Given the contested meanings of the local global context, it is important to see local political processes as more than a matter of new interests or claims prompted by globalization or even new institutions such as public-private partnerships. We argue that local politics in a global era are best understood in terms of the ideas, institutions, and interests shaping local policy processes. They are shaped by the causal stories that different groups and organizations use to politicize issues linking the local and the global, to seek new institutional venues, and to promote some solutions over others. We draw on our national surveys in 1989 and 1996 of large and mediumsized American cities to examine these causal stories about globalization and localism and the policy choices they privilege. Five local strategies are especially salient: classic locational approaches, the world-class community orientation, the entrepreneurial mercantilism strategy, asset-based human capital strategies, and the sustainable development orientation.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
1. Saskia Sassen, “Cities and Communities in the Global Economy: Rethinking Our Concepts,”American Behavioral Scientist, 39:630 (Mar.-Apr. 1996).
2.
See also Paul Knox, “Globalization and Urban Change,”Urban Geography, 17:115-117 (1996).
3.
3. Michael Peter Smith, “Postmodernism, Urban Ethnography, and the New Social Space of Ethnic Identity,”Theory and Society, 21:503 (1992).
4.
4. Hugh Heclo, “Ideas, Interests, and Institutions,” in The Dynamics of American Politics: Approaches and Interpretations, ed. Lawrence C. Dodd and Calvin Jillson (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), pp. 366-392.
5.
5. Bryan Jones, Reconceiving Decision-Making in Democratic Politics: Attention, Choice, and Public Policy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).
6.
6. Deborah Stone, “Causal Stories and the Formation of Policy Agendas,”Political Science Quarterly, 104:281-300 (1989).
7.
7. The notion of epistemic communities is developed in Peter Haas, “Do Regimes Matter? Epistemic Communities and Mediterranean Pollution Control,”International Organization (Summer 1989).
8.
See also Edward Goetz and Susan E. Clarke, The New Localism (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1993).
9.
9. Margit Mayer, “Post-Fordist City Politics,” in Post-Fordism: A Reader, ed. Ash Amin (Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1994), pp. 316-337.
10.
This argument is developed further in Susan E. Clarke and Gary L. Gaile, The Work of Cities (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, forthcoming).
11.
See also Rosabeth Moss Kanter, World Class: Thriving Locally in the Global Economy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995).
12.
12. Sassen, “Cities and Communities in the Global Economy,” p. 631.
13.
13. Ibid., p. 630.
14.
14. John Kincaid, “Cities and Citizens in Flux: Global Consumer Integration and Local Civic Fragmentation,” in North American Cities and the Global Economy, ed. Kresl and Gappert, pp. 69-85.
15.
15. Charles S. Colgan, “International Regulation of State and Local Subsidies,”Economic Development Quarterly, 9:107-118 (1995).
16.
16. This argument is developed in Kanter, World Class.
17.
17. Kincaid, “Cities and Citizens in Flux.”
18.
See also Michael A. Pagano and Ann O'M. Bowman, Cityscapes and Capital: The Politics of Urban Development (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995).
19.
19. Alice M. Rivlin, “Performance Partnerships: Summary and Guiding Principles” (Memorandum, Executive Office of the President of the United States, Office of Management and Budget, 28 Mar. 1995).
20.
20. “Long Term Shifts Will Burden Cities,”Nation's Cities Weekly, 25 Mar. 1996, p. 8.
21.
21. Clarence Stone, Regime Politics (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1989).
22.
22. Peter F. Drucker, “The Age of Social Transformation,”Atlantic Monthly, pp. 53-80 (Nov. 1994).
23.
23. Mayer, “Post-Fordist City Politics.”
24.
24. Ibid.
25.
25. Ray Hudson, “Institutional Change, Cultural Transformation, and Economic Regeneration: Myths and Realities from Europe's Old Industrial Areas,” in Globalization, Institutions, and Regional Development in Europe, ed. Ash Amin and Nigel Thrift (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 196-216.
26.
26. David C. Paris, Ideology and Educational Reform: Themes and Theories in Public Education (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995), p. 17.
27.
