THE DILEMMAS OF BUILDING A PROGRESSIVE URBAN COALITION: The Linked Development Debate in Chicago

ABSTRACT: In 1983 Chicago elected its first black mayor, Harold Washington. During Washington's first term of office, his administration not only reordered municipal priorities in such a fashion as to benefit his core, minority voting constituency, but also defined a municipal agenda emphasizing greater attention to neighborhood needs and more open government. In 1984 an important neighborhood coalition, the Save Our Neighborhoods/Save Our City Coalition (SON/SOC), proposed a linked development policy to tap downtown investment for neighborhood projects. Although SON/SOC's proposal was compatible with the Washington neighborhood agenda, this mainly white organization and the Washington administration experienced considerable difficulty in forging a mutually acceptable proposal The linked development debate in Chicago demonstrates the salience of race, class-cultural factors, and alternative approaches to neighborhood mobilization as barriers to the development of progressive coalitions in city politics.     

REFORMULATING URBAN REGIME THEORY: The Division of Labor Between State and Market Reconsidered

ABSTRACT: Urban regime theory has emerged as the dominant paradigm for the study of local politics. The ascendancy of regime theory has made it the subject of intense critical scrutiny. While urban scholars generally find it to be a valuable theoretical advance, many have uncovered conceptual limitations. This article develops yet another critique of urban regime theory. It argues regime theory suffers from an overly rigid and largely static conceptualization of the division of labor between state and market and identifies three alternative conceptualizations of this division. This exercise demonstrates the possibilities for building alternative urban regimes. It therefore suggests an enrichment of established urban regime typologies. Specifically, the article points to the existence of three previously unidentified regime types. These three urban regimes challenge the enduring tension in urban governance between a city's economic aspirations for vibrant development and its political aspirations for a vibrant democracy.     

Introduction

This special supplement of the APA Journal deals with neighborhood revitalization and related planning issues. It is hoped that the articles contained herein will contribute to the ongoing debate on neighborhood planning and provide insights into some of the implications of a neighborhood-based urban policy. Although it is true that only a very small portion of federal housing, community development, and related resources are now allocated directly to neighborhoods or routed through neighborhood development organizations, the federal interest in neighborhoods is clearly on the rise.     

Producing the Capacity to Govern in Global Sydney: A Multiscaled Account

Abstract Critiques of urban regime theory suggest the need for a more nuanced approach to the tangled scalar geographies that constitute urban governance. This article moves towards such an approach by adopting urban regime theory's focus on urban politics but conducts its analyses through a multiscalar lens. It demonstrates how processes operating across multiple scales intersect in the production of local governance. The article focuses on the social production of urban governance in Sydney, Australia, specifically examining the city's changing scalar context and scale politics. It suggests that scale‐sensitive regime analyses can make important contributions to theoretical development concerning the multiscalar complexities of governance.     

THE ROLES OF NEIGHBORHOOD ORGANIZATIONS IN URBAN SERVICE DELIVERY

It is important that students of urban life develop an understanding of the dynamics by which community associations influence the quality and quantity of public services available in their neighborhoods. Employing collective goods theory to analyze the activities of neighborhood organizations suggests that their efforts to influence public services may usefully be conceptualized in terms of three primary roles. Community associations act as consumers' cooperatives seeking to secure public services from other organizations, as alternative producers of desired services, and as organizers of citizens' coproductive efforts whereby service levels are determined through the joint efforts of neighborhood residents and public service personnel. The three roles differ significantly in the effectiveness and efficiency with which citizens can employ them to secure services, and require different resources from the community associations. The design of governmental arrangements for service delivery are closely related to the availability and effectiveness of the three strategies and must be considered as part of any effort to enhance citizens', role in public service delivery.     

