There are a number of recent trends in the organisation of local economic development activities that are seen to point to a general convergence between UK and US contexts. Various attempts have been made to encompass this convergence, primarily through the application of a set of common concepts such as the 'growth coalition' and 'urban regime'. This paper draws on a recently completed research project to highlight differences in the organisation of local economic development activities between the US and the UK. These differences are subsequently used to provide a critical window on existing theoretical frameworks and to elaborate on the concept of local dependence as a means of analysing and understanding the politics of local economic development in different contexts.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Amin, A. and Thrift, N. (1995) Globalisation, institutional 'thickness' and the local economy, in: P. Healey ET Al. (Eds) Managing Cities: The New Urban Context , pp. 91-108. Chichester : Wiley.
2.
Axford, N. and Pinch, S. (1994) Growth coalitions and local economic development strategy in southern England, Political Geography, 13, pp. 344-360.
3.
Barlow, J. (1995) The politics of urban growth: 'boosterism' and 'nimbyism' in European boom regions, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 19, pp. 129-144.
4.
Barnekov, T., Boyle, R. and Rich, D. (1989) Privatism and Urban Policy in Britain and the United States. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
5.
Bassett, K. and Harloe, M. (1990) Swindon: the rise and decline of a growth coalition , in: M. Harloe ET AL. (Eds) Place, Policy and Politics, pp. 42-61. London: Unwin Hyman.
6.
Cobb, J. (1982) The Selling of the South: The Southern Crusade for Industrial Investment. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
7.
Cochrane, A. (1991) The changing state of local government: restructuring for the 1990s, Public Administration, 69, pp. 281-302.
8.
Cochrane, A. (1993) Whatever Happened to Local Government?Buckingham: Open University Press.
9.
Cochrane, A., Peck, J. and Tickell, A. (1996) Manchester plays games: exploring the local politics of globalisation, Urban Studies, 33, pp. 1319-1336.
10.
Cooke, P. (1988) Municipal enterprise, growth coalitions and social justice, Local Economy, 3, pp. 191-200.
11.
Cox, K. (1991a) Questions of abstraction in studies in the new urban politics, Journal of Urban Affairs, 13, pp. 267-280.
12.
Cox, K. (1991b) The abstract, the concrete and argument in the new urban politics, Journal of Urban Affairs, 13, pp. 299-306.
13.
Cox, K. (1993) The local and the global in the new urban politics: a critical view, Environment and Planning D, 11, pp. 433-448.
14.
Cox, K. and Mair, A. (1988) Locality and community in the politics of local economic development, Annals Association of American Geographers , 78, pp. 307-325.
15.
Cox, K. and Mair, A. (1989) Urban growth machines and the politics of local economic development, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 13, pp. 137-146.
16.
Cox, K. and Mair, A. (1991) From localised social structures to localities as agents, Environment and Planning A, 23, pp. 197-213.
17.
Cox, K. and Wood, A. (1994) Local government and local economic development in the US, Regional Studies, 28, pp. 640-645.
18.
Dicken, P. (1990) Seducing foreign investors— the competitive bidding strategies of local and regional agencies in the United Kingdom, in: M. Hebbert and J. Hansen (Eds) Unfamiliar Territory: The Reshaping of European Geography, pp. 162-186. Aldershot: Avebury .
19.
Dicken, P. and Tickell, A. (1992) Competitors or collaborators? The structure of inward investment promotion in Northern England, Regional Studies, 26, pp. 99-114.
20.
Digaetano, A. and Klemanski, J. (1993) Urban regimes in comparative perspective: the politics of urban development in Britain, Urban Affairs Quarterly, 29, pp. 54-83.
21.
Eisinger, P. (1988) The Rise of the Entrepreneurial State: State and Local Economic Development Policy in the United States. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
22.
Elkin, S. (1985) Twentieth century urban regimes, Journal of Urban Affairs, 7, pp. 11-28.
23.
Gold, J. and Ward, S. (1994) Place Promotion: The Use of Publicity and Marketing to Sell Towns and Regions. Chichester: Wiley.
24.
Graham, S. and Marvin, S. (1995) More than ducts and wires: post-Fordism, cities and utility networks, in: P. Healey ET Al. (Eds) Managing Cities: The New Urban Context, pp. 169-189. Chichester : Wiley.
25.
Harding, A. (1990) Public-private partnerships in urban regeneration , in: M. Campbell (Ed.) Local Economic Policy, pp. 108-127. London: Cassell.
26.
Harding, A. (1991) The rise of urban growth coalitions, UK-style? , Environment and PlanningC, 9, pp. 295-317.
27.
Harding, A. (1994) Urban regimes and growth machines: toward a cross-national research agenda, Urban Affairs Quarterly, 29, pp. 356-382.