27. Jamie Peck and Adam Tickell, “Searching for a New Institutional Fix: The After-Fordist Crisis and the Global-Local Disorder,” in Post-Fordism: A Reader, ed. Ash Amin (Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1995), pp. 280-315. See also Mayer's argument on compatibility in “Post-Fordist City Politics.”
28.
28. We draw on our national surveys in 1989 and 1996 of local economic development strategies in American cities with populations above 100,000 in 1975. For further study details, see Clarke and Gaile, Work of Cities. Mara Sidney, Brad Hall, and Art Hingerty assisted in the 1996 follow-up survey, with the support of the Department of Political Science, University of Colorado.
29.
29. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.
30.
30. Paul E. Peterson and Mark C. Rom, Welfare Magnets: A New Case for a National Standard (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1990).
31.
Jessop , “Towards a Schumpeterian Workfare State?”
32.
Robert D. Atkinson , “The Next Wave in Economic Development,”Commentary (Spring 1993).
33.
D. Wilsford , “Path Dependency, or Why History Makes It Difficult But Not Impossible to Reform Health Care Systems in a Big Way,”Journal of Public Policy, 14:251-283 (1994).
34.
34. KPMG Peat Marwick, Colorado: 1996 Foreign Investment Study (Denver: KPMG Peat Marwick, 1996), pp. 14, 17.
35.
For empirical analyses, see Susan E. Clarke and Gary L. Gaile, “The Next Wave: Local Economic Development Strategies in the Post-Federal Era,”Economic Development Quarterly, 6:189-198 (1992).
36.
36. See Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin, Telecommunications and the City (London: Routledge, 1996), for an extensive analysis of local telecommunication issues, including the notion of “electronic public space” (p. 359).
37.
37. These examples are drawn from Stephanie Neumann, “Telecommunication: The Experience of Other Cities” (Manuscript, City of Littleton, CO, n.d.)
38.
38. David L. Imbroscio, “Overcoming the Economic Dependence of Urban America,”Journal of Urban Affairs, 15:173-190 (1993).
39.
39. Dennis Judd and Randy L. Ready, “Entrepreneurial Cities and the New Politics of Economic Development,” in Reagan and the Cities, ed. George Peterson and Carole Lewis (Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 1986).
40.
40. From interviews in surveys done for Clarke and Gaile, Work of Cities.
41.
41. Judd and Ready, “Entrepreneurial Cities.”
42.
42. This example is drawn from Tony Robinson, “Gentrification and Grassroots Resistance in San Francisco's Tenderloin,”Urban Affairs Review, 30:483-513 (1995).
43.
43. For an overview, see Michael Rich, “Empower the People: An Assessment of Community-Based, Collaborative, Persistent Poverty Initiatives” (Paper delivered at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, 1995).
44.
44. Michael E. Porter, “The Competitive Advantage of the Inner City,”Harvard Business Review, pp. 55-71 (May-June 1995).
45.
45. John P. Kretzmann and John L. McKnight, Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community's Assets (Chicago: ACTA, 1993).
46.
46. This account is provided in Marion Orr, “Urban Regimes and Human Capital Policies: A Study of Baltimore,”Journal of Urban Affairs, 14:173-187 (1992).
47.
47. The sustainable development concept was introduced at the 1972 U.N. Conference on Human Environment but gained currency through World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future (New York: United Nations, 1987), also known as the Bruntland Report. This report linked poverty, inequality, and environmental degradation and emphasized the need to balance economic and environmental concerns.
48.
World Health Organization , World Health Organization Healthy Cities Project: A Project Becomes a Movement (Geneva: World Health Organization, 1990).
49.
49. See Robert Frenay, “Chattanooga Turnaround,”Audubon, 98:82 ff. (1996).
50.
50. Nico Calavita, “Growth Machines and Ballot Box Planning: The San Diego Case,”Journal of Urban Affairs, 14:1-24 (1992).
51.
51. Alan F. J. Artibise, “Achieving Sustainability in Cascadia: An Emerging Model of Urban Growth Management in the Vancouver-Seattle-Portland Corridor,” in North American Cities and the Global Economy, ed. Kresl and Gappert, pp. 221-250.