URBAN REGIMES AND RACIAL POLITICS IN NEW ORLEANS

ABSTRACT: This paper describes and analyzes the nature of the New Orleans urban regime focusing on the first term of Sidney Barthelemy, the second black mayor of New Orleans (1986–1990). First, because the authors believe that regime theory needs to be more carefully theorized in relation to racial politics, they begin by discussing the changing relationship of blacks to the prevailing New Orleans regime. Second, in analyzing this racial politics, they focus on the relationship between the evolving structure of the electoral coalition, governing coalition development strategies, and the stability of the governing regime. They conclude that a caretaker regime is very difficult to maintain in a city with a recent majority black electorate. Such an electoral coalition has a tendency to support either a progressive or corporate regime. Finally, the authors pay particular attention to the development of the consensus-seeking para-apparatus, its relationship to racial politics, and its affect on development policy, governing coalition politics, and regime transition.     

居民归属感、邻里交往和社区参与的机制分析*——以广州市城中村改造为例

当前各地城市出现大量城中村改造项目,城中村居民的社会融合问题备受关注。基于2010-2013年广州典型城中村和复建房社区的问卷数据,主要采用计量研究方法,探讨改造对居民归属感、邻里交往和社区参与的作用机制。实证表明,改造对居民社区情感有重要影响,正全面重塑其影响机制:复建房社区的归属感远高于城中村社区,其归属感主要受"居住满意度"影响;邻里熟悉度主要受"与未成年子女同住"、"教育程度"和"居住年限"等因素影响;邻里互助主要受"人均家庭收入"影响;而社区参与度则主要受"户籍"影响。此外,复建房社区中的社区归属感、邻里熟悉和邻里互助三者与社区参与的相互作用力有所减弱。本文指出,城中村改造的后续工作应把重点置于复建房社区内各群体的社区融合之上,着力培育社区情感。     

BLACK CLERGY AND URBAN REGIMES: The Role of Atlanta's Concerned Black Clergy

ABSTRACT: This study examines the involvement of black ministers in urban regimes through a case study of Atlanta's Concerned Black Clergy organization. In the early years of black political leadership, the black clergy were promoters of racial solidarity, oftentimes against the interests of low income residents. With black political leadership secure, the clery emerged as frequent critics of development policies during Andrew Young's years as mayor. More recently, the Concerned Black Clergy have become active regime participants helping to influence policy decisions on behalf of the city's poorer citizens. Through their organizational efforts, the Concerned Black Clergy have become part of the process of regime change in the city.     

REGIME BUILDING,INSTITUTION BUILDING: URBAN RENEWAL POLICY IN CHICAGO, 1946–1962

ABSTRACT: Urban regime analysis emphasizes the role of coalition building in creating a capacity to govern in cities. Through a case study of urban renewal policy in postwar Chicago, this article considers the role played by political institutions. Conceptualizing this historical period as one of regime building, I show how existing political institutions were out of sync with the city's new governing agenda of urban renewal and redevelopment following World War II. Creating a capacity to govern in urban renewal policy required both coalition building and a fundamental reworking of formal governing institutions.     

SCALES,REGIMES, AND THE URBAN GOVERNANCE OF GLASGOW

ABSTRACT: Over the last two decades, urban regime theory has become one of the most dominant paradigms of thought in urban studies. In particular, regime theory offers a complex account of urban governance, or how local governments, the business communities, and community organizations gain the capacity to shape the policies that affect cities, that is, govern. Although regime theory is a dominant theory in urban studies, it does, nevertheless, have its share of detractors, and one criticism has been its failure to take into account geographical scale. While there is an acknowledgment in urban regime theory of wider economic processes, such as the broad transformations in international and national trade, investment, finance, etc., or the role played by federal or state governments, the bias has remained mostly local, particularly in regards to urban governance. In urban regime theory literature the policies and actions of international and national institutions either nicely conjoin with local interests or are nearly totally absent. Due to this oversight, urban regime theory tends to underemphasize how the capacity to govern a city effectively is sometimes the result of the interaction of actions of people at multiple scales. This article attempts to address this oversight in an analysis of Glasgow, Scotland, during the 1980s. By focusing on the role of the European City of Culture in the revitalization of the city, this article demonstrates how the capacity for a ruling coalition to transform the city and to govern effectively was the consequence of the policy and administrative actions undertaken at other geographical scales.     

