Urban Neighborhoods in a New Era
Revitalization Politics in the Postindustrial City
by Clarence N. Stone, Ellen Shiau, Harold Wolman, Donn Worgs, Robert P. Stoker, John Betancur, Susan E. Clarke, Marilyn Dantico, Martin Horak, Karen Mossberger, Juliet Musso and Jefferey M. Sellers
University of Chicago Press, 2015
Cloth: 978-0-226-28896-3 | Paper: 978-0-226-28901-4 | Electronic: 978-0-226-28915-1
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226289151.001.0001
ABOUT THIS BOOK
For decades, North American cities racked by deindustrialization and population loss have followed one primary path in their attempts at revitalization: a focus on economic growth in downtown and business areas. Neighborhoods, meanwhile, have often been left severely underserved. There are, however, signs of change. This collection of studies by a distinguished group of political scientists and urban planning scholars offers a rich analysis of the scope, potential, and ramifications of a shift still in progress. Focusing on neighborhoods in six cities—Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Toronto—the authors show how key players, including politicians and philanthropic organizations, are beginning to see economic growth and neighborhood improvement as complementary goals. The heads of universities and hospitals in central locations also find themselves facing newly defined realities, adding to the fluidity of a new political landscape even as structural inequalities exert a continuing influence.
While not denying the hurdles that community revitalization still faces, the contributors ultimately put forth a strong case that a more hospitable local milieu can be created for making neighborhood policy. In examining the course of experiences from an earlier period of redevelopment to the present postindustrial city, this book opens a window on a complex process of political change and possibility for reform.
REVIEWS
“A generation ago, scholars sought to ‘bring the state back in’ to studies of urban politics. Urban Neighborhoods in a New Era proposes to do the same for neighborhood revitalization politics. This is a timely and important work with well-written case studies, cross-city statistics, and a wealth of forward-looking theoretical insights that will appeal to a wide-ranging audience of scholars and students as well as practitioners in the nonprofit sector and general readers interested in the fate of cities.”
— Steven P. Erie, University of California, San Diego
"An excellent collection of research essays on the changing fortunes of urban neighborhoods, and the approaches cities have developed to support them, over the last several decades. The volume includes outstanding and up-to-date interpretative analysis of both the politics and the policy process in one Canadian and five American cities. Altogether, the book represents a new standard in comparative urban studies for North America."
— Richard Stren, University of Toronto
“A half-century of battles between pro-development forces and neighborhood defenders has reshaped the urban political landscape. Conflicts exist in cities around the world between economic forces favoring development and protectors of neighborhood distinctiveness. What is different is that outcomes are no longer as pre-determined as in the past. Through a series of well-informed and perceptive case studies, the authors identify an important incremental shift in urban policy from a narrow preoccupation with land use toward greater concern with people. Revitalization policies have become viewed as an iterative and ongoing process rather than as a package of fixed products. While inequality and neighborhood distress remain pressing challenges for urban communities everywhere, this volume demonstrates that the possibilities for responding are more fluid and, hopefully, more effective than ever before.”
— Blair Ruble, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
“A diverse picture of efforts to overcome poverty. . . . Power is less concentrated than in previous decades, compelling neighborhoods to seek political and financial resources close at hand. The best prospects lie in the political mobilization of each community to formulate an agenda and assert its concerns in the arenas of city government and institutional life. The case studies offer instructive examples of this occurring in some places, but many areas of distress and deterioration remain. . . . Recommended.”
— Choice
"Given that much previous work in urban politics concentrated on policy actions targeting the CBD to analyze power configurations in cities, a book investigating urban power through the lens of neighborhood politics is definitely to be welcomed and will probably become a landmark in the field. The six case studies (chapters 3 to 8) are impressively well-documented and insightfully combine a citywide historical perspective on the increasing political attention granted to neighborhoods with specific foci on how revitalization initiatives were concretely implemented in some distressed neighborhoods."
