H. V. Savitch

Introduction: Paths to New Regionalism:

THIS ISSUE OF State and Local Government Review explores how localities have organized themselves to address social disparities and ecological threats. Government and governance are distinguished as two broad rubrics of local organization. We cover a spectrum of methods used by localities to expand their jurisdiction or reach beyond formal borders, including city-county consolidations, annexations, interlocal agreements, extraterritorial jurisdiction, and multitiered governments. The contributing authors show how localities have adopted and employed these mechanisms, and their experiences are discussed within the context of what has come to be known as New Regionalism. New Regionalism is both a policy agenda and a set of public interventions designed to fulfill that agenda. Its results are sometimes clear-cut, occasionally ambiguous, and include both successes and failures underscored by motives for power and concerns for better management. The problems and occasional crises associated with New Regionalism provide the driving force for new types of public intervention. This linkage between regional problems and local organization gives us a unique view of how local policy can influence a larger arena. Defining New Regionalism

The Political Economy of Urban Regimes: A Comparative Perspective

The authors suggest how regime politics is influenced in systematic ways by particular kinds of bargaining environments. They describe a theoretical framework designed to examine the interplay of local democratic development, market environments, and intergovernmental networks on regime dynamics in eight cities in Western Europe and the United States since the 1970s. The authors explain how structural forces influence critical aspects of local regimes, particularly their governing coalitions, means of public-private coordination, and prevailing policy agendas on economic development.

Regional politics : America in a post-city age

INTRODUCTION Regional Patterns in a Post City Era - H V Savitch and Ronald K Vogel PART ONE: AVOIDANCE AND CONFLICT New York - Bruce Berg and Paul Kantor The Politics of Conflict and Avoidance Los Angeles - Alan L Saltzstein Politics without Governance St Louis - Donald Phares and Claude Louishomme A Politically Fragmented Area PART TWO: MUTUAL ADJUSTMENT Washington DC - Jeffrey Henig, David Brunori and Mark Ebert Cautions and Constrained Cooperation Louisville - H V Savitch and Ronald K Vogel Compacts and Antagonistic Cooperation Pittsburgh - Louise Jezierski Partnerships in a Regional City PART THREE: METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT Miami - Genie Stowers Experiences in Regional Government Minneapolis-St Paul - John J Harrigan Structuring Metropolitan Government Jacksonville - Bert Swanson Consolidation and Regional Governance Portland - Arthur C Nelson The Metropolitan Umbrella PART FOUR: CONCLUSION Perspectives for the Present and Lessons for the Future - H V Savitch and Ronald K Vogel

Suburbs without a City Power and City-County Consolidation

City-county consolidation is advanced as a good government reform to promote efficiency, equity, and accountability and, more recently, to reduce growing disparities between central cities and suburbs. Whether these objectives are realized is more doubtful than the fact that local reorganization embodies a real change in power relations. Altering boundaries changes the kinds of issues that are relevant to decision makers as well as the relative power of different populations. The authors analyze the recent city-county consolidation of Louisville and Jefferson County, Kentucky. The authors review how this came about and then focus on three critical realignments associated with merging the city and its surrounding county. These consist of shifts in territorial boundaries, management reforms, and political rules. The case highlights the power dimension of city-county consolidation, often overlooked by advocates of public choice as well as those favoring metropolitan consolidation.

An Anatomy of Urban Terror: Lessons from Jerusalem and Elsewhere

This paper examines the increased prevalence of urban terror and its spatial implications. Urban terror concerns territory, space and logistics, and is characterised by low-intensity, ambiguously bounded warfare. It is defined as attacks intentionally directed against non-combatants and key installations located in high-density, continuously developed, diversified environments. The research traces the collective experience of London, Moscow and Istanbul with extended attention paid to Jerusalem. Four patterns of urban terror are identified and used to conduct the analysis. These consist of terrorist attempts to: decontrol urban territory, cause instability and demonstrate vulnerability; launch repetitive attacks on specific spaces in order to create conditions of chaos; achieve proximity and access to targets; and, finally, a response to terror by authorities based on surveillance, partition, closure and shrinkage of urban space. A final section consists of analysing terrors impact on the economy and future of cities.

