LIBSPOSSOC 245: City and Citizenship 03242004

1
LIBS/POS/SOC 245 City and Citizenship03/24/2004

• Course Agenda Today.
• Website http//faculty.roosevelt.edu/erickson/cou
  rses/pos245spr04/.
• Readings/Lecture.
• Urban Political Economy.
• Globalization and 21st Urban Economies.
• CNN Video Politics of Immigration and
  Globalization.
• Industrial to Post-Industrial.
• Urban Development and Urban Poverty.
• Development Strategies.
• Presentations.
• Return of Midterm Exams.
• Average 85.1
• High 92.5.
• Low 62.5.

2
LIBS/POS/SOC 245 City and Citizenship03/24/2004

• Structure of Opportunities in 21st Century
  American Cities.
• Broad Trends
• Industrial to Postindustrial Shift.
• Globalization and the global city.
• Changing structure.
• Industrial to Postindustrial.
• Industrial Era late 1800s to post WWII.
• Profound legacy for American cities which grew
  during this time period.
• Origins of rust belt.
• Postindustrial Economy.
• Industrial production still important, much
  located overseas.
• Services sector key engine to economic growth in
  1990s especially.
• Recent slow down exacerbated loss of
  manufacturing/industrial jobs, as well as service
  jobs.

3
LIBS/POS/SOC 245 City and Citizenship03/24/2004

• Outsourcing becoming major issue in Presidential
  Election 2004.
• Relevant for employment situation in cities.
• Federal state sets overall parameters for trade,
  which in turn set overall parameters for growth
  for cities.
• Sunrise vs. Sunset industries.
• Sunrise take advantage of US high skilled
  workforce.
• Sunset industries move overseas.
• Research shows Sunrise industries not creating
  sufficient jobs to replace manufacturing.

4
LIBS/POS/SOC 245 City and Citizenship03/24/2004

• Spatial distribution of job loss and job
  creation.
• Determines fate of city.
• Many jobs leaving rustbelt cities of northeast
  and Great Lakes/Midwest.
• Moving to southeast and southwest United States.
• Moving from urban cores to suburbs.

5
LIBS/POS/SOC 245 City and Citizenship03/24/2004

• Globalization and Global Cities.
• Globalization and World Cities Study Group and
  Network
• There has always been global economy.
• Unique about late 20th and early 21st is
  intensity of global flow of
• Products.
• Population.
• Ideas.
• Risk/Conflict.
• Creation of a system of global cities.
• Transnational corporations.
• International banking and finance.
• Supranational government.
• International agencies.
• Globalization and 2004 politics.
• CNN Video 1) Sierra Club Elections, 2) End of
  Globalization.

6
LIBS/POS/SOC 245 City and Citizenship03/24/2004

• What is a Global City?
• Saskia Sassen.
• Services more important than manufacturing.
• Servicing needs of multinational/transnational
  corporations.
• Concentration of business in central business
  district pushing out residential areas.
• Increasing price of living in central core,
  homogeneity, gentrification.
• Valid analytic concept?
• Questioning the validity of exitence of global
  cities.
• Characteristics not necessarily uniform.
• Emphasis on first tier cities.
• Ignores interdependence of all cities economic
  health on global economy.

7
LIBS/POS/SOC 245 City and Citizenship03/24/2004

• Hierarchy of Global Cities.
• First Tier.
• Key hub of command and control for
  transnational corporations and banking and
  financial services.
• New York, London, Tokyo.
• Second Tier.
• Regional powers with global impact.
• Chicago, Brussels, Los Angeles, Paris, Washington
  DC.
• Third Tier.
• Cities with specialized functions in global
  economy.
• Houston, San Francisco, Miami.
• Fourth Tier.
• National importance some transnational functions.
• Boston, Montreal, Munich, Philadelphia.
• Fifth Tier.
• Distinctive Niches. Atlanta, Rochester, Charlotte.

8
LIBS/POS/SOC 245 City and Citizenship03/24/2004

• Globalization.
• Positives.
• Interdependence enriches goods and services.
• Cheaper prices for many consumer goods.
• Expansion of export markets for United States.
• Cities that house multi/transnational
  corporations should benefit from economic
  development.
• Negatives.
• Difficult to compete in global environment.
• Race to the bottom. Environmental, labor,
  occupational regulation poor in many developing
  state.
• Authoritarian states which repress labor movement
  - dampen wage growth.
• Other states engage in subsidies, despite
  treaties/international entities such as World
  Trade Organization.
• Occasional demonstrations, sometimes violent
  (Seattle 1999).

9
LIBS/POS/SOC 245 City and Citizenship03/24/2004

• 21st Century American Economy.
• Paradox.
• Rising inequality.
• Less poverty.
• Gini index.
• Why the paradox?
• Origins of inequality.
• Wage gains at the top.
• Multiple downward pressures on low wages.
• Immigration and global competition.
• Proliferation of single parent househlds.
• Poverty declining.
• Uneven distribution of decline in poverty.
• Minority communities hit disproportionately.

