Cities under Austerity

Description

Across the world's most industrialized economies, the financial crisis of 2007 caused a contraction of state budgets and stimulated attempts to reform debt-burdened governments. In the United States, a system of fiscal federalism meant this turn towards austerity took a uniquely fragmented and geographically diverse form. Drawing on case studies of recent urban restructuring, Cities under Austerity challenges dominant understandings of austerity as a distinctly national condition and develops a conceptualization of the new US urban condition that reveals its emerging political and social fault lines. The contributors empirically detail the restructuring that is taking place across the United States, its underlying logics, its local impacts and the ongoing processes of challenge and resistance that influences how it is shaping the lives of citizens. The new American political economy, it is argued, needs to be understood as composed of a mosaic of urban experiences that both build upon a differentiated foundation and creates new divergences. As state reforms continue to interact with this diverse urban political economy of the United States, this collection provides a state-of-the-art survey on how postcrisis convergences and divergences in urban economies and urban politics have laid the foundations for the new political geography of the United States.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Preface: Situating Austerity Urbanism
Jamie Peck

1. Introduction
Mark Davidson and Kevin Ward

2. Austerity and the Spectacle: Urban Triage and Post-Political Development in Detroit
L. Owen Kirkpatrick and Chalem Bolton

3. Austerity as the New Normal: The Fiscal Politics of Retrenchment in San Jose, California 59
Sara Hinkley

4. The Difference a Crisis Makes: Environmental Demands and Disciplinary Governance in the Age of Austerity
C. S. Ponder

5. The Unaffordability of Recession: Housing Mobility and Recession Austerity in Providence, Rhode Island
Aaron Niznik

6. Urban Governance and Inclusionary Housing in New York City
Kathe Newman

7. Homeownership in Middle America: A Case of Incidental Austerity?
Daniel J. Hammel and Xueying Chen

8. Conclusion
Mark Davidson and Kevin Ward

Postscript
Mark Davidson and Kevin Ward

References
Contributors
Index

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438468198
• Langue: English

Extrait

CITIES UNDER AUSTERITY
CITIES UNDER AUSTERITY
Restructuring the US Metropolis
Edited by
Mark Davidson and Kevin Ward
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2018 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production, Ryan Morris
Marketing, Michael Campochiaro
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Davidson, Mark, 1979– editor. | Ward, Kevin, 1969– editor.
Title: Cities under austerity : restructuring the US metropolis / edited by Mark Davidson and Kevin Ward.
Description: Albany, NY : University of New York Press, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017008960 (print) | LCCN 2017021933 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438468198 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438468174 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Municipal government—United States—History—21st century. | Municipal budgets—United States—History—21st century. | Fiscal crisis—United States—History—21st century.
Classification: LCC JS323 (ebook) | LCC JS323 .C53 2018 (print) | DDC 336/.01473—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017008960
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Contents
L IST OF I LLUSTRATIONS
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
P REFACE
Situating Austerity Urbanism
Jamie Peck
C HAPTER 1
Introduction
Mark Davidson and Kevin Ward
C HAPTER 2
Austerity and the Spectacle: Urban Triage and Post-Political Development in Detroit
L. Owen Kirkpatrick and Chalem Bolton
C HAPTER 3
Austerity as the New Normal: The Fiscal Politics of Retrenchment in San Jose, California
Sara Hinkley
C HAPTER 4
The Difference a Crisis Makes: Environmental Demands and Disciplinary Governance in the Age of Austerity
C. S. Ponder
C HAPTER 5
The Unaffordability of Recession: Housing Mobility and Recession Austerity in Providence, Rhode Island
Aaron Niznik
C HAPTER 6
Urban Governance and Inclusionary Housing in New York City
Kathe Newman
C HAPTER 7
Homeownership in Middle America: A Case of Incidental Austerity?
Daniel J. Hammel and Xueying Chen
C HAPTER 8
Conclusion
Mark Davidson and Kevin Ward
P OSTSCRIPT
Mark Davidson and Kevin Ward
R EFERENCES
C ONTRIBUTORS
I NDEX
Illustrations
Figures Figure P.1 The localization of U.S. government employment, 1977–2016 Figure P.2 Local government employment under Reagan and Obama Figure P.3 Federal support versus debt load for U.S. cities, 1977–2012 Figure 3.1 San Jose’s Total General Direct Expenditures, FY2007–FY2012 Figure 3.2 Unemployment in San Jose Area, 2000–2013 Figure 5.1 Unemployment in RI and Providence 2006–2013 (USDLS) Figure 7.1 All loan originations and home purchase loan originations in Lucas County, Ohio Figure 7.2 All home purchase originations and FHA home purchase originations in Lucas County, Ohio Figure 7.3 Home purchase loans in 1994 normalized by housing units Figure 7.4 Minority population in Lucas County, Ohio, in 2010 Figure 7.5 Home purchase loans in 2000 normalized by housing units Figure 7.6 Home purchase loans in 2006 normalized by housing units Figure 7.7 Percent of all home purchase loans that are high cost or subprime in 2006. These loans are at least 300 basis points (3%) above the going prime mortgage rate Figure 7.8 Home purchase loans in 2012 normalized by housing units Figure 7.9 Percent of all home purchase loans that are high cost or subprime in 2012. These loans are at least 300 basis points (3 percentage points) above the going prime mortgage rate Figure 7.10 Home purchase originations and denials in Lucas County