Big city politics in transition

Introduction - John Clayton Thomas and H V Savitch Big City Politics, Then and Now Boston - Philip L Clay The Incomplete Transformation Philadelphia - Carolyn Teich Adams The Slide Toward Municipal Bankruptcy Chicago - Barbara Ferman Race and Reform Detroit - Wilbur Rich From Motor City to Service Hub St. Louis - Andrew Glassberg Racial Transition and Economic Development Atlanta - Arnold Fleischmann Urban Coalitions in a Suburban Sea Miami - Ronald K Vogel and Genie N L Stowers Minority Empowerment and Regime Change New Orleans - Robert K Whelan and Alma H Young The Ambivalent City Denver - Carter Whitson and Dennis Judd Boosterism versus Growth Houston - Robert E Parker and Joe R Feagin Administration by Economic Elites Los Angeles - Alan L Saltzstein and Raphael J Sonenshein Transformation of a Governing Coalition San Fransisco - Richard E DeLeon Post Materialist Populism in a Global City Seattle - Margaret Gordon et al Grassroots Politics Shaping the Environment Conclusion - H V Savitch and John Clayton Thomas End of the Millenium Big City

Does 9-11 Portend a New Paradigm for Cities?

This essay suggests that 9-11 constitutes a critical event for urban scholars because it encapsulated and catalyzed a trend toward urban-based terror that had been building for a decade or more. The best way to put 9-11 in perspective and understand its significance is through a paradigm. In constructing the 9-11 paradigm, the author suggests a set of components that set the parameters for explanation. These consist of the diffusion of terror as an urban phenomenon, the economic ramifications of urban terror, and the impact of terror on the use of urban space. These components are not just mutually compatible but integral to the 9-11 paradigm. As a result of 9-11, public security, order, and protection have become central issues for cities. The paradigm also underscores the stakes held by national and intergovernmental elites in cities confronted by crisis.

How suburban sprawl shapes human well-being.

It is not often that one has an opportunity to consider the politics of urban development and its relationship to human well-being. Many discussions of this kind are limited to political issues—or how groups use power to acquire terrain, set land use rights, and promote building policies. Other analyses point to the effects of urban development on land use—or how building policies change the placement of jobs, transportation, and commerce. Most socially oriented studies deal with how urban development affects income, class, or race. Economists tackling the issue are most interested in job creation, revenue generation, fiscal questions, and the like. These are not unimportant questions. Indeed, they touch our daily lives. After all, politics shape the rewards obtained by different groups, social relations determine where we live, and economics bear directly on the creation of wealth. Apart from these perspectives, human well-being has unique attributes and presents special opportunities. As I use the term well-being, it encompasses two components: (1) the evolving condition of our natural environment, and (2) the changing profile of our general health. Reversing the order somewhat, the World Health Organization employs the notion of health to include a variety of factors, defining it as not just the absence of disease but as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well being.” This approach points up the essential qualities and fundamental aspects of our existence. What can be more crucial than the surroundings in which we spend our waking lives, the relations we have with others, and our own physical vigor? Ultimately, we have to ask ourselves, to what purposes should we apply our energies? Why is it that we struggle over rewards to be obtained from designing the built environment? The answer lies in the improvement of our well-being. While we can all agree on the general goal of improved well-being, achieving it is more easily said than done. The issue of well-being is confounded by the larger problem of how we change. Beyond this are corollary questions that require us to understand why certain situations cannot be changed, why some things might be changed, and how some situations can be changed. Addressing these questions requires backing up a bit—first by reviewing those forces that propel urban develop-

Urban Strategies for a Global Era A Cross-National Comparison

This article is based on a study of 10 cities in Western Europe and North America over a 30-year period. Based on detailed case studies, the authors identify four strategies of development: (a) growth strategies, (b) community development initiatives, (c) regionalism, and (d) national urban policy. The first of these strategies focuses on promoting economic growth, albeit sometimes “slow” or “smart” growth. The other three strategies focus on rescaling the city to enhance bargaining leverage in the international marketplace. It is argued that all of these strategies have enhanced local governmental influence over the international capital investment process, thereby also stimulating local democracy over city building. National urban policy appears to play the most critical role, however, because it most powerfully supports local public sector bargaining with private enterprise.

Globalism and Local Democracy

For those who lead and manage cities, the transition to an internationalised world has not been easy. Nor is it likely to become easier. Promises of free trade, open borders, industrial restructuring, mobility of labour, technology transfer and electronic communication all create remarkable opportunities, but they also pose major challenges. On the economic side, many Western democracies now have a dual, segmented labour market with increased unemployment and growing inequality. Industry may succeed by, for example, redeploying operations offshore to take advantage of low labour costs in far-off countries, but the consequences of disinvestment can be traumatic for specific cities and for particular areas within cities.