Urban Policy in a Changing Federal System Proceedings of a Symposium (1985) / Chapter Skim
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9. Cities in the New Federalism
9. Cities in the New Federalism
Pages 228-253
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From page 228... ...
Afterwards, we explore a less familiar terrain-the urban political and policymaking processes that have emerged to cope with changing circumstances. The major stipulations are these: · From the travail of the New Deal emerged clusters of federal aid programs that transformed constitutional doctrine on the federal system by replacing the concept of Dual federalism.
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From page 229... ...
Total grants declined between 1981 and 1982 by $6.6 billion; and the consolidation into block grants was used to justify cuts of up to 25 percent. Grants previously provided to local governments were redirected to the states.
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From page 230... ...
But even the Ford administration bailed out New York City, and however much Carter's urban program resembled a seed catalog, an adroit city administration could find some useful items still in stock. Now, the most likely forecast for federal support to cities is one of continued and substantial cuts, exacerbated by the national deficit and applied in the context of new power and discretion vested through the block grants in the states.
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From page 231... ...
One can expect a greater potential for conflict rather than for cooperation and less systematic sets of relationships than obtained with the federal Iron Triangles and Vertical Axes. A variety of urban strategies is likely as loose networks and shifting coalitions of uncertain character appear.
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In their study, The Consequences of Cuts (Nathan and Doolittle, 1983) , the authors pioneered in examining the responses of 14 state governments, 14 large cities, and 26 smaller cities and suburban and rural governments to the federal aid reductions and the shift from categorical to block grants.
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From page 233... ...
, and the second is the classification of the eight cities according to the typology employed by the Committee on National Urban Policy in Rethinking Urban Policy (National Research Council, 1983) (see Table 9-3)
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. TABLE 9-3 City Classification by Committee on National Urban Policy Typology Command and Control, Diversified Service Centers City National Command and Control Regional Command and Control Specialized Service Centers: Functional Subordinate Service Centers: Resort-Retirement Los Angeles Chicago Boston Houston Seattle Tulsa Newark Orlando SOURCE: National Research Council (1983)
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From page 235... ...
Second, one can refine the concept of political ideology by comparing topologies of political culture that are indicative of the intensity with which a local political system feels compelled to seek remedial replacement of the budget cuts. A genuinely authoritative inquiry into the relevant community characteristics is beyond the scope of this inquiry, involving at minimum such statistical tecXniques as factor analysis.
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Diversif fed (Regional command and control) Specialized (Functional command and control )
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according to the classifications established by the Committee on National Urban Policy. The two command and control cities (Los Angeles and Houston)
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A depressed functional service center and almost always at the bottom of every table, Newark has lost the greatest percentage of population; has the lowest median income, the highest unemployment rate; and the largest dependent population. Its percentage of families below the poverty line exceeds that of al]
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From page 239... ...
It places high value on positive public action and professional bureaucracies and views politics as healthy and issue oriented. Traditional culture is concerned with maintaining the existing order and executing public programs through personal networks and is negatively disposed to bureaucracy and a politics of consensus among existing elites.
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This is especially true where the individualistic or moralistic cultures have taken risks in accepting federal aid, where their economic-futures (by the Committee on National Urban Policy's classifica
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From page 241... ...
~ these reside in the larger, older cities with greater dependency ratios and volatile political systems that, given their economic constraints, are rarely capable of devising comprehensive, counterpart fiscal strategies. Rather, they engage impulsively in intricate schemes to search for new sources of revenues, make maximum use of existing taxing and borrowing powers, and sometimes willing, sometimes reluctantly abdicate program responsibilities.
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From page 242... ...
Chicago and Newark established charges for health services; Boston, a commercial fire service charge. Los Angeles tried to impose a trash collection fee; Newark, an airport fee; Tulsa and Seattle sought an earmarked portion of the gas tax revenue.
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Orlando, Chicago, Newark, Seattle, and Houston all undertook agency reorganization. Viewed from the perspective of systematic financial strategy, the aggregate of city responses becomes a shotgun approach, seizing at whatever instrument for increasing revenues and reducing expenditures lay immediately at hand.
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They did not ask of the states a comparable increase in local authority and in local resources. STAND-OFF TIME If large cities vary greatly in their economic and social circumstances, and their prospects for future prosperity, if their political cultures dictate quite different roles for their chief elective officials and for their bureaucracies, if extremely diverse city populations have difficulty in achieving consensus, why in the initial years of federal withdrawal have they almost universally resorted to localized in-house responses?
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From page 245... ...
Calls for annexation of adjacent suburbs or some sort of metropolitan federation reintroduce the white vote that fled years ago and threaten the growing political power of city minorities. However troubled central city economic prospects may be, central city politics now provide a power base for minorities and enable them to wield substantial influence in national affairs and sometimes in the states.
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aid cutbacks of 50 percent are not as harmful to local revenues as the displacement of federal aid which occurs when the state is made the intermediary between the federal and local governments.~) Moreover, the political chemistry between state and local political systems is often poor.
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Most persons do not know that ~nonprofits are often actively involved as partners of government in the operation of public programs; thus the same budget cuts that reduce the role of the public sector also undermine the financial health of private, nonprofit organizations. (Salamon and Abramson, 1983)
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From page 248... ...
They are, instead, derived to extend and to expand the scope of local autonomies. CONCLUSIONS State and local government at a stubborn stand-off, the private sector with only a marginal capacity to respond, local intergovernmental alliances at the stage of cocktail collaboration designed to enhance local authority -- what do we derive from these behavior patterns?
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From page 249... ...
Pundits of the 1990s may well look back on the work of their predecessors of the 1970s who denounced the Iron Triangles and the Vertical Axes that ~overloaded. the system in the 196Os, and somewhat wistfully suggest that the national urban commitment was not altogether ill advised.
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Paper delivered at Princeton Conference on Effects of the Reagan Domestic Program on States and Localities, Princeton, N.J., June 7. National Research Council 1983 Rethinking Urban Policy.
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. TABLE A-2 Dependent Population (percentage)
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From page 252... ...
. TABLE A-4 Population Size and Rank Percent Change City Size Rank from 1970 Chicago 3,005,072 2 -10.8 Los Angeles 2,966,850 3 5.5 Houston 1,595,138 5 29.3 Boston 562,994 20 -12.2 Seattle 493,846 23 - 7.0 Tulsa 360,919 38 9.3 Newark 329,248 46 -13.8 Orlando 128,291 124 29.6 SOURCE: Bureau of the Census ( 19 83)
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From page 253... ...
. TABLE A-6 City Government Employment Per 10,000 Population City City Employees Houston Tulsa Los Angeles Chicago Seattle Orlando Newark Boston 114.3 115.0 136.9 141.4 172.1 256.4 373.1 444.0 SOURCE: Bu r eau of the Census (1983)
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