Harvey Molotchs thesis, regarding the "urban development growth machine," has been used as a conceptual basis for some of the more influential political-economic studies on urban development. It remains, however, purely descriptive. While this perspective would seem to improve on the market perspective by simply incorporating the role of politics, it may be criticized for not going far enough. Similar to those who use the market perspective, urban political-economy researchers generally limit their comments to the more obvious, technical concerns unemployment, housing costs, fiscal control, taxes and other legally-defined procedures (Swanstrom, 1988; Elkin, 1987; Stone, 1989; DeLeon, 1993). Few, aside from Peterson (1981) and Katznelson (1981), have attempted to use this perspective to argue normative theory. While these two authors have different substantive concerns, they do share the sense that "the principal normative focus of urban political study should be a concern for the way in which city politics advances or retards equality and/ or promotes some conception of efficiency" (Elkin, 1987: 2).
Though we can only speculate as to the reason why researchers have limited their comments to technical or descriptive matters, one might reasonably presume they have been (a) as captivated by empiricism as their market-economic counterparts; and/ or (b) concerned that their works do not appear to support some form of neo-Marxism. Indeed, "applying" a political-economic perspective in practice requires a “willingness to engage in political struggle with powerful people, institutions, and organizations. Altering the course of metropolitan development means interfering with the distribution of benefits associated with established and taken-for-granted patterns. Therefore, intervening in these patterns will not go unnoticed because, for the public to win, someone has to lose” (Holpuka & Shlay, 1993: 176).
The point, however, is that a purely technical/ descriptive approach ignores one of the greatest potentials of the political-economy perspective: to be used as a basis for incorporating or acknowledging normative theory. A normative (i.e., democratic) theory of urban political-economy may well suggest alternative directions for urban policy (i.e., democratic urban governance), or targets for intervention within the urban economic development process (i.e., the growth machines multi-million dollar downtown projects) which would not have been conceivable from a strict, market perspective.
Recently, studies based on the political-economy framework have led to recommendations to promote balanced growth between neighborhood and downtown development, to increase public participation, to strengthen links between business and other sectors of the community, to target job opportunities, and the like (Logan & Swanstrom, 1990; DeLeon, 1993; Mier, 1993). And, while these recommendations promote conditions which would seem necessary for democratic urban governance, most extend from a fixed, descriptive set of circumstances. As such, they are valuable so long as the circumstances hold true.
The current research relies, to an extent, on this same inductive logic as well, but incorporates deductive logic (i.e., a normative theoretical perspective) which allows me to extend or alter recommendations, depending on the circumstances. Indeed, the potential of the political-economy perspective to be used as a basis for incorporating normative theory and informing urban governance seems particularly important, given the current context of American local government.
Author: Steven A. Maclin, Ph. D.
About the Author: Dr. Maclin has been a university professor since 1994, but 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.