— Sébastien Lambelet, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Change Afoot -Martin Horak, Juliet Musso, Ellen Shiau, Robert P. Stoker, and Clarence N. Stone
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226289151.003.0001
[neighborhood revitalization;post-industrial period;structural inequality;narrative of failure;structure and agency;intermediate factors;philanthropic sector;ed-and-med sector]
Chapter One frames the study of neighborhood revitalization by tracing a transition from the redevelopment era following World War II to a still unfolding post-industrial period of city governance. In the new era of post-industrial neighborhoods, political relationships no longer center in a highly cohesive governing arrangement of the kind characteristic of the redevelopment period. Using an approach which takes into account structural disadvantage but allows for political agency, the chapter offers an alternative to the urban narrative of failure.It argues that structural forces are sufficiently loose in immediate impact to make room for intermediate factors shaped by agency to have a part in determining the political position of distressed neighborhoods. It matters that the philanthropic and ed-and-med sectors are now playing a larger and differently conceived role than in the past and that the rudiments of a greater grassroots role can be identified. (pages 1 - 32)
This chapter is available at:
University of Chicago Press
Contexts for Neighborhood Revitalization: A Comparative Overview -Harold Wolman and Martin Horak
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226289151.003.0002
[neighborhood distress;globalization;deindustrialization decline;manufacturing sector;immigration;boomtowns]
This urban neighborhood study assumes that the economic trajectory of a city and its metropolitan region, its pattern of demographic change, and extent of neighborhood distress are useful backdrops for understanding the political implications of a broad transition from an industrial to a post-industrial economy. The chapter portrays the evolving local social, economic and demographic context in the six cities studied. Through data on selected factors this chapter examines how, in response to processes of deindustrialization, globalization, and immigration, variables cluster in the different cities to produce distinct contexts. Our study cities include three types: the distressed former industrial city (Baltimore); the post-industrial boomtowns (Denver and Phoenix); and the globalized cities (Los Angeles and Toronto). Our sixth city, Chicago, is a hybrid, which has many of the traits of the globalized city, yet also harbors social distress characteristic of a one-time industrial city in decline. (pages 33 - 49)
This chapter is available at:
University of Chicago Press
Neighborhood Policy in Baltimore: The Post-Industrial Turn -Robert P. Stoker, Clarence N. Stone, and Donn Worgs
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226289151.003.0003
[philanthropic sector;ed-and-med institutions;economic development;comprehensive community initiative;patronage politics;city elites;public-private partnerships;independent authorities;ad hoc initiatives]
After city priorities had long focused on remaking downtown, Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke ended the heavy neglect of Baltimore’s poorer neighborhoods. This shift coincided with an increased presence for the city’s philanthropic sector and the emergence of the city’s ed-and-med institutions as important investment anchors. Baltimore moved early to comprehensive community initiatives as an approach to neighborhood policy. However, its Sandtown-Winchester project failed to stimulate private investment. The centerpiece of recent action is redevelopment adjacent to the Johns Hopkins medical campus that combines economic development with enhanced services for residents. Jointly launched by the city and Johns Hopkins with crucial backing from the Annie Casey Foundation, the initiative has support from three key sectors, but has also evoked protests by residents. Baltimore today intermingles neighborhood action with economic development, transportation, and crime fighting. Given a past of patronage politics, Baltimore’s elites favor public-private partnerships over government-centered initiatives. (pages 50 - 80)
This chapter is available at:
University of Chicago Press
Standing in Two Worlds: Neighborhood Policy, the Civic Arena, and Ward-Based Politics in Chicago -John Betancur, Karen Mossberger, and Yue Zhang
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226289151.003.0004
[civic arena;ward-based politics;TIF sector;professional orientation;intra-community conflict;community-based groups;city-wide agenda;LISC;gentrification]
A former industrial city transformed into a global center of commerce, Chicago brings to neighborhood politics a divide between continuing attachment to ward-based practices and an arena of civic professionalism led by the foundation sector. This chapter shows that it fell to the MacArthur Foundation’s New Communities Program to move the city to a more programmatically conceived approach to neighborhood revitalization in the manner of comprehensive community initiatives. Chicago is well populated with community-based organizations, but there is no city-wide agenda for neighborhood improvement. Action focuses at the level of individual neighborhoods. MacArthur enlisted LISC to oversee its program, aiming to encourage a more systemic approach to community development. However, an evaluation showed a continued focus on individual neighborhoods. This chapter also shows that intra-neighborhood tensions over gentrification and other matters can run high and that community goals such as improved education still engender distrust of elite motives. (pages 81 - 107)
This chapter is available at:
University of Chicago Press
Professionalized Government: Institutionalizing the New Politics in Phoenix -Marilyn Dantico and James Svara
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226289151.003.0005
[council-manager government;district elections;political change;community engagement;problem solving;professional management;anti-crime policy;institutionalization;neighborhood distress]
