Negative Consequences of Innovation-Igniting Urban Developments: Empirical Evidence from Three US Cities

Emergent economic development policies reflect the challenges urban growth coalitions face in attracting the footloose tech-entrepreneurs of the global economy. This convergence between the focus on place and the harnessing of global capital has led to the proliferation of innovation-igniting urban developments (IIUD)—place-based economic development strategies to boost the local knowledge economy. Economic developers are using IIUD strategies to convert areas of the city into entrepreneurial “launch pads” for innovation. However, because these developments remain young, considerations to implement IIUDs lack an evidence-base to show the potential for negative consequences on the communities where they are embedded. This research addresses this gap through: 1) a review of studies of similar developments to identify negative consequences; and 2) using a quasi-experimental method composed of Propensity Score Matching and Average Treatment Effect analyses from IIUDs in three US cities (Boston, MA, St. Louis, MO, and Buffalo, NY). Combined, results demonstrate that the greatest implications of IIUDs are the increased polarized division of labor, housing unaffordability, and income inequality. As IIUDs gain in popularity, it is critical to correlate negative consequences with IIUDs to inform economic developers in assessing trade-offs.

Maladaptation on the Waterfront: Jakarta’s Growth Coalition and the Great Garuda

The capital city of Indonesia, Jakarta, faces chronic flooding which has been and will continue to be exacerbated by climate change processes, including sea level rise and increased rainfall. In response to these threats, the government has devised a megaproject solution to flooding which will simultaneously address the problem while enhancing Jakarta’s status as a ‘world city’, improving the economy of the metropolitan region and the country as a whole. However, the so-called Great Garuda project has a number of major flaws. We describe how this project fails to address the root causes of flooding in Jakarta as well as the primary drivers of vulnerability to flooding. We further show how the Great Garuda project is a channel through which politically connected economic elites of the Suharto regime, now marginalized by democratization and decentralization reforms, can reconstitute ‘growth coalitions’ to benefit from state resources and privileged access to development contracts and concessions. Lastly, we apply and expand on the concept of maladaptation to demonstrate how the project could leave the city and its residents more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change than they currently are.

Contested boundaries: The moralization and politicization of prostitution in German cities

The local regulation of prostitution in Germany is a contested area of urban politics. In this issue area, morality claims intersect with the material interests of home- and landowners and the security demands of ‘ordinary’ citizens. The Prostitution Law of 2001 has liberalized the legal framework: the legislation ‘normalized’ sex work, triggering the re-definition of urban strategies to regulate prostitution. This article analyses the conflict dynamics and the framing of conflicts over regulations in four German cities. It identifies the main actors, coalition-building processes and the framing of conflicts, and links these elements to the resulting policies. With regard to theory, it explores the relevance of classical explanatory approaches to local governance such as party politics, urban growth coalitions, political culture and bureaucratic politics to the value-laden issue of prostitution. It thereby contributes to the growing academic interest in the nature of morality policies and the question of the specific conditions under which prostitution is framed as a moral issue or as a ‘normal’ subject within urban politics.

Making Jerusalem “Cooler”: Creative Script, Youth Flight, and Diversity

The creative city approach, already one of the most popular urban development models in recent years, continues to spread to new destinations. When urban scholars explain how ideas become canon, including the particular case of the creative city approach, they usually focus on political–economic mechanisms, the role of global elite networks, and the interests of local economic growth coalitions. These explanations are insightful but miss the political–cultural projects that cities pursue concurrently to the creative city approach, two aims that sometimes reinforce each other and sometimes contradict. Using interviews and fieldwork, I follow the importation of the creative city approach to the contested city of Jerusalem, and argue that the drive to adopt the creative script cannot be explained only by political–economic forces, but also by the local political–cultural projects of preserving Jerusalem as a Zionist city. Moreover, I suggest three directions for interpreting the role of local forces in the adoption and translation of urban ideas.

Memory Politics: Growth Coalitions, Urban Pasts, and the Creation of “Historic” Philadelphia

Facing economic changes and disinvestment, powerful actors in post–World War II American cities attempted to define the city as a space of public culture to confront demographic shifts, suburban growth, and the breakdown of community. Some civic actors, especially in older Eastern cities, looked to a nostalgic and heroic past where a theme of American identity became salient as a result of the Cold War and rapid cultural and economic changes in the postwar era. To achieve urban growth, elites argued for urban redevelopment policies based on historical themes and imagery. We examine the sociopolitical history of Philadelphia's Independence Hall redevelopment project (1948–1959) and the development of the adjacent Society Hill neighborhood (1959–1964). We offer the framework of memory politics—political contests over the use of shared community history—to examine how growth coalitions implement plans for economic growth, tourism, and civic allegiance. Philadelphia, particularly during the postwar era, exemplifies how heritage, politics, and place dynamically collide and direct urban development.

Urban Development and the Growth with Equity Framework: The National Football League Stadium in Downtown Los Angeles

In political economy, research on growth coalitions and regime theory concludes that progressive coalitions representing lower-income residents and effectively working for policy change at the local level involving development are unlikely since they lack the resources necessary to build and maintain strong coalitions with long-term influence with elected officials. In Los Angeles, a coalition representing the homeless filed a lawsuit in 2012, which involved one of the most powerful developers in the region, and reached a favorable settlement. Given the strength of growth interests and factors working against redistributive policies, I ask the question, how did the coalition muster the political influence and resources necessary to compel the developer to settle the lawsuit? I contend that the settlement is evidence of a progressive coalition in the region that is working to establish a growth with equity framework and that the coalition has established political influence with local officials.

Growth coalitions and the control of public space

Public spaces are contested spaces; various groups compete for their control and to (re)present themselves there to the public. The political and economic changes and global competition transformed the mechanisms of production of spaces in post-socialist countries. New interests and new actors emerged in urban development with strong influence on the processes. They often form formal and informal alliances; growth coalitions to support their interests. This study examines how growth coalitions are related to public spaces in Hungarian cities. These coalitions work differently then those in the US – usually, the state has a more significant role in the European growth coalitions. That is the case in Hungary as well; the state plays a significant role in the formation and operation of pro-growth regimes through legislation and national policies. Furthermore, the paper suggests that post-socialist social conditions are favourable to the emergence of growth coalitions mainly because of the weak civil sector. This means that the power relations between the actors of the local development are highly unbalanced. Global capital and local pro-growth actors are the most influential stakeholders in local policymaking. Local and state legislation and policies are not capable to compensate the ambitions of the investors – moreover, often they support them.