The Dependent City Revisited by Paul Kantor

Author:Paul Kantor [Kantor, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367306687
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2021-05-31T00:00:00+00:00

The Troubling Mainstream of Development Politics

The mainstream of local development politics poses troubling issues that point to a serious dilemma. Even though popular control systems provide a real constraint on how local officials manage their communities' economies, urban dependency diminishes the importance of voter opinions in making economic policy choices. The more fortunate cities—those with strong market positions, well-developed popular control systems, and willful regimes—can do something to check tendencies for closed politics and business privilege. Yet even governments in these communities struggle. The pressures of economic dependency tend to assure business interests great ascendancy in city halls. The shadow of prospective business disinvestment more often than not looms large in deliberations over public policy, narrowing the sense of what is possible and bending thoughts in the direction of what business wants. The insular political structure of the arena—the primacy of independent public authorities and the poitical devices employed by elected officials to undercut voter influence—further reinforces this bias.

At worst, urban political leaders take a slavish probusiness attitude toward economic development, if for no other reason than they are inclined to respond most to those in a position to be heard and whose cooperation they value highly in promoting market position. At best, governmental leaders are likely to be pressured by their city's dependency to ignore important public considerations—such as getting the best deal possible from business, safeguarding the social quality of urban life, preserving valued neighborhoods, minimizing social upheaval, and protecting the vulnerable and disadvantaged. Indeed, whether economic growth itself is worth a trade-off in social costs or foregone humanitarian achievements is a consideration that the politico-economic structure of this arena is not usually set up to debate very fairly.

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