In order to provide the jobs and tax base necessary for a healthy city, the argument goes, local governments must compete with other cities for capital investment by cutting social expenditures for the poor and providing subsidies for mobile corporate investors. In Cleveland, such practices led to a striking contrast between its booming downtown and declining blue-collar neighborhoods, an uneven distribution of the costs and benefits of growth politics. Elected mayor in 1979, Kucinich refused to sell the municipal light plant, even under pressure from area bankers. This resulted in the cityas default, thereby killing an ineffective tax abatement program for downtown. Swanstrom, who served in the administrations of both Kucinich and his more conservative successor, offers a careful study of the background, issues, and events of this highly charged episode of confrontation politics. He sets out to dispel the illusion of growth politics, to expose the politics hidden in economic growth issues, and to explore the unintended effects of reform efforts when collective interests rather than individuals benefit from political influence.
Here is a study which demonstrates that growth politics and its hidden evils must be reckoned with and reexamined by those in local power. Author note: Todd Swanstrom is Assistant Professor of Political Science in the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs at State University of New York, Albany He has been active in city planning both in Cleveland and in Albany.
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