in other studies-and expounds on their influence in shaping local politics and policy. To add an analytical and normative dimension to urban analysis, she focuses on the "non-elite" actors, not just the economic and political elites who compose governing coalitions. Ultimately, Ferman takes a more holistic and balanced view of large cities than is typical for urban studies as she argues that neighborhoods are an important, integral part of what cities are and can be. For that reason especially, her work will have a profound impact upon our understanding of urban politics.

Encyclopedia of Community

Encyclopedia of Community PDF Author: DAVID LEVINSON
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 0761925988
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 2045

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Book Description
The Encyclopedia of Community is a major four volume reference work that seeks to define one of the most widely researched topics in the behavioural and social sciences. Community itself is a concept, an experience, and a central part of being human. This pioneering major reference work seeks to provide the necessary definitions of community far beyond the traditional views.

The Urban Growth Machine

The Urban Growth Machine PDF Author: Association of American Geographers. Meeting
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791442593
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
Two decades after Harvey Molotch’s “city as a growth machine,” this book offers a unique, critical assessment of his thesis.

Chicago

Chicago PDF Author: Gregory Squires
Publisher: Temple University Press
ISBN: 9780877226178
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Despite local folklore, Chicago is not always a city that works. No longer the "Hog Butcher for the World," the Windy City has, in recent decades, pursued economic growth at all costs--to the detriment of many of its citizens. This book describes the social, economic, and political costs of the growth ideology and examines the populist response that promises an alternative Chicago. Tracing the city's uneven economic development since World War II, the authors demonstrate how unchecked growth in favor of private enterprise has resulted in severe poverty, unemployment, crime, reduced tax revenues and property values, a decline in municipal services, and racial, ethnic, and class divisiveness. And yet proponents of Daley-style machine politics and the notion of the city as a growth machine still assert that the future of the city depends exclusively on its ability to grow. The victory of Harold Washington is the most visible symbol of the movement toward an alternative Chicago. Naming different priorities and using more participatory tactics, this challenge to the politics of growth promotes development that is responsive to social need, not just market signals. Author note: Gregory D. Squires is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Larry Bennett is Associate Professor and Chair of the Political Science Department at DePaul University. Kathleen McCourt is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Loyola University of Chicago. Philip Nyden is Associate Professor of Sociology at Loyola University of Chicago.

The Homevoter Hypothesis

The Homevoter Hypothesis PDF Author: William A. Fischel
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674036901
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
Just as investors want the companies they hold equity in to do well, homeowners have a financial interest in the success of their communities. If neighborhood schools are good, if property taxes and crime rates are low, then the value of the homeowner’s principal asset—his home—will rise. Thus, as William Fischel shows, homeowners become watchful citizens of local government, not merely to improve their quality of life, but also to counteract the risk to their largest asset, a risk that cannot be diversified. Meanwhile, their vigilance promotes a municipal governance that provides services more efficiently than do the state or national government. Fischel has coined the portmanteau word “homevoter” to crystallize the connection between homeownership and political involvement. The link neatly explains several vexing puzzles, such as why displacement of local taxation by state funds reduces school quality and why local governments are more likely to be efficient providers of environmental amenities. The Homevoter Hypothesis thereby makes a strong case for decentralization of the fiscal and regulatory functions of government.

Public Entrepreneurs

Public Entrepreneurs PDF Author: Mark Schneider
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400821576
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Seizing opportunities, inventing new products, transforming markets--entrepreneurs are an important and well-documented part of the private sector landscape. Do they have counterparts in the public sphere? The authors argue that they do, and test their argument by focusing on agents of dynamic political change in suburbs across the United States, where much of the entrepreneurial activity in American politics occurs. The public entrepreneurs they identify are most often mayors, city managers, or individual citizens. These entrepreneurs develop innovative ideas and implement new service and tax arrangements where existing administrative practices and budgetary allocations prove inadequate to meet a range of problems, from economic development to the racial transition of neighborhoods. How do public entrepreneurs emerge? How much does the future of urban development depend on them? This book answers these questions, using data from over 1,000 local governments. The emergence of public entrepreneurs depends on a set of familiar cost-benefit calculations. Like private sector risk-takers, public entrepreneurs exploit opportunities emerging from imperfect markets for public goods, from collective-action problems that impede private solutions, and from situations where information is costly and the supply of services is uneven. The authors augment their quantitative analysis with ten case studies and show that bottom-up change driven by politicians, public managers, and other local agents obeys regular and predictable rules.

