3_TheCityAsAGrowthMachine_LoganMolotch

Question 1

What separates local elite groups from people who use the city principally as a place to live and work?

Answer 1

The issue of growth / Growth Consensus
(p.50)

Question 2

Three real-world examples of Growth Consensus

Answer 2

The southern U.S. border, D’Antonio (1970), “knowledgeables” named finding water for farming and urban growth to be the most important problem facing their cities

In Dallas and Fort Worth, Melosi (1983) found power in the hands of “those most willing and able to sustain growth and expansion.”

California Transportation policies, Whit (1982), elites carefully coordinated positions and also money donated toward winning certain campaigns
(p.51-2)

Question 3

What was discovered by Lyon’s (1981) study of cities with more powerful elites?

Answer 3

Cities with more powerful elites tend to have stronger growth rates
(p.52)

Question 4

Boorstin (1965) said of western regions that the “lively competitive spirit [was more of] a competition among communities __________”

Answer 4

The “lively competitive spirit [was more of] a competition among communities than among individuals.”
- Boorstin (1965)
(p.53)

Question 5

What did Boorstin describe as “paper villages”?

Answer 5

Communities of subdivisions with town names on them

(This exists today in Chicago suburbs)
(p.53)

Question 6

What do paper villages compete amongst themselves for?

Answer 6

• federal land offices
• colleges / academies
• prisons
• (!!important!!) transportation infrastructure (roads, railroads, canal waterways)
  (p.53)

Question 7

What is Ogden famous for?

Answer 7

• Chicago Mayor
• Railway Developer (Union Pacific organizer and first President)
• Made Chicago into a dominant metropolis of the midwest
  (p.55)

Question 8

What is the story of Los Angeles’s unexpected success?

Answer 8

LA had none of the “natural” features that are thought to support urban growth (no centrality, no harbour, no transport, no water supply)

Port cities in California were competing to be the location of the end of the First Continental Railroad; the main fight was between San Francisco and San Diego. San Francisco won, because their elites used their financial and political powers to keep San Diego from becoming the southern route. They did not pay attention to LA. Even though San Diego had the better natural resources, those resources actually became it’s downfall bc it made the city a target for other high growth cities. Eventually, LA won millions in federal funds, and created the world’s largest artificial harbour, as well as federal backing to gain water.
(p.55)

Question 9

Give an example of a local elite winning over a competing paper village, but NOT to the benefit of their own local community

Answer 9

Detroit suffered when local elites put money and influence into expanding uninhabited areas for industrial development at the cost of the Detroit taxpayer, without putting funding into services those working-class residents paying for the new installations
(p.57)

Question 10

Why did the Growth Machines seen in U.S. history get replaced by the Modern-Day Good Business Climate?

Answer 10

• The fusing of public duty and private gain has become less acceptable (in public opinion and criminal courts alike)
• The new roles played by mass media, urban professionals, and skilled political entrepreneurs
• Instead of a few local heroes, the growth machine is now a less personalized matrix of social institutions with similar agendas
• Transportation and communication grids are largely already implemented, so modern cities seek growth in basic economic functions and labour

(p.57-58)

Question 11

Bases (types) of economic growth which contemporary cities strive to build

Answer 11

• manufacturing
• research & development
• information processing
• tourism
  (p.58)

Question 12

How do contemporary cities benefit from economic growth?

Answer 12

more intense land use –> higher rent collections
(p.58)

Question 13

In what ways can cities affect “factors of production” which drive local growth? (There are 9)

Answer 13

• Create shipping ports and airfields to lower access costs to raw materials
• Make sympathetic policies on pollution reduction / employee healthcare standards / taxes, in order to decrease corporate overhead costs
• …………. pushing welfare recipients into low-paying jobs and using police to constrain union organising, in order to reduce labor costs indirectly
• Legalising alcohol and/or promoting gambling to promote tourism and convention business
• Provide cheap water supplies using Federally financed programs
• state agencies can be manipulated to subsidise insurance rates
• local political units can forgive business property taxes
• Government installations of certain sorts (universities, military bases) can provide additional development by guaranteeing the presence of skilled labor, retailing customers, or proximate markets for subcontractors
  (p.58)

Question 14

Who has the most to gain/lose in land-use decision for the city?

Answer 14

People who use their time/money to participate in local affairs are the ones who –in vast disproportion to their representation in the population– have the most to gain or lose in land-use decisions fro the city
(p.62)

Question 15

What is “boosterism?”

(not always directly called boosterism, sometimes just referred to as boosting, but it’s a phenomenon recurrently referenced in this text)

Answer 15

When any locality (neighborhood scale to country scale) tries to boost connect civic pride to the growth goal, in hopes of attracting new business to the area
(p.58 / p.60)

Question 16

Edelman’s two kinds of politics

Answer 16

1st - “Symbolic” politics of public morality

2nd - Government actions that affect the distribution of important goods and services

(p.63-64)

Question 17

The Two Types of Growth Machine Strategists (politicians)

Swanstrom (1985)

Answer 17

1) Conservative
- Important during the age of steel
- exploitation of the city and its labor force
- “free economy” business model

2) Liberal
- longer-term growth achieved by government planning and programs which lessen oppositions

(p.67-68)

Question 18

Why does local media promote the growth machine’s goals?

Answer 18

A larger metropolis means increased circulation of their media (newspaper/television station/radio) and higher profit for their company

(p.70)

Question 19

What makes local media (newspapers, primarily) a UNIQUE contributor to the growth machine?

Answer 19

They benefit from growth, but do not particularly care about the specific spatial pattern of growth. It doesn’t matter to them if population growth occurs in the north or the south, if new business comes in the form of a new convention center or a new factory; any growth is beneficial for them.

(p.70-71)

Regardless, this “cheerleader” of growth can still be heavily corrupted by other growth machine players

(p.72)

Question 20

Utilities which play a role in the growth machine:

Answer 20

Water Agencies
Gas Companies
Transportation Officials
Electric Company
Major Airlines (Transit on a National level)

(p.73-74)

Question 21

Auxiliary Players in the Growth machine:

Answer 21

Universities (expansion of campuses can stimulate development in otherwise rural environments)

Museums / Theaters / Expositions (centers and facilities enhance commercial success of adjacent residential/hotel/office construction

Professional Sports (arenas are used by local governments to provide focus for urban renewal projects, and teams (an industry within themselves) give a city visibility on a national scale, including those making investment decisions)

There are others, but these three are bigger I think.

(p.75-80)

Question 22

Is it correct to assume that growth is beneficial to a city’s fiscal well-being?

Answer 22

“Growth cannot, just because it ‘adds to the tax base,’ be assumed beneficial to a city’s well-being”

• sometimes growth/expansion requires a city to invest in large-scale infrastructure to support new developments (water, electricity)
• “the overall fiscal state of a city depends on the kind of growth involved (industrial /residential) and the existing capacities of the local infrastructure”

(p.86-89)

Question 23

Does local growth create jobs?

Answer 23

No, local growth only distributes jobs.
(p.89)

“the ‘unanimous’ agreement among economists [is] that ‘the only jurisdiction that should be concerned with the effects of its policies on the level of employment is the Federal government. Small jurisdictions do not have the power to effect significant changes in the level of unemployment.’ (Levy and Arnold)”
(p.91)

“A game of musical chairs is being played at all times, with workers circulating around the country, hoping to land in an empty position when the music stops. Redistributing the stock of jobs among places may move the chairs around, but it does not alter the number of chairs available to the players.”(p.91) “To stay with our metaphor of musical chairs, the number of /comfortable/ chairs and the basis for allocating them does not change; only their /location/ is altered.”(p.93)