Experiencing phenomenal growth during the second half of the 20th century, Phoenix became the largest council-manager city in America and developed an international reputation for professional management. As Phoenix went through decades of business-led expansion in size and population, economic development with minimal regulation was the city’s overriding priority. By the 1980s, growth, emerging problems, and increasing political diversity brought an end to unchallenged business leadership when a reform group came together to replace at-large election of city council members with district elections and take on a more varied agenda. This chapter shows how political change and professional management can interact positively to develop a sustained focus on problems of neighborhood distress. The key institutionalization move was establishing a Department of Neighborhood Services that brought professional skills to bear in combining community engagement with an expansive problem-solving approach and varied efforts to capture needed resources. (pages 108 - 130)
This chapter is available at:
University of Chicago Press
City Fragmentation and Neighborhood Connections: The Political Dynamics of Community Revitalization in Los Angeles -Ellen Shiau, Juliet Musso, and Jeffrey M. Sellers
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226289151.003.0006
[hyper-fragmented;immigration;Latino-African American relations;capacity building;philanthropic foundations;community benefits agreement;transit-oriented development;neighborhood organization]
Los Angeles is a global city and port of entry for immigrants. Neighborhood policies in Los Angeles reflect the city's hyper-fragmented polity. In the face of widespread pockets of severe distress, Los Angeles has developed no broad neighborhood response. Rather, multiple strands exist largely independent of one another as actors, relationships, and revitalization strategies vary significantly across neighborhoods. Although business and developer interests have historically dominated policymaking in Los Angeles, the city, as home to Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy and other mobilizations, has experienced a rise in grassroots innovations in neighborhood policies. Community benefits agreements have an especially prominent place, but a thinly resourced system of Neighborhood Councils has failed to become a force for improving distressed neighborhoods. Given the spotty presence of city government in neighborhood matters, philanthropic foundations have partly compensated for the vacuum by providing capacity-building support for selected neighborhoods. (pages 131 - 154)
This chapter is available at:
University of Chicago Press
The New Politics in a Post-Industrial City: Intersecting Policies in Denver -Susan E. Clarke
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226289151.003.0007
[Latino immigrants;transit oriented development;market orientation;philanthropic sector;gentrification;affordable housing]
As a growing city, Denver attracts well-educated young people as well as Latino immigrants. Mayor Hickenlooper’s 2003 election stands out for leading to a market-oriented policy that emphasized entrepreneurship while re-programming public resources to leverage private investment. City policy is also intersected by a regional transit system that creates opportunities for transit oriented development and strengthens an already robust gentrification trend, which both the philanthropic sector and the federal government have partially mitigated by grants for affordable housing and other social ends. Efforts to take on community concerns are increasingly falling to collaborative initiatives directed by the philanthropic sector. As an autonomous body of actors, this sector has a major role in defining areas of distress, generating information about neighborhood conditions, and funding combined efforts to address problems. While there is much neighborhood-related activity, neighborhoods face the challenge of securing an effective political place among increasingly complex initiatives. (pages 155 - 181)
This chapter is available at:
University of Chicago Press
Policy Shift without Institutional Change: The Precarious Place of Neighborhood Revitalization in Toronto -Martin Horak and Aaron Alexander Moore
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226289151.003.0008
[globalized city;professionalized city management;institutionalization;immigration;concentrated poverty;gun violence;socio-spatial inequality;United Way]
Affluent, globalized Toronto has a high level of immigration and growing socio-spatial inequality, particularly evident in the city's inner-suburban neighborhoods where there are growing pockets of concentrated poverty. A variety of neighborhood revitalization efforts have gotten underway recently, many of them under the umbrella of a citywide Strong Neighborhoods Strategy initiated by the Toronto United Way. The city enjoys a highly professional and activist management structure, but it lacks an institutionalized base for aggressively pursuing a neighborhood revitalization agenda. A paradoxical picture emerges in which addressing neighborhood distress is on the policy agenda and is linked to concerns about rising gun violence; yet opportunities for the political expression of neighborhood concerns remain weak because institutional and fiscal capacities are fragmented. Toronto’s relative affluence and progressive reputation notwithstanding, resource shortages and a lack of lack of institutional alignment have worked against a robust effort to address neighborhood problems. (pages 182 - 208)
This chapter is available at:
University of Chicago Press
Contending with Structural Inequality in a New Era -Robert P. Stoker, Clarence N. Stone, and Martin Horak
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226289151.003.0009
[Governing;post-industrial city;redevelopment period;power elites;distressed neighborhoods;structural inequality;intermediate factors;policymaking milieu]
Governing the post-industrial city is no mere extension of past practices. New players and ideas, fresh policy tools, and a different context separate the current scene from the earlier redevelopment period. In the unfolding new era, the understanding of the urban condition has shifted in important ways. Elites have become more diverse and now advance an assorted body of concerns. Political and policy alignments have loosened, creating new but fragmented opportunities for neighborhood improvement. For distressed neighborhoods the current challenge is one of constructing anew, not contending against an in-place, tight-knit band of elites. This concluding chapter puts forward a reform agenda focused on intermediate factors that could mitigate somewhat structural disadvantage. By focusing on the milieu in which policy is made rather than the substance of policy, reforms could alter the overall power picture, providing a more supportive context for addressing neighborhood concerns. (pages 209 - 250)
This chapter is available at:
University of Chicago Press
