Local Regimes: Does Globalization Challenge the Growth Machine?
Author(s)
Clark, Cal; Green, Johnny; Grenell, Keenan
Abstract
In the study of urban politics, development is viewed quite cynically as primarily benefitting a narrow elite of downtown business people and their political allies in city hall; so that reform and progress are often associated with limiting the power of this “growth machine.” In state and local (nonurban) politics, in stark contrast, economic development is widely assumed to produce broad benefits for local communities; so that primary analytic attention focuses upon discovering the most effective development strategies.This article explores the seeming paradox of these polar opposite conclusions about economic development. We begin by outlining the theory of how “corporate regimes” dominate most urban centers, why they implement skewed economic development policies, and why globalization appears to be exacerbating these problems. However, reviewing work on state-and-local economic development outside urban centers indicates that several types of business development exist and that they differ significantly in their implications for improving conditions in a community or society. This suggests that other types of corporate regimes are possible. In fact, the logic of globalization points toward the need to establish more progressive corporate regimes willing to implement some of the reforms advocated by critics of the “growth machine.”
