Readings in Urban Analysis

Perspectives on Urban Form and Structure

Robert W. Lake, Robert W. Lake

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351494700
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

This important work brings together a range of perspectives in contemporary urban analysis. The field of urban analysis is characterized by the multiplicity of approaches, philosophies, and methodologies employed in the examination of urban structure and urban problems. This fragmentation of perspectives is not simply a reflection of the multifaceted and complex nature of the city as subject matter. Nor is it a function of the variety of disciplines such as geography, planning, economics, history, and sociology. Cross-cutting all of these issues and allegiances has been the emergence in recent years of a debate on fundamental issues of philosophy, ideology, and basic assumptions underlying the analysis of urban form and structure. The notion of urban analysis Robert W. Lake discusses focuses on the spatial structure of the city, its causes, and its consequences. At issue is the city as a spatial fact: a built environment with explicit characteristics and spatial dimensions, a spatial distribution of population and land uses, a nexus of locational decisions, an interconnected system of locational advantages and disadvantages, amenities and dis-amenities. Beginning with landmark articles in neo-classical and ecological theory, the reader covers the latest departures and developments. Separate sections cover political approaches to locational conflict, institutional influences on urban form, and recent Marxist approaches to urban analysis. Among the topics included are community strategies in locational conflict, the political economy of place, the role of government and the courts, institutional influences in the housing market, and the relationship between urban form and capitalist development. This is a valuable introductory text for courses in urban planning, urban geography, and urban sociology.

PART III
Conflict and Institutional Constraints

8
Local Interests and Urban Political Processes In Market Societies

Kevin R. Cox

In general terms, this paper is concerned with the relationships between market processes and local political processes in urban areas. In particular, the objective is to specify the conditions under which, in market societies, local interests are likely to be reflected in spatially decentralized, localistic political processes.

More specifically, the paper addresses itself to a curious Anglo-American contrast. American cities are characterized by a vigorous competition between local groups and their political agents solicitous of the future of respective turfs. In British cities this structure of relationships does not emerge with equal clarity.

The paper has two major sections. In the first the contrasting structures of local political processes in American and British cities are identified. In the second major section an attempt is made to arrive at a specification of: first, the general conditions under which these contrasting structures are likely to emerge; and, secondly, of those particular attributes of American and British societies which contribute, to a differential degree, towards the satisfaction of these conditions.

The Structure of Local Political Processes

In American metropolitan areas, distinctively localized political processes can be identified at two geographical scales: that of the jurisdiction and that of the neighborhood. At the jurisdictional level one can document a variety of attempts by respective local governments to manipulate locational relationships to the advantage of their constituents and, presumably, to their own advantage as well. Broadly speaking, a local government attempts, on the one hand, to attract into its jurisdiction that which is utility enhancing and, on the other hand, to keep out that which is utility detracting. “Utility” at this jurisdictional level is defined largely in fiscal terms.¹ A major policy objective of local governments in American metropolitan areas is to minimize the tax rate. Achievement of this goal depends on maximizing the tax base relative to expenditures and, therefore: (1) attracting into the jurisdiction those individuals and associated land uses which provide positive fiscal externalities and (2) keeping out those imposing negative fiscal externalities.² Somewhat less important goals are behavioral in nature: attracting those residents who will provide positive behavioral externalities in the educational, public safety, and property maintenance areas and keeping out those unable to do so.³

The fiscally desirable are attracted by low tax rates which, however, are achieved by keeping out the fiscally undesirable. Achievement of fiscal goals, therefore, depends largely on a variety of exclusionary policies. The most publicized of these are the minimum lot size and single-family residential zoning policies that go under the blanket term “exclusionary zoning.”⁴ There are other exclusionary policies, however. These include building codes calling for expensive construction, and “gold-plated” subdivision regulations.⁵ These can add costs to new homes and, hence, exclude those poorer families likely to generate more in terms of need for public service spending than they would contribute to the local tax base. Failure to implement a program of public housing is an additional exclusionary strategy.⁶

These policies are particularly appropriate for those jurisdictions large areas of which are yet undeveloped. Those inner suburbs and central cities which are entirely built over have focused on a different set of strategies designed to counter the policies of outer suburbs. It is no exaggeration to state, for example, that one of the attractions of urban renewal and highway construction programs in central cities has been physical removal of the fiscally burdensome poor.⁷ Other approaches have included housing code enforcement policies designed to monitor incoming families and attempts to secure rights of extraterritorial taxation.⁸

Policies of this nature, intended primarily to achieve fiscal goals, also facilitate achievement of certain behavioral objectives. Provision of desirable fiscal externalities by households tends to be a concomitant of the behaviorally more desirable. Households consuming relatively large amounts of housing and land and generating little in terms of need for public safety expenditures or other poverty-linked services also tend to be more middle class. Behavior-ally, middle-class households are regarded as more desirable by local governments and the constituents they represent: they are publicly safe, their children provide desirable peer groups, and they are more likely to maintain their property.