28.
Harvey, D. (1982) The Limits to Capital. Oxford : Basil Blackwell.
29.
Harvey, D. (1989) From managerialism to entrepreneurialism: the transformation of urban governance in late capitalism, Geografiska Annaler , 71B, pp. 3-17.
30.
Imrie, R., Thomas, H. and Marshall, A. (1995) Business organisations, local dependence and the politics of urban renewal in Britain, UrbanStudies, 32, pp. 31-47.
31.
Jonas, A. (1992) A place for politics in urban theory: the organization and strategies of urban coalitions, Urban Geography, 13, pp. 280-290.
32.
Judd, D. and Parkinson, M. (Eds) (1990) Leadership and Urban Regeneration: Cities in North America and Europe. London: Sage.
33.
Kearns, G. and Philo, C. (Eds) (1993) Selling Places: The City as Cultural Capital, Past and Present. Oxford: Pergamon.
34.
Lake, R. (1990) Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place: a commentary, Urban Geography, 11, pp. 179-184.
35.
Leitner, H. (1990) Cities in pursuit of economic growth: the local state as entrepreneur, Political Geography Quarterly, 9, pp. 146-170.
36.
Levy, J. (1992) The US experience with local economic development , Environment and PlanningC, 10, pp. 51-60.
37.
Lloyd, M. and Newlands, D. (1988) The 'growth coalition' and urban economic development , Local Economy, 3, pp. 31-39.
38.
Logan, J. and Molotch, H. (1987) Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press .
39.
Lovering, J. (1995) Creating discourses rather than jobs: the crisis in the cities and the transition fantasies of intellectuals and policy-makers , in: P. Healey ET Al. (Eds) Managing Cities: The New Urban Context, pp. 109-126. Chichester : Wiley.
40.
Mackintosh, M. (1992) Partnership: issues of policy and negotiation, Local Economy, 7, pp. 210-224.
41.
Meyer, P. (1991) Meaning and action in local economic development strategies: a comparison of policies in Britain and the United States, Environment and PlanningC, 9, pp. 383-398.
42.
Molotch, H. (1976) The city as growth machine, American Journal of Sociology, 82, pp. 309-330.
43.
Ohio Development Association (1991) Membership Directory. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio Development Association.
44.
Painter, J. and Goodwin, M. (1996) Regulation and urban regimes in the entrepreneurial city. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the RGS-IBG, Glasgow, January.
45.
Peck, J. and Tickell, A. (1992) Local modes of social regulation? Regulation theory, Thatcherism and uneven development, Geoforum, 23, pp. 347-363.
46.
Peck. J. and Tickell, A. (1994) Jungle law breaks out: neoliberalism and global-local disorder, Area, 26, pp. 317-326.
47.
Roberts, S. and Schein, R. (1993) The entrepreneurial city: fabricating urban development in Syracuse, New York, Professional Geographer, 45, pp. 21-33.
48.
Sharp, E. (1990) Urban Politics and Administration: From Service Delivery to Economic Development. New York: Longman.
49.
Shaw, K. (1993) The development of a new urban corporatism: the politics of urban regeneration in the North East of England, Regional Studies, 27, pp. 251-286.
50.
Smith, M., Ready, R. and Judd, D. (1985) Capital flight, tax incentives and the marginalization of American states and localities, in: D. Judd (Ed.) Public Policy across States and Communities, pp. 181-201. Greenwich: JAI Press.
51.
Stoker, G. and Mossberger, K. (1994) Urban regime theory in comparative perspective , Environment and Planning C, 12, pp. 195-212.
52.
Storper, M. (1994) The resurgence of regional economies, ten years later: the region as a nexus of untraded interdependencies. Paper presented at Cities, Enterprises and Society at the Eve of the Twenty-first Century, Lille, March.
53.
Tickell, A. and Dicken, P. (1993) The role of inward investment promotion in economic development strategies: the case of Northern England, Local Economy, 8, pp. 197-208.
54.
Valler, D. (1995) Local economic strategy and local coalition building , Local Economy, 10, pp. 33-47.
55.
Ward, K. (1995) A rough guide to ... regime theory. Working Paper 5, Business Elites and Urban Politics Research Programme, University of Manchester.
56.
Ward, S. (1990) Local industrial promotion and development policies 1899-1940, Local Economy, 5, pp. 100-118.
57.
Wolman, H. and Goldsmith, M. (1992) Urban Politics and Policy: A Comparative Approach . Oxford: Blackwell.
58.
Wood, A. (1993) Organising for local economic development: local economic development networks and prospecting for industry, Environment and Planning A, 25, pp. 1649-1661.
