William W. Goldsmith

The Metropolis and Globalization: The Dialectics of Racial Discrimination, Deregulation, and Urban Form

Global economic changes affect the shape of cities. But in this article, the author sees the reverse effect: The shape of the city influences the global economy. This article argues that the peculiar spatial form of the U.S. metropolis, by pulling on a six-link chain of social forces, drags down the global economy. In an ironic twist, this puts European cities in trouble. In brief, racial segregation degrades U.S. politics, leading to acceptance of market dominance, even with the resulting inequalities among whites. The market model is exported by U.S. global power and by ideological pressures. The resultant pressures reduce municipal budgets and stimulate migration, causing European cities to suffer the spatial dilemmas of the United States.

Cropping systems, structural change and rural-urban migration in Brazil

Abstract Rural out-migration is related interactively to differences in the structure of cropping systems. Individual, rational-decision explanations of migration are inseparable from structural, social explanations. In Cruz das Almas, a municipality in the north-eastern Brazilian state of Bahia, the principal cropping systems are based on production of cassava, tobacco and citrus fruit. Migration differences appear in response to different kinds of demographic pressure, to capital movements and to patterns of productive organization.

The sustainability of privilege: Reflections on the environment, the third world city, and poverty

Abstract Urbanization, problems of the environment, and poverty have all grown dramatically over the past quarter century in many countries. We combine discussion of these three phenomena, using concepts of social class to make the connections. This approach stresses the human element over matters of inanimate technology or nature. By disaggregating society into computing groups it reveals environmental problems to be essentially those of people and social and political organization, not of nature and technology. We conclude that improvement of the environment in large cities of the Third World will require social change.

The Ghetto as a Resource for Black America

Abstract None of the four major proposals for improving conditions in black America—suburbanization, augmented employment, ghetto capitalism, or separatism—resolves the real issue, which is the creation of cohesive black political and economic power. Suburbanization tends directly to reduce the potential for concentrated black power. Neither national employment programs nor local control over particular trades or businesses will be implemented except in response to concentrated power. New investments in ghetto private enterprise are not viable without strong grass-roots political participation. And, though separatist proposals recognize the need to gather power, their faulty analogies to international colonial situations ignore the enormous existing power and proximity of white America. Although it is hard to be optimistic under any conceivable condition, if we change the perspective and see ghetto “problems” as potential solutions, focus on the community, and examine how the ghetto can stimulate social s...

The Improbability of Urban Policy The Case of the United States

Abstract Recent American history reveals that national urban policies lack effective coordination and have themselves contributed to urban problems. In this article, federal programs, budgets, and the obstacles presented by pluralism and the political economy are reviewed. Programs in transportation, housing, redevelopment, and industrial location are elaborated. The authors conclude that coherent national urban policy, to serve the interests of American residents, would conflict with the needs of the market. While there is little hope that the Reagan administration will deal directly with urban problems, a broad and growing citizens movement may provide the basis for pressure which will eventually demand action.

Poverty and distorted industrialization in the Brazilian Northeast

Abstract Dramaric federal intervention and extensive industrialization in the Brazilian Northeast have not overcome its stagnant economy and society. After centuries of isolation and dependence on sugar exports, the Northeast was integrated economicallu into Brazil during 1930–1960, and since then it has been partially industrialized. The regional economy, however, is weakly integrated and highly unequal, leaving local markets small; industrial growth remains keyed to other parts of Brazil; and dependent politics distort the regions relations with Brasilia. Social inequality is extreme. Prospects for the future are bleak.

Remarks on the Niebanck Commission Report on Undergraduate Education

now probably fewer than two thousand, the number of schools is tiny, and most are too small &dquo;to insure quality and continuity.&dquo; Although the Commission recognizes many obstacles, it believes that planning schools can and should expand undergraduate offerings through innovation and adaptation. We should thank the Commission for laying out the issues, but I think we should sharply modify its conclusions.

What's Under the Bed? City, Pasta, or Commie: Reflections on Teaching American Students in Italy

This paper reports on the authors experience teaching urban studies and planning to 20 North American undergraduates in Rome. For these students, the contrasts between the U.S. city and the European city provided great intellectual stimulation and outweighed the cultural contrasts. The experience of seeing and using the benefits of social democracy, or its still functioning remnants, was powerfully impressive. The students developed a sensitivity to their urban surroundings. Worked into writing requirements, their observations brought them to new and sharper perceptions about city life in the United States.

Marxism and Regional Policy: An Introduction:

This paper presents a brief argument for the use of radical analysis to understand problems of national regional policy. The argument is made at three levels, beginning with a distinction between technical, liberal and radical definitions and approaches to the problem of regional planning, continuing with an application of the radical approach to very broad issues of regional policy in two particular cases — the development of Peru and the lagging region problem in Western Europe — and finishing with a more detailed view of a particular project in Mexico.

Enterprise Zones in the United States: Lessons From International Experience

A criticism of the potential use of the enterprise zone concept in the U.S. is presented. Following from the new inter national division of labor and its exploita tion by capitalist economies, an analysis of the distributional impacts of platform economies is outlined. Enterprise zones appear to be a deleterious policy for the U.S for three reasons: (1) wages in the U.S cannot be cut so low so that workers could compete with their counterparts in Third World economies; (2) they are part of the problem of economies in industrial nations, i.e., they are a planned means by which the costs of production can be reduced; and (3), there will be social and political resistance to substantial reduc tions in wages, legal protection, and bla tant control by outsiders.