Tables Table 5.1 Descriptive statistics for dependent and independent variables Table 5.2 Logistic regression predicting mover families between wave 1 and wave 2 Table 5.3 Logistic regression predicting mover families between wave 2 and wave 3 Table 5.4 Logistic regression predicting the effects of residential mobility Table 7.1 Institutions with the largest share of all foreclosures in Lucas County, Ohio, from 2004–2008 based on a 2 percent sample and the range at a 0.95 level of confidence Table 7.2 Homeownership in Lucas County, Ohio, 2000 and 2010 Table 7.3 Mortgage originations and prime and subprime mortgage originations in census tracts below and above MSA median income in Lucas County Table 7.4 Mortgage originations and prime and subprime mortgage originations in census tracts with more than 50 percent minority residents and fewer than 50 percent minority residents in Lucas County
Acknowledgments
Editing an academic book can at times be a thankless task. Careers are littered with those who have done it once and vowed never to do it again. That the tasks were shared between the two of us made it easier. That the two of us get on outside as much as inside of work made it more than easier. It made it enjoyable, the shared labor necessary to edit a book a means of catching up with what each other was up to both professional and personally.
The impetus for this book came out of a series of conversations between the two of us, the first outcome of which was our contribution to a 2014 special issue of the Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society on “Austerity and the city.” In writing that article we became aware of how U.S. cities were restructuring themselves, although not under conditions of their own making. Austerity was reshaping all aspects of economic and social life and it was likely that the implications for urban futures were going to reveal themselves incrementally and unevenly over the next few decades. Given what we understood was at stake—intellectually and politically—we were surprised that there had been relatively few attempts to pull together and compare the experiences of U.S. cities. It is on that which this book is focused. How are cities seeking to chart a way through the financial challenges posed of them both by the Great Recession and the public sector cuts imposed under austerity? That is, different cities, with different industrial histories, political alliances, population characteristics and redevelopment trajectories but facing a common twofold challenge.
Mark would like to thank the friends and colleagues who have shared their thoughts on our emerging urban political landscape. During the tumult of the Great Recession, many aspects of urban governance became difficult to understand. In a quest to grapple with this troubling and exhilarating situation, many a conversation with Bill Kutz about the fate of bankrupt cities impacted Mark’s thinking about where U.S. cities are now heading. Kurt Iveson has also been a constant source of inspiration, particularly when austerity made it into our joint reconsideration of critical urban scholarship. Rowland Atkinson, Lee Crookes, Chris Gibson, David Lukens, Deb Martin, Jim Murphy, and Elvin Wyly are also fellow travelers on the quest to understand these brutal times. Throughout the process of putting the collection together, Mark benefited immensely from the friendship and mentoring of Kevin Ward. Kevin’s legacy to urban geography grows by the month, and Mark is grateful to be a small part of it. Most of all, Mark would like to thank Michelle, Sadie, and Sam for putting up with his absences, late nights, and weekend trips to the office. His eagerness to return to their company hastened the completion of this text and many other tasks.
Kevin would like to thank the various audiences for his work over the last few years, subject as they were to his many and varied attempts to make urban governance and finance sound interesting! A number of colleagues/friends have played their part in helping him understand the changing ways in which city governments are present in financial markets, and he would like to acknowledge this intellectual debt: Josh Akers, Allan Cochrane, Mark Davidson, Jason Hackworth, Andy Jonas, Sarah Knuth, Bill Kutz, Jamie Peck, Andy Pike, Nik Theodore, Rachel Weber, and Andy Wood.
Kevin gives special thanks for the love and support received from Colette and Jack, for whom the content of this book is a long way from what he should be doing if he were a “real geographer.”
More formally, the editors would like to thank Michael Rinella at SUNY Press, and the anonymous reviewers whose constructive and supportive comments made this a better book.
Preface
Situating Austerity Urbanism
JAMIE PECK
“Most crisis analysis comes directly after crisis,” Mark Gottdiener (1986b, p. 277) wrote more than three decades ago; “It catches a wave.” Something broadly similar might be said about the working concept of austerity urbanism, which was developed in the aftermath of the Wall Street crash of 2008, tracking the global financial crisis and the onset of what proved to be a deep recession across the United States and across much of Europe, to be followed by a prolonged period of sluggish economic growth and restrictive government budgeting. This midlevel conceptual frame sought to capture, at least provisionally, some of the immediately evident urban dimensi