The Limits to Growth

The Limits to Growth PDF Author: Donella H. Meadows
Publisher: Universe Pub
ISBN: 9780876632222
Category : Economic development.
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Examines the factors which limit human economic and population growth and outlines the steps necessary for achieving a balance between population and production. Bibliogs

The Next Shift

The Next Shift PDF Author: Gabriel Winant
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674238095
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Winner of the Frederick Jackson Turner Award Winner of the Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial Prize Winner of the C. L. R. James Award A ProMarket Best Political Economy Book of the Year Men in hardhats were once the heart of America’s working class; now it is women in scrubs. What does this shift portend for our future? Pittsburgh was once synonymous with steel. But today most of its mills are gone. Like so many places across the United States, a city that was a center of blue-collar manufacturing is now dominated by the service economy—particularly health care, which employs more Americans than any other industry. Gabriel Winant takes us inside the Rust Belt to show how America’s cities have weathered new economic realities. In Pittsburgh’s neighborhoods, he finds that a new working class has emerged in the wake of deindustrialization. As steelworkers and their families grew older, they required more health care. Even as the industrial economy contracted sharply, the care economy thrived. Hospitals and nursing homes went on hiring sprees. But many care jobs bear little resemblance to the manufacturing work the city lost. Unlike their blue-collar predecessors, home health aides and hospital staff work unpredictable hours for low pay. And the new working class disproportionately comprises women and people of color. Today health care workers are on the front lines of our most pressing crises, yet we have been slow to appreciate that they are the face of our twenty-first-century workforce. The Next Shift offers unique insights into how we got here and what could happen next. If health care employees, along with other essential workers, can translate the increasing recognition of their economic value into political power, they may become a major force in the twenty-first century.

The City at Stake

The City at Stake PDF Author: Raphael J. Sonenshein
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400849640
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
The City at Stake tells the dramatic story of how the nation's second-largest city completed a major reform of its government in the face of a deeply threatening movement for secession by the San Fernando Valley. How did Los Angeles, a diverse city with an image of unstructured politics and fragmented government, find a way to unify itself around a controversial set of reforms? Los Angeles government nearly collapsed in political bickering over charter reform, which generated the remarkable phenomenon of two competing charter reform commissions. Out of this nearly impossible tangle, reformers managed to knit a new city charter that greatly expanded institutions for citizen participation and addressed long-standing weaknesses in the role of the mayor. The new charter, pursued by a Republican mayor, won its greatest support from liberal whites who had long favored reform measures. Written by an urban scholar who played a key role in the charter reform process, the book offers both a theoretical perspective on the process of institutional reform in an age of diversity, and a firsthand, inside-the-box look at how major reform works. The new afterword by the author analyzes the 2005 election of Los Angeles's first modern Latino mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, a milestone in the development of urban reform coalitions in an age of immigration and ethnic diversity.

The No-growth Imperative

The No-growth Imperative PDF Author: Gabor Zovanyi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415630142
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
Mounting evidence reveals that the existing scale of human enterprise has already surpassed global ecological limits to growth. This ecological reality clearly counteracts the possibility of continued exponential growth in the twenty-first century. In the absence of international, national, or state initiatives to implement a no-growth imperative founded on ecological limits, this book takes the position that local communities have an obligation to take the lead in promoting a new politics of sustainability directed at recognizing and ...