Ronald K. Vogel

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

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.

The Growth Machine versus the Antigrowth Coalition The Battle for our Communities

In 1987, in their book Urban Fortune: The Political Economy of Place, Logan and Molotch argued that growth is not usually in the community interest. They proposed a strategy to alter the ability of business to force cities to compete for capital. This strategy depends upon the antigrowth coalition winning its struggle against the growth machine in individual communities. But the issue of growth is more complex than suggested by a growth/no growth dichotomy. The real issue facing localities is how to attract, direct, or repel growth to serve the community interest. In this article, we consider (1) whether growth management can resolve the power struggle between pro- and antigrowth forces and (2) whether growth management can encourage communities to undertake a search for the public interest.

The Local Regime and Economic Development

Community leaders are expected to take greater responsibility for their economies, though they are often ill-equipped for this task As they struggle to create jobs they find themselves competing with communities not just in the United States, but around the world. This study reports on the efforts of one community, Louisville, Kentucky, to shape a rational economic development approach. This effort ultimately leads to a redefinition of local regime that is likely to be imitated by other communities in the future.

Beyond the Rhetoric Lessons From Louisville’s Consolidation

Louisville’s consolidation with Jefferson County was the first large-scale merger to take place in the United States in more than 30 years. The authors examine this merger as a major institutional innovation that was supposed to enhance economic development. Proponents of consolidation claimed that institutional change would “shake up” the system and create an economic boom. The authors use actual results to determine whether this much-heralded experience warrants claims that it can be a role model, point of reference, or best practice. In doing this, they compare data from premerged and postmerged Louisville over a full 8-year period. Of central concern are whether “shake up” worked, how elites manage results as unsatisfying outcomes become apparent, and what that behavior portends for responsible governance. The authors conclude with a number of principles and policies regarding institutional change.

Rethinking Globalization—The Impact of Central Governments on World Cities

The “world city” and “global city” theses have emerged as central paradigms in urban studies. Indeed, a wave of new textbooks in sociology, political science, and geography have been oriented around these ideas (Sassen 1994; Short and Kim 1999; Abrahamson 2004). The general argument is that advanced telecommunications, global financial markets, and transnational corporations have led to a global division of labor and the rise of global or world cities as the strategic nodes in a global economic network (Smith and Feagin 1987; Knox 1995; Harrigan and Vogel 2003, pp. 154–5). Globalization determines the city’s place in the new hierarchy of cities. Researchers have suggested that the rise of world cities marks a new international order characterized in part by the declining relevance of nation-states (Friedmann 1986; King 1990; Ross and Trachte 1990; Knox 1995; Sassen 2001a; Taylor 2004). In the new order, world cities are interdependent, yet they also compete with one another through a hierarchically structured network of cities (Friedmann and Wolff 1982; Friedmann 1986; Knox 1995; Sassen 2001a).

CIVIC CULTURE AND CORPORATE REGIME IN LOUISVILLE

ABSTRACT: We examine the civic culture in Louisville focusing upon the community power structure, community value system, and public decision-making system as described by knowledgeable persons. Interviewees were selected for their first-hand knowledge of community decision making as participants and close observers and to represent different interests. Respondents described what resembles a corporate-centered regime in economic development but which does not necessarily extend to education. The civic culture and attendant myths hold together a city that otherwise is greatly divided by race, class, and status apparent in the geographic segregation of the community into the East, West, and South Ends. The city’s self identity and perception in some way may be at odds with its current situation and development strategies.

The Dialogical Community and Economic Development

Localities in the United States are struggling to adjust to the transformation of the national economy in the post-industrial era. For better or for worse, the central government has left local governments to make this transition on their own. Renewed concern for the local economy has manifested itself in the creation of local economic development offices and reinvigorated chambers of commerce which aggressively seek to attract new businesses, retain existing ones and expand the local economy (see Blakely, 1989).1 The catchword for the eighties was ‘public-private partnerships’ (see Fosler and Berger, 1982), often taking the form of strategic planning, heralded as a process that would lead to revitalised cities (see Sorkin, Ferris and Hudak, 1984).