Charles H. Heying

Olympic Cities: Lessons Learned from Mega-Event Politics

As cities compete for jobs and capital in the context of limited federal aid and increasing global economic competition, a new and potentially high-risk strategy for stimulating local economic growth has emerged. This strategy, called the mega-event strategy, entails the quest for a high-profile event to serve as a stimulus to, and justification for, local development. We examine how the mega-event strategy has played out in the three US cities with contemporary Olympic experience: Los Angeles (1984), Atlanta (1996), and Salt Lake City (2002). We analyze the approaches taken by these three cities to bidding for and staging an Olympic mega-event. Our comparison focuses on the decade long period that cities use to prepare to host the games. We conclude with a discussion of lessons learned and the policy implications of the mega-event strategy on urban politics.

Civic Elites and Corporate Delocalization: An Alternative Explanation for Declining Civic Engagement

This article presents an alternative to Robert Putnams explanation for the decline of social capital in America. The author suggests that the complex impacts of economic transformations—in particular, the destabilization of communities that results when corporate ownership is disconnected from place—have been unfairly dismissed by Putnam in his determination to link the decline in social capital to television and generational effects. The authors argument begins at the level of elite leadership, presenting evidence from Atlanta and other cities that demonstrates declining rates of elite engagement. This decline is logically connected to corporate delocalization and decreasing incentives for elites to mobilize communities to enhance place-based development. The author offers some informed speculation that nationwide mergers in the banking and utility industries are likely to lead to a further deterioration of elite commitment to civic participation. It is also suggested that elite withdrawal will have cascading consequences on the philanthropic sector and the communitys ability to sustain a dynamic associational life.

Antigrowth Politics or Piecemeal Resistance?: Citizen Opposition to Olympic-Related Economic Growth

Regime theory predicts that opponents of a regime’s pursuit of economic development will have limited prospects for success. Some scholars, however, contend that evidence of widespread growth control movements poses a challenge to regime theory. The authors assess the viability of growth opponents when confronting an active growth regime under conditions that should enhance the prospects for the development of an antigrowth movement by examining opposition to Olympic-related growth in Los Angeles (1984), Atlanta (1996), and Salt Lake City (2002). Despite favorable circumstances for developing an opposition coalition, little evidence of viable antigrowth movements is found. Rather, opposition is better characterized as piecemeal resistance.

Watershed Management and Community Building: A Case Study of Portland’s Community Watershed Stewardship Programtitle

AbstractLocal governments are increasingly turning to community building partnerships to enhance the quality of service delivery. This is particularly evident in new programs for urban stream protection which combine the ecological ideal of stewardship with the communitarian call for an enlarged citizenship. The questions posed by stewardship approaches are fundamental. Should stewardship programs replace or complement regulatory regimes? Do agency investments in participatory programs produce noticeable differences in watershed awareness? Does this awareness change individual behaviors and improve community capacity to monitor watershed health? The research described in this paper evaluates the impact of one of these stewardship efforts, Portland, Oregon’s Community Watershed Stewardship Program. Utilizing a quasi-experimental research design, we test our thesis that stewardship programs that enhance civic capacity significantly improve awareness of watershed issues and promote watershed friendly attitud...

Autonomy vs. Solidarity: Liberal, Totalitarian and Communitarian Traditions

This article examines how liberal, totalitarian, and communitarian traditions attempt to balance individual autonomy with communal solidarity. Modernity has been a great liberator, freeing individuals from restrictions of tradition, clan, and place. Liberalism celebrates this freedom in market, politics, and society. But the result, according to critics, is a society of unencumbered individuals who have lost the language of cooperation and community. The totalitarian response to the failings of liberalism is to subsume the individual within the total state. Individual autonomy is suppressed so that the true social self can be discovered in solidarity with the state that is the truth bearer of culture and historical destiny. The communitarian response is to preserve the advantages of liberalism with its emphasis on human rights, universal tolerance, and free association, while attempting to revive a type of communal solidarity that is similar yet different from that found in traditional societies and totalitarian regimes. But the similarity of communitarian and totalitarian responses is problematic, as is the communitarian emphasis on romantic localism and its tendency to leave serious questions of economic power unexamined.