A widely held belief is that cities cannot implement redistributive social and development policies without harming their economic and fiscal base. A different view is taken in this article; both the constraints and the potential—the "room for maneuver"—for local government to carry out progressive economic and social policies are analyzed. Boston's innovative linkage program is used as a case study to examine the social, economic, and political forces that shaped the origins and the evolution of the city's development policies under Mayor Raymond Flynn and his predecessors.
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