For many, metaphors are social constructs (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Behn, 1992; Fox & Miller, 1995, 1996; Morcol, 1997), indispensable to all modes of discourse. They direct our thinking along certain paths; they touch people and crystallize understandings within, and among, them not through hype or fad, but personally, through a kind of positive psychological contagion among interested learners. Their understandings are evidenced through each individuals personal experiences, such that certain metaphors make sense of certain aspects of everyday life; they simply ring true.
There is, however, a problem that endures with their use in the analysis and planning of economic development: metaphors (particularly those that suggest the development process is "politically-neutral") obscure the crucial relation between development policy and political governance. This obscurity makes it exceedingly difficult for public officials to justify (to private investors) the publics political interests; interests which often include the creation of jobs for local residents, the boosting of tax revenues, and efforts to decrease disparities between central cities and suburbs. Absent careful examination of the relation between development and governance, development is conducted under a shroud of what Logan and Molotch (1987) call "value-free development." Beneath this shroud, the more technical questions of development take precedent over those regarding governance by asking: When should tax abatements be used? What kinds of new jobs will be created, and at what rates of pay? Who should get the jobs, city residents or suburbanites? Who should pay for development? At some point, each of these questions deserve our full attention. Providing them with the attention they deserve, however, requires prior consideration of the purpose of development within the broader scheme of governance.
Admittedly, discussions of political purpose are frequently more abstract and appear far duller than those involving flashy tax concessions. However, both, are unavoidable. Concessions, as a case in point, in the form of property tax abatements and government loans constitute indirect taxes on educational systems and capital budgets, in that both draw from the same revenue sources; because of this, additional tax concessions will only serve, at some point, to impair an areas long-term economic competitiveness (Wolman, Hanson, Hill, Howland & Ledebur, 1992). For this, and several other such reasons, serious discussions of abatements, loans and other developmental techniques appear wholly inseparable from those of political purpose.
Failure to observe this inseparability may account for much of the confusion that presently pervades the field of local economic development. We are engulfed by an abundance of techniques, but suffer from a paucity of planning; we eagerly embrace any idea hailed as an innovation, though rarely can we say what we are thereby trying to accomplish. Entire schools have been founded on little more than a commitment to continuous growth, despite the apparent fact that development produces losers and winners, with allocational consequences that are, often, both salient and embarrassing (Sanders & Stone, 1987).
While recognizing how economic development shapes much of the American local government landscape, metaphor is here used as an anchoring referent for conceptualizing different allocational consequences. It is used this way because metaphors are generally capable of embodying powerful, condensed symbolic meaning (Abrams, 1988). They possess tangible particularism, such as with language and history, and durable temporality, as with paradigm and story. This places the metaphor in a more meaningful position as an anchoring referent for political and social change (under a system of government such as ours) than discrete experiences such as linguistic statements or historical events, or looser abstractions such as paradigms or stories (Fox & Miller, 1995, 1996; Morcol, 1997).
The new metaphor encourages us to view economic development as "an exercise in political governance" though clearly, the exercise is not a simple one. Thus, three counter-arguments against treating development in this way are, perhaps, more easily anticipated than addressed: those that would encourage us to view development, metaphorically, as "problem-solving," as "running a business," and as "building a growth machine" (Bingham & Mier, 1993). The counter-arguments are presented in tandem and the basic implications of each are contrasted with those of the new metaphor. Ultimately, by viewing development as "an exercise in political governance," we are reminded that the developmental enterprise could not play a more consequential or immediate role in the governance of the metropolis. What this article does not offer are simple solutions or pat answers; it does, however, promote a reorientation in our understanding of the constant interplay between the economic and the political, and a renewed hopefulness about changing the day-to-day circumstances of the city through development. It is, then, to a discussion of the importance of language and metaphor in development policy analysis and planning that I turn in the completed version of this article, which was published in its entirety by Administration & Praxis, August 1997, 19(2): 132-145.
Author: Steven A. Maclin, Ph. D.
About the Author: Dr. Maclin has been a university professor of public administration and policy since 1994. Recently, from 1998 - 2004, he lived and worked with American military troops in Japan, Okinawa, and South Korea. He has previously edited and published dozens of articles in professional administrative journals and recently, in his ‘spare time,’ he’s been building websites for distributing materials to his graduate students. Hes now stateside, teaching graduate students online, writing articles and developing a small online business (see
http://buyfromart.com); he can be reached at info@buyfromart.com.