Familification: Family,Neighborhood Change,and Housing Policy

This paper proposes the term familification to describe one type of gentrification: the process of neighborhood change by families moving into a neighborhood. This study, drawing upon in-depth interviews, document analysis, and ethnographic observations, focuses on an urban familification program—one city's attempt to benefit families by restricting participation in its downtown housing programs. The paper first describes the programs and then explores how leaders, program participants, and neighbors understand the programs' intentions and effects. While family is not prominent in the programs' grant proposals, leaders indicated that promoting traditional families was a central objective. Implementing these programs revealed difficulties in defining family and in managing the programs' outcomes. Implications for fair housing laws are considered, and it is argued that fostering diversity in family life course stages may be a compelling government interest to promote neighborhood stability, and an inclusive strategy for urban development.     

CITIES AS PEOPLE,CITIES AS PLACES: URBAN REVITALIZATION AND URBAN CONFLICT

Just as the decades of the 50s and 60s were the age of suburbia, the 70s brought, for many, a return to the city and to an increasingly urban way of life. Analysis of this phenomenon by social scientists has resulted in the production of a large number of displacement studies, virtually all of which demonstrate the same thing: young, middle-class, usually childless professionals move into an urban neighborhood and, while materially improving the neighborhood, typically displace the indigenous population. This paper argues that in the long run, this process of displacement, as important as it is, is but one of a large number of consequences ensuing from urban revitalization. Many of these are far more subtle and far more potentially troublesome, and, to the degree to which they leave legacies of intraurban conflict and result in the loss of a sense of community, are likely to be far more difficult problems with which urban areas shall have to deal.     

ESCAPING THE LOCAL TRAP? THE ROLE OF COMMUNITY‐REPRESENTING ORGANIZATIONS IN URBAN GOVERNANCE

ABSTRACT: This article explores the potential dangers of parochialism in using community‐based associations to represent community interests and the role of these organizations in advising on citywide policies in urban governance. Based on recent theoretical debates on citizen participation at the local level, we analyze whether community‐based participation potentially leads to parochial pursuit of community interests at the expense of broader regional goals by investigating the effect of organizational and community characteristics. Using Los Angeles neighborhood councils as an empirical case, this exploratory analysis finds that the nature of neighborhood council members’ civic activities is related to the degree to which they may potentially pursue parochial interests. A similar relationship is found between the geographic location of communities and such pursuits. Lastly, neighborhood council members’ civic activities and other community characteristics also influence their activities concerning advice on citywide policies. These findings suggest ways that neighborhood councils might play a greater role in advising on citywide policies in urban governance.     

Neighborhood amenities and their impact on density gradients

The literature is replete with studies of urban population density gradients which utilize a distance variable as their only explanatory variable. This model emphasizes only the trade-off between saving on travel costs and residential space and completely ignores other neighborhood amenities which might be important to consumers' decisions regarding their residential location. While in certain cases this omission might not result in any major distortion, it will distort the estimates in other cases. This study investigates the role played by neighborhood amenities in the determination of population, residential and build area densities in the city of Tel Aviv-Yaffo in Israel. The findings clearly indicate that distance alone fails to explain much of the spatial variation of the above densities and that neighborhood amenities, indeed, play an important role in the determination of densities.     

