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OCR for page 42
42
URBAN CHANGE AND POVERTY
from cutbacks in social programs and human capital investments
in education and training programs that are important to a city's
long-term economic growth.
Trends in Urban Governance
KirTin and Marshall (in this volume:362-363) observe that cities,
in the face of federal cutbacks, have turned to a new entrepreneurial
politics of growth and development that has supplanted the politics
of social service delivery that predominated in the 1960s and 1970s:
The national government Is focusing its resources more tightly upon
direct service delivery and income redistribution, while cities are
expanding beyond traditional delivery of municipal services to a wide
range of entrepreneurial activities designed to stimulate economic
activities, to create jobs, and to generate revenues, much of which are
used to support the traditional service delivery.
Other urban scholars (Judd and Ready, 1986:210, 215-215) have
also noted this trend:
Over time, the municipal development agenda has been transformed.
Economic development strategies have become much more elaborate
and complex. Growth cities as well as cities in decline have turned to
the national market and scrambled to make themselves attractive to
footloose private firms. All cities are engaged in aggressive campaigns
to secure their share of national economic growth. Well before the
1980 election, cities were actively trying to gain more control over
their own economic destinies. They have been pushed further in this
direction by the policies of the Reagan administration.
The federal mandate is clear: cities must make themselves
more attractive to private firms and must provide fertile ground
for local entrepreneurship. To accomplish these objectives, HUD
suggests that localities form public-private partnerships.... Nearly
all cities have created public-private partnerships to promote economic
growth. Some 15,000 local nonprofit and quasi-public organizations
currently administer much of the economic development activity that
· —
IS OCCUrEl21g.
Usually there is general consensus on the desirability of economic
development projects that will create jobs and increase tax revenues,
especially in large cities. Disagreements can arise, however, over
whether or not a particular project is beneficial, over the distribution
of benefits, and also over the location, size, and environmental effects
of a project (P. Peterson, 1981:Ch.7; Stone and Sanders, 19873.
Public opinion polls indicate that black urban residents desire
OCR for page 43
COMMITTEE REPORT
43
a higher level of social welfare spending and government services
than do whites. Black municipal leaclers emphasize issues of hous-
ing inequality, health care, employment and poverty, and education.
Greater proportions of the budgets in cities with black mayors and
council members are devoted to health, education, and housing than
are devoted to these purposes in cities with white elected officials
(Karnig and Welch, and Welch and Combs, cited in Judd and Ready,
1986:211-212~. By 1985 there were nearly 3,000 black municipal
officials, nearly double the number of officials in 1975; most are in
the South. There are 17 black mayors in cities with populations of
over 100,000. Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia have
black mayors, and Denver and San Antonio have Hispanic mayors.
Yet minority success in city politics relies on electoral organizing
and coalition formation, even in predominantly black cities (Brown-
ing et al., 1984~. Black and Hispanic officials have worked to gain
the support of business interests in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Detroit,
Philadelphia, Denver, and Miami, even though sometimes they have
been criticized by minority groups (Browning and Marshall, 19863.
It is difficult to document the extent of local entrepreneurial
activities because fiscal data are not always included in the statis-
tical data series that are available. Kirlin and Marshall (in this
volume) point to some indirect and impressionistic evidence. They
show, for example, that localities are relying relatively more on user
charges and utility revenues and less on taxes and intergovernmental
grants than previously (Kirlin and Marshall, in this volume:Table
4~. They note that the major associations representing cities and
their managers have been busy sponsoring programs, workshops, and
publications concerning entrepreneurship. There are also a number
of case studies of local public entrepreneurship. Judd and Ready
(1986) describe "the new politics of economic development" in Den-
ver, Chicago, and St. Paul. Sonenshein (1986) looks at public-private
development coalitions fostered by the mayor of Los Angeles. Erieden
and Sagalyn (1984) found that public-private endeavors were more
successful in completing downtown shopping centers than old style
grants-oriented redevelopment efforts.
The governance of cities evidently has not been seriously threat-
ened by recent changes in their external environment. Mayors' of-
fices and those of other elected officials have not become notably
more precarious because voters have been blaming them for cuts
in city services and other social services. Cities have responded to
reductions in federal aid and earlier restraints from state fiscal limit
Representative terms from entire chapter:
private firms