10
LIBS/POS/SOC 245 City and Citizenship03/24/2004

• 21st Century Urban Underclass.
• Inner-city ghettoes.
• Deepening underclass and shrinking opportunities.
• Disappearance of employment opportunities.
• Movement of jobs to suburbs, w/o linked increase
  in public transit commuting opportunities.
• Negative feedback loop of eroding tax base, poor
  public services (esp. education), increasing
  crime.
• Underclass defined.
• Census tract where 40 of population is in
  poverty.
• Growing concentration of Latino and African
  American populations in underclass neighborhoods.
• Geographic diffusion of underclass neighborhoods.
• Bipolar Cities.
• Very unstable configuration of population and
  distribution of economic benefits.

11
LIBS/POS/SOC 245 City and Citizenship03/24/2004

• Disparities between Central Cities and Suburbs.
• Reversal from 1960 where per capita income in
  cities greater than suburbs.
• Central Cities fate perhaps not that dire.
• Urban Renaissance.
• Resettlement of city cores.
• Successful redevelopment.
• Proliferation of residential areas.
• Cultural change re appreciation for urban life.
• Gentrification.
• Widespread, especially before dot.com bubble
  burst.
• Highly focused in certain cities.
• Bay Area - San Francisco, Oakland as example.

12
LIBS/POS/SOC 245 City and Citizenship03/24/2004

• Urban Renaissance/Redevelopment not just central
  districts.
• Comeback Cities (Grogan and Proscio)
• Inner-city redevelopment.
• Community-based organizations involved in
  redevelopment.
• Rediscovery of micro-economies in inner-city
  areas.
• Dramatic decline in crime rate during 1990s.
• Collapse of large and ossified bureaucracies as
  stimulus to growth and change.
• Inner-cities are capable of own development.
• Other researchers focus on problems 1) middle
  class flight 2) economic hollowing out of
  inner-city areas 3) expansion of ghettos 4)
  social implosion.
• Inner-city life quality of life can improve w/o
  overall reduction in poverty.

13
LIBS/POS/SOC 245 City and Citizenship03/24/2004

• Urban Economic Development Strategies.
• 21st century is characterized by cities that face
  highly mobile corporations and reduced federal
  subsidies.
• Urban Redevelopment.
• Finding uses for abandoned areas.
• Cleaning up brownfield sites.
• Massive investment in redevelopment projects
  stadiums, shopping areas, emphasis on attracting
  tourism.
• Economic development.
• Attract new and retain existing businesses.
• Economic development bureaucracies created.
• Highly competitive environment which corporations
  use to own advantage.

14
LIBS/POS/SOC 245 City and Citizenship03/24/2004

• Business Climate.
• What determines citys business climate?
• Labor costs.
• Unions.
• Workers Compensation.
• Taxation rates.
• Quality of government services.
• How sensitive are corporations to relocation
  pressures.
• Evidence shows that taxation rates not critical.
• Labor cost more important.
• Undermines labor and occupation regulation,
  exacerbates movement of jobs and people to
  southeast and southwest US.
• Lifestyle factors also play role moderate
  climate, cultural amenities.
• Corporations are constrained in movement.

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LIBS/POS/SOC 245 City and Citizenship03/24/2004

• Incentives for Economic Development.
• State and Federal intervention.
• Urban Enterprise Zones.
• Set of inducements to get corporations to
  relocated to abandoned urban cores.
• Tax breaks on income and property if employ local
  residents.
• Other Financial Incentives.
• Tax abatement.
• Seed money to corporations.
• Aggressive use of eminent domain and federal
  block funds.
• Tax increment financing.
• Bonds used to stimulate economic development,
  increasing property values and property taxes
  hopefully offset cost of bonds.
• Venture Capital.
• State and local governments set up entities to
  invest in start-up companies.

16
LIBS/POS/SOC 245 City and Citizenship03/24/2004

• Assessing Urban Development Strategies.
• Do they result in an increase in jobs?
• Net fiscal benefit to the area?
• Generate new economic activity or just
  relocation.
• Enforcement provisions if corporation leaves.
• Unanticipated consequences.
• Linked to broad economic strategy?
• Many questions remain about quality of
  conventional development/redevelopment
  strategies.
• Example Convention centers.
• Many cities invested in convention centers.
• Now overproduction of convention centers.
• Highly competitive market, reduces potential
  income to cities.

17
LIBS/POS/SOC 245 City and Citizenship03/24/2004

• Biases in Urban Political Economy?
• Economic benefits not evenly distributed.
• Minorities and poor do not necessarily benefit
  from projects.
• Population increase may exceed any growth in
  economy.
• Disconnect between redevelopment and reduction in
  poverty rates.
• Federal Subsidies may be channeled to
  corporations with little positive impact on
  cities.