Although the US 1993 Empowerment Zone (EZ) initiative mandates community participation, the level and nature of input varies across sites. Detroit's EZ is notably community-driven. A political culture approach is used to explore EZ participation as a response to patterns of past development decision-making. The author examines Detroit's economic development policy-making culture and assesses its impact on the formation of the community development corporation (CDC) network that dominated EZ planning in the initial stages. The importance of distrust between City Hall, business interests and community residents in consolidating CDC influence is analysed.
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