What's Class Got to Do With It?Community Development and Racial Identity

Abstract: This research documents the importance of class and racial identities to urban community development activities. It explores the symbolic meanings of class and the nature of inter‐class relations within the black community. The research is based on three years of ethnographic fieldwork in a Philadelphia neighborhood with an active grassroots community development agenda. The author concludes that the residents most active in the neighborhood's redevelopment activities display a particular middle‐class identity (“multi‐class”) that links them to lower‐class blacks and structures their vision of the neighborhood as a micro‐level racial justice project. The community development activities in this neighborhood are a product of the multi‐class residents’ attempt to articulate and affirm their racial identity and ideology. However, the unacknowledged class bias of these residents prevents them from creating the type of inclusive Black community that they envision.     

通过社区营造实现城市更新——《大栅栏胡同微更新手册》项目

In recent years, in the context of the transition from urban construction to inventory development, landscape architects have begun to explore an urban micro-regeneration mode with gradual, small-scale interventions based on community building. Through the lens of Landscape Architecture, the project elaborated in this article focuses on everyday landscape, explores strategies for improving urban spatial quality in public space, and discusses the ways that landscape architects engage in public participation and community building. Taking Dashilanr neighborhood as the testing ground, this project experimented on a public space microregeneration framework and an innovative public participation mode based on pop-up practices. In response to current spatial problems in Dashilanr neighborhood, the project team proposed a regeneration framework of 5 strategies for public space: activity implantation, traffic improvement, greening promotion, rainwater management, and event and industry planning. As a test to the framework, project presentation and feedback, interactive experience, community building, and other functions were integrated into temporary urban space installations in the pop-up spaces. Combined theoretical framework with practical experiences, this project paid attention to the discussion of propagation effects and discipline boundaries, so as to compile the Dashilanr Micro-Regeneration Handbook, which provides an experimental sample for the inventory planning of Beijing’s old city.     

URBAN UNEASE: AN INTER-URBAN ECOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE SOCIOLOGICAL DIMENSION*

The concept of urban unease, first elucidated by James Q. Wilson in 1968, refers to a “sense of the failure of community” among urbanites. An exploratory analysis of the sociological dimension of urban unease is carried out here on a small set of urban communities. A data set from the 1970 ten-city Citizen Attitude Survey carried out by the Urban Observatory Program of the National League of Cities is analyzed. This data set has been merged with aggregate census data measuring ecological properties of the ten cities in this national survey. There is a tendency for residents' concerns for urban unease to be affected by variations in the urban context if the issue relates to the neighborhood or micro community. Residents of large, diverse, heterogeneous cities, and cities with high crime rates, are more likely to express urban unease relative to their neighborhood context.     

NEIGHBORHOOD APPROACHES TO URBAN CAPACITY BUILDING

The authors argue that the solution of urban problems requires resources and powers far beyond those available to most local governments. Only through partnerships of all relevant actors—public officials, businessmen and neighborhood residents—can such issues be dealt with. Yet, partnerships are neither simple nor inevitable. They require hard work and usually the development of the capacities of all involved. Such capacity building for partnerships is on three levels: the development of the individual capacity to play partnership roles; the creation of interactive partnerships operating as local problem solvers; and the fostering of inter-partnership networks. Neighborhoods are seen as the building blocks of cities, serving as a locality of scale upon which the citizen can base his concerns and actions and within which partnerships can operate effectively. Specific recommendations are made, utilizing this policy context to build capacity for partnerships at the neighborhood level, particularly with regard to the Intergovernmental Personnel Act.     

Developing Regional Regimes: A Comparison of Two Metropolitan Areas

Abstract: The author relates tenets of urban regime theory to the major elements of new regionalism. He develops a framework of government and private sector structures and factors that facilitate the development of regional governing regimes. He categorizes these structures and elements as high, medium, or low according to the extent to which they facilitate or hinder the development of regional regimes. This framework is used in an analysis of new regionalism in the Pittsburgh and Chicago regions. The author concludes that the Pittsburgh region's private sector regime development capacity is in the high category while its government capacity is in the medium category. The Chicago region's private sector regime development capacity is placed in the medium category while its government sector capacity is judged to be in the low category.