Do Cities Really Want Economic Development?

[M II A II R II K]

Do Cities Really Want Economic Development?


JULY 2014

BY AARON M. RENN

Read More: http://www.governing.com/columns/eco...velopment.html

So many cities and regions continue to struggle economically. Even within nominally well-performing places there are pockets that have been left behind. Most of the have-nots in the current economy have been struggling for an extended period of time, often in spite of enormous efforts to bring positive change. Why is this? Perhaps we need to consider the possibility that these places are getting exactly the results they want: Maybe they actually don’t want economic development.

- In short, economic struggle can be a cultural unifier in a community that people tacitly want to hold onto in order to preserve civic cohesion. Jane Jacobs took it even further. As she noted in The Economy of Cities, “Economic development, whenever and wherever it occurs, is profoundly subversive of the status quo.” And it isn’t hard to figure out that even in cities and states with serious problems, many people inside the system are benefiting from the status quo. They have political power, an inside track on government contracts, a nice gig at a civic organization or nonprofit, and so on. All of these people, who are disproportionately in the power broker class of most places, potentially stand to lose if economic decline is reversed. That’s not to say they are evil, but they all have an interest to protect.

- If a struggling community starts booming, that would eliminate a big part of the rationale for subsidized real estate development, which constitutes the principal form of economic development in all too many places, and which benefits a clear interest group. It might also attract highly motivated, aggressive people from out of town, folks who are highly likely to agitate for better than the current inbred ways of doing business. This would inherently dilute the positions of the current powers that be. In our own communities, where everyone seems sincere and dedicated to improvement, this can be hard to see. But when we look at other places where we have more critical detachment, it becomes obvious.

- For example, those of us not from Michigan can look at Detroit and see the failure of that community’s leadership across the board -- white and black, suburb and city, Republican and Democrat. But for all too many of them, Detroit’s decline was a personally profitable affair, politically, financially, or both. It’s tempting for us to shake our heads at Detroit, wag a finger and lecture them on what they should have done better. But if we were honest and introspective, we’d realize many of the same forces are at work in our own community. There are a lot of people who are personally doing quite well even in the midst of decay. In fact, the cold reality is that they are directly benefiting from that decay.

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[Double L]

Economic development is cities, without economic development cities don't exist. If you want to live in a small town or a hippy commune that is your choice but is economic development good for cities? Yes, economic development is cities.

[Doady]

I think think that photo says it all.

[toddguy]

Originally Posted by Doady

I think think that photo says it all.

And exactly what the hell does that mean? Mind explaining?

[animatedmartian]

With the mention of Detroit, I think what he's getting at is that if Detroit wanted to be New York City, then all the conditions of NYC would be recreated in Detroit and make it so. Therefore, the reason Detroit is the way it is now is because people do not want it to be a New York City.

It's just as effective to say that the sky is blue and rain is wet because it wanted to be that way.

[Steely Dan]

though the article below is satire, i think the truth behind it is a little bit of what Mr. Renn is trying to get across. when protecting the interest of the lower class gets combined with race and entrenched politicians, things can get awfully screwy when it comes to fighting economic investment. Anti-gentrification efforts are a real thing in our more segregated cities.

Shitty Neighborhood Rallies Against Asshole Developer
NEWS • Real Estate • ISSUE 43•25 • Jun 23, 2007


CHICAGO—Residents of the Carney Gardens neighborhood on Chicago's South Side are opposing an effort by asshole real-estate developer Royce Messner to build a godawful $45 million strip mall and condominium complex in the crime-ridden shithole they call home.

The Save Carney Neighborhood Foundation, the most organized non-criminal group in this part of town, has filed a lawsuit in federal court to block the scheduled April 2008 groundbreaking. While halting the project would surely prevent a tragic urban-planning nightmare, it would also mean keeping the run-down, economically depressed community exactly as it is.

"Carney is where I was born and raised, and it remains a tight-knit community," said Foundation chairman Althea Hynes at a fundraising block party held Monday on a broken bottle- and condom-strewn stretch of Carney Avenue where the money-grubbing Messner wants to put a soulless indoor food court. "Lots of young kids still play in the empty lots around here."

Messner, 54, a three-time Chicagoland "Builder of the Year" and all-time unbelievable scumbag who made his fortune in the 1990s converting public parks and cheap, blighted properties into high-rise luxury residences, is seeking to "revitalize" Carney Gardens by razing it and replacing it with a damned cookie-cutter mixed commercial-residential development that would benefit no one who lives there now.

"What people like this can never get through their heads is the fact that progress isn't always painless," the rapacious bastard said, as if he were not talking about driving thousands of poor benighted fucks out of the place that, pestilential hellhole or not, is the only home they've ever been able to afford. "They complained about the expressway over their heads too, but its easy-on, easy-off access makes Carney Gardens a prime area for development. Once we get a few more chain restaurants in that area, the whole economy will turn around."

full article: http://www.theonion.com/articles/shi...e-develo,2229/

[10023]

Not every place can have a successful economy.

"The poor you will always have with you." And they have to live somewhere.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by toddguy

And exactly what the hell does that mean? Mind explaining?

I just thought it was wierd that photo was posted in the OP.

Im not sure I agree with the article either. Do cities want economic development? You could ask the same of states. I don't think the poor really have that much power. Because they are poor.

[llamaorama]

though the article below is satire, i think the truth behind it is a little bit of what Mr. Renn is trying to get across. when protecting the interest of the lower class gets combined with race and entrenched politicians, things can get awfully screwy when it comes to fighting economic investment. Anti-gentrification efforts are a real thing in our more segregated cities.

Yes cities should only be a luxury consumer product

I think it's the symptom of a modern attitude that nothing can be done only because it's for the good of the citizens, even if that is what people really want. It must be for some kind "higher purpose" that usually something like economic development.

That said, I definitely support moving priorities towards liveability and away from development.

That article and some of the comments on that site are so cynical as to be irritating though, and always is no matter the article. So...do a lot of people who work in government(I assume thats' the target audience?) really just bitch and point fingers at problems and make partisan political statements, or what?