At the neighborhood level an analogous structuring of the political process is apparent. In this case, however, the counterpart of the local government is the neighborhood organization; and instead of a jurisdictional turf, concern is with geographically more restricted neighborhood turfs. Nevertheless, broad objectives are similar: attract into the neighborhood that which is utility enhancing and keep out that which is utility detracting. More specific expressions of utility, however, do not extend to the fiscal. Rather, major concerns are confined to neighborhood schools, public safety problems, and property values.⁹ These three issues, moreover, are clearly interrelated. Public school problems in terms of pupil composition are likely to be reflected in increased delinquency and vandalism in the neighborhood and, possibly, in more mature forms of criminality. Property values represent competitive bids for residential property; these bids, in turn, will be partly based on evaluations of public safety and school problems in the neighborhood.¹⁰

As at the jurisdictional level, attracting those who provide the positive externalities at issue depends on keeping out those who do not. Exclusion, however, is achieved by policy acts designed to enhance demand for local housing and place it beyond the financial means of families regarded as less desirable. Rezonings, alterations of school pupil composition, alterations in school catchment areas, the location of public housing—all are seen as affecting the demand for neighborhood real estate and, hence, through the price filter, the social composition of the neighborhood. Given the public source of these effects, it is logical to expect neighborhood organizations to attempt to manipulate them in favor of their neighborhood: to lobby, therefore, for those policies thought to enhance the residential quality of the neighborhood and, hence, demand for housing there; and to lobby against those public policies and administrative decisions regarded as having adverse effects on such demand.

In fact, in very general terms, it seems reasonable to characterize these locally based policies, at both neighborhood and jurisdictional levels, as attempts to control housing market processes to local advantage. Housing markets in American cities have welfare impacts of a highly localized character. The view of the metropolitan area held by those directly involved in the production and exchange of housing is as an investment surface. Certain areas are seen as ripe for development, while other areas are regarded as less profitable. Banks regard some neighborhoods as good for mortgage loans, while others are red-lined and starved of credit.¹¹ Alternatively, banks may merely follow the red-lining activities of insurance companies.¹² Realtors, on the other hand, may regard certain neighborhoods as ripe for social change and attempt to instigate it by blockbusting. The result is a geographical structure of housing opportunities which goes far to explain residential shifts and investment flows among neighborhoods and among jurisdictions.

Residential shifts, however, have important welfare consequences for the residential populations left behind and for those into the midst of whom the newcomers move. Suburban local governments, for example, may find themselves having to raise tax rates in order to cope with an influx of residents moving into properties which detract from, rather than enhance, the jurisdiction’s per capita tax base. Older city neighborhoods find themselves having to compete for middle-class residents with newer suburban developments or fashionable prestige rehabilitation projects in the central city. Failure to attract new middle-class residents into existing vacancies results in a deterioration in local school quality, public safety problems, and a general decline in property values.¹³

The function of attempts to manipulate public policy in favor of the neighborhood or to protect the fiscal position of a jurisdiction is to alter the geography of housing investment opportunity. Neighborhood-based action, for instance, serves to maintain the attractiveness of the neighborhood for middle-class buyers and, hence, to preserve a flow of mortgage money into the area. Exclusionary policies on the part of suburban local governments serve to enhance the attractiveness of the jurisdiction for investment in properties, the ultimate owners of which will provide positive, rather than negative, fiscal externalities.

In brief, in American cities households are increasingly forced to participate in the operations of the residential property market. This they do either indirectly, by attempting to make the neighborhood attractive to the housing investor, or directly, by participation in the real estate market itself. With respect to the latter, the degree to which neighborhood organizations form their own real estate operations to bypass private realtors is impressive.¹⁴

This structuring of urban political processes in America is in substantial contrast to that existing in Britain. Fiscal mercantilism of the sort engaged in by American local governments is—with a few exceptions—virtually unknown.¹⁵ Neighborhood activity is also less apparent. On those occasions when it does emerge, the issues are quite different. Issues of public safety and local schools are notable for their absence. Much more common are, for example: concerns over obnoxious land uses, such as polluting activities, taverns, or nightclubs; and concerns over the destruction of historically meritorious physical fabric. Symptomatic is the contrast in disputes over the location of public housing: these seem endemic to the American urban scene, while in Britain dispute is much more exceptional.¹⁶

In addition, it seems fair to claim that in the British case the interest of local groups and local governments in manipulating housing market flows to local advantage is considerably less apparent.¹⁷ Moreover, in the view of this writer, the housing market focus of local political processes in the U.S. is critical for understanding the conditions under which they emerge. In brief, it has been argued that the competitive involvements of local groups in the urban political process are a response to the localized welfare impacts of urban housing markets. By structuring flows of funds and of residents between jurisdictions and neighborhoods, the welfare of local groups may be placed at risk. Local political involvement is an attempt to manage these housing market flows to local advantage.

This, however, begs two critical questions: First, under what conditions does the housing market have localized welfare impacts? If it is true that local political processes are a response to welfare impacts, then additional clarification should be provided by an understanding of the forces underlying their emergence. Moreover, if this is a correct viewpoint, conditions promoting localized welfare impacts should be more apparent in the American case and less evident in the British one.

The second question focusses on the form taken by the response to local welfare impacts. While it frequently assumes a political form, there has been no obvious reason why this should be so. Given localized welfare impacts, some areas are likely to gain and some to lose, so that the welfare of those in areas which have tended to be adversely impacted could be maintained by relocating to areas favorably affected. In fact, this second question can be handled rather more briefly than the first and is addressed initially in the following section.

Understanding Local Political Processes

Political Response

Critical significance attaches to the role of homeownership. For many households in advanced market societies, the house they own and occupy represents their biggest investment, far exceeding in value other assets, such as savings deposits, securities, and durable consumer goods. Like other investments, moreover, it is one from which they expect a rate of return in the form of a capital gain. Relatively favorable tax treatment of capital gains increases the attractions of the house as an investment so that, for example, a dollar invested in housing is worth considerably more than a dollar invested in a savings account.¹⁸

Capital g...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• I The Neo-Classical Tradition
• II Human Ecology
• III Conflict and Institutional Constraints
• IV Marxist Approaches
• Suggestion for Further Reading
• Index