Challenging the Growth Machine
 

The Main Argument

An analysis of how city politics operate in two cities of Chicago and Pittsburgh - while paying particular attention to the question of what makes a regime more responsive to the needs of the neighborhoods and the groups representing them, as well as the question of what makes urban politics more conducive to progressive policies than others. The overall framework adopted heavily draws upon the regime theory, but the author makes a critical supplement to it by adding the concept of "arena" - thereby adding the analysis of institutional frameworks in which regimes operate in, and the political cultures, both of which tend to be neglected by conventional regime theories. By looking at these two factors, it would be possible to analyze exactly why as to seemingly similar regimes are dramatically different in their general conduciveness to neighborhoods organization and progressive policies, Ferman asserts.
 

The Theoretical Framework

The merit of the regime theory, which Ferman heavily relies upon, is that it pays attention to the process of coalition building among various segments of elites as the key determinant of political processes and policy outputs - thereby paying attention to both of political and economic elites and avoiding narrow political or economic determinism of how city governments operate. However, the shortcoming is that, as mentioned previously, the theory tends to neglect the broader factors of institutional frameworks and larger political cultures in which regimes are situated, so it cannot really account for why regimes of similar characteristics are sometimes characterized by vastly different political processes and policy outputs. This shortcoming must be supplemented, and Ferman does this by unifying what has been largely neglected in the conventional regime theory under the concept of "arena". That is, different political processes and policy outputs are seen to result out of the interaction of regime characteristics and its needs in coalition formation with the "arena" these regimes choose to operate mainly in. Specifically, "arenas" are defined as the spheres of activity that are distinguished by particular institutional frameworks and underlying political cultures that lend a structure to these activities. More concretely, local political systems are made up of number of different arenas - electoral, civic, business, intergovernmental, etc. Regimes ordinarily have their "favorite" arenas in which they prefer to predominantly work in, and this difference in the sphere of activity is the key factor as to why similar regimes exhibit greatly different political practices. Further, the analysis of arena can be decomposed into that of the institutional framework and political culture, as different arenas are characterized by distinctive traits in each of these two constitutive realms. Institutional framework refers to the larger environment in which specific institutions operate, Ferman states. The elements included here are decision making rules, patterns of resource distribution, degree of formalization, general orientation, and governing orientation. The attention to this formalized institutional framework shifts the locus of attention from that of the conventional regime theory, as the latter tends to pay more attention to the processes of informal coalition building. The other component of the arena analysis, political culture, is probably largely self-explanatory. In formal terms, Ferman defines political culture as the "collective expectations of the population about the roles and behavior of their government and political system". It is interesting that Ferman draws upon the work of Putnam to illustrate the important role political culture could play here. So, overall, the relationship among the main components of Ferman's version of improved regime analysis - regimes, their objectives and coalitional needs; and arenas, including their institutional frameworks and political cultures, are summarized nicely in p. 11. Ferman states: "The various components of the governing regime, in particular the balance of power between political and economic elites and, accordingly, the primary regime objectives, will influence the selection of arenas (e.g., electoral or civic) through which most political activity occurs. The institutional and cultural attributes of the selected arena serve to mediate group demands (form, content, and outcome) as well as regime policies (p. 11).
 

Chapter 8 (Chicago vs. Pittsburgh, Unidimensional vs. Multidimensional Progressive Politics)

This chapter summarizes the results of the analysis of city politics in Chicago and Pittsburgh using the theoretical framework developed above. As immediately clear from this chapter, the nature of the governing regime, arenas they operate in, and consequently their institutional frameworks and political cultures, are markedly different in these two cities. To put it very crudely, Pittsburgh is characterized by the precedence of economic elites over the political ones, has higher level of civic culture and its politics is consensual rather than conflictual, and generally quite open to incorporating the needs of neighborhoods and progressive policies. Chicago is other way around for just about all of these respects. There political elites' concern with electoral politics takes precedence over economic concerns, its political culture is characterized by cynicism and suspicion, its political processes are frequently conflictual and are generally hostile to progressive concerns. These differential characteristics are summarized nicely in the tables on p. 137, 138 and 140. Although the nature of the ruling regimes were somewhat different to start with, thereby leading to the different choice of principal arenas to operate in - whereas in Pittsburgh regime was formed for purposes of economic development with the initiative from major members in economic community, in Chicago political elites came to a position of dominance as a result of the early accommodation process - the key difference between two cities is again seems to be that of the different arenas they operate in. In Pittsburgh, this is the civic arena, in Chicago it is the electoral arena. This difference leads to number of consequential ramifications. The civic arena, since there is no need for harsh competition in the electorate that is often a zero-sum game, is usually characterized by the atmosphere of civility and cooperation. This type of regime tends to be oriented toward using resources for a policy initiative, leading to a programmatic stance. The electoral arena provides for a quite different picture under a competitive electorate system. The objective of the regime tends to be that of the accumulation of political and electoral power, with the perceived need to eliminate and/or preempt political enemies. Obviously, this choice of different arenas then, is to lead to the different level of openness to progressive initiatives (quite high in Pittsburgh, low in Chicago). Pages 137 to 142 develops on this different characteristics of Chicago and Pittsburgh more fully.

We have seen that in general Pittsburgh politics is more accommodating to the progressive initiatives, yet the story does not quite end there as it is not simply the matter of one being more accommodating than the other - rather progressivisms of different nature have existed in Chicago and Pittsburgh. The last half of this chapter, from p. 142 and onward, discusses this issue and its implications. In Pittsburgh, the form of progressivism was that of the unidimensional one. That is, it was primarily focused on the economic issues, and the dominant form of organizing was around the neighborhood. On the other hand, there were virtually no resources for mobilizing around the issues of race, the environment, or redistribution. Pittsburgh's institutional structure and its pattern of resource distribution encouraged this form of narrow, business oriented, unidimensional progressivism. Meanwhile, Chicago's progressivism was one of the multidimensional one. Here, partly reflecting the greater diversity of the city, mobilization occurred around wide range of issues - including race and redistribution. What is the implication of these different forms of progressivisms? The author does not see a very bright future in either of them, for neither truly can accommodate the needs of the poor and the disadvantaged, for both of these forms are hampered with the problem of their own right. Put crudely, for the unidimensional progressivism of Pittsburgh, while this system at least works, it usually has a narrow growth machine mentality that has a conservative orientation (Regime politics of Atlanta, with the coalition of black politicians and white economic establishments together pursuing the shared goal of economic development while excluding the concerns of black lower class, seems to fit the description of this unidimensional progressivism rather well) . For the multidimensional progressivism, while this tries to incorporate diverse interests of people of different walks of life, the problem is quite simply that it does not really work. The difficulty of accommodating divided, diverse and often confrontational interests is certain one factor here. Further, Ferman mentions of other difficulties associated with multidimensional progressivism that can accommodate the redistributive issues. It does not fit with the general American ideology and value orientation, which has anti-public sector planning bias and is generally against the big government. And since this form of progressivism tends not to function so well, the author surmises that the future progressivisms are more likely to adopt the conservative unidimensional outlook.