Since economic development is the most financially consequential area of urban policy, it affects the distribution of wealth, of quality education, of employment, housing, health care and of other important indicators of the overall quality of urban life. Accordingly, its adequacy cannot be judged on the basis of capital growth alone. Business representatives are important in determining the content of what is, more broadly, in the `urban political economic interest (Elkin, 1987), but contrary to present practices, their views should be secondary to those of public officials. Stephen Elkin argues convincing and at length that the exercise of public authority should be, fundamentally, an effort to rise above narrow private interests. Otherwise, development policymaking is perhaps more clearly understood as a tool for concealing the private manipulation, or in some instances the domination, of local governments authority.
The present task is, therefore, to outline a normative approach to urban development policymaking that extends from, and returns attention to, governments primarily normative (i.e., democratic) calling. The "top five" conditions are operationalized from urban governments practical interest in achieving democratic urban governance. This is defined as a democratically organized system of guidance or steering whereby local institutions (Selznick, 1957, 1984) exercise public authority, leadership and representation of the interests of all, rather than some, citizens. Local institutions are involved in the governance process to the extent they are accountable to, and draw their legitimacy from, citizens subject to their authority. Where these conditions are met, these institutions collectively act to enhance the long-term welfare of citizens, to meet their common needs, and further distributive justice (Warren, Rosentraub & Weschler, 1992; Wamsley et al., 1990). From this perspective, five conditions are derived which, together, constitute a normative approach to development policymaking. This approach may be thought of as a `checklist to inform public managers of the way in which responsible policymaking processes can be understood, condoned or criticized by the general public or by urban researchers. The approach includes:
1. Openness
The term openness refers to the quality of being open, of being available, frank, or generally free from control (Oxford American, 1980). Where policymaking is referred to as being "open," the term is used with respect to the availability of public information. As a criterion for democratic governance, openness is satisfied where, for instance, the Gateway Economic Development Corporation (a non-profit development corporation) maintains standard operating procedures that provide for:
(a) the prompt availability of "information" pertaining to participant organizations and actors (public and private), their functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities. This, and the next aspect, point to the importance of unfettered monitoring, and when necessary, the importance of public access to information which might indicate whether the activities of public agencies or officials should be redirected;
(b) information made, received, or preserved by public agencies or officials which would allow interested parties to determine whether, or the extent to which, all pertinent laws have been obeyed (e.g., APA Sunshine Law, Subcontracting laws, Affirmative Action), no pertinent laws have been broken, or whether new laws might be needed; and,
(c) written notification, a basic rationale, and the right to appeal any denied request for access to information. This aspect insures citizens have some means of legal recourse where requests for information are denied.
2. Meaningful Public Participation
This term refers to the quality of being involved, of having ones views incorporated, or of at least having a chance to discuss and react to public policies while they are being formulated. As a criterion for democratic governance, participation has direct implications for the question of "Who must be heard on developmental issues?" It is implied by one of the fundamental canons of democratic political theory popular control by those who are directly affected by public decisions, and by those whose assent appears critical to the acceptability of those decisions.
Popular control is the most characteristic feature of modern democracies; it is the meaningful choice of different candidates who are free to run for office, where their supporters are free to press their claims publicly, to put forth alternative policies, and to criticize present decision-makers. The existence and extent of these liberties, as manifested in the "freedom to oppose," is perhaps the most crucial test of the extent of any democracy. This criterion clarifies the extent to which a development project is presented and/ or controlled as a "fait accompli," and is relevant in that it is emphasized as:
(a) the right of citizens to have knowledge about their government (as evidenced by passage of the Freedom of Information Act and other "sunshine" legislation at both national and state levels), and
(b) a necessary consideration for the development of a "conscientious citizenry" (i.e., one that is able to exercise its rights intelligently).
3. Independent Feasibility Analysis
Before floating a revenue bond issue, the respective government must, among other things, estimate the cost of the development project. The nature and revenue potential of the project are the focus of what is called a feasibility study, since the debt service will presumably be repaid from the revenue generated by the project itself. For large projects like the Gateway Complex, the study may require assistance from one or more consultants, accountants or other specialists.
The independent analysis criterion refers to the feasibility studies that are conducted, and paid for, independent of those parties who have primary interests in the development project under consideration. Independence, in this case, provides the public with an empirical basis for believing what is fully implied, if not stated that no significant costs were intentionally hidden, and that the project at hand has been designed to advance primarily public, rather than private, interests. Where feasibility studies are not conducted independently, the publics trust in government (or whats left of it) is potentially compromised.
Similarly, the independent analysis criterion is generally satisfied where it may be shown that the publics trust in a given public-private partnership has not been compromised. The conditions that satisfy this criterion parallel those that pertain to openness. Where actual feasibility studies are available to interested parties, this may be considered a step in the right direction. It does not fully satisfy this criterion, however, because the public also needs to know that the studies in question were not conducted, and/ or paid for, by parties who have primary interests in the development project. Thus, the public needs to be able to determine:
(a) which firms were selected to conduct the various financial and/ or feasibility studies, and who paid them.
(b) were similar studies conducted independently? If so, by whom? Who paid for them?
4. Civic Vision
The term vision is widely used in business today. As with most popular terms, the meaning has become distorted. For present purposes, vision denotes an explicit, shared image of a citys political-economic character, and of what that city should strive to become. Powerful visions provide a basic ideology for understanding and guiding a citys discretionary choices. When local industry, local politics, the citys administrative inheritance, its financial constraints, and the competitive dynamics within the "urban hierarchy" are taken into consideration, a vision may help determine the capital markets within which it should, or intends to, compete and its specific plans for establishing or sustaining a favorable position within those markets.
Plans are incapable, however, of determining whether a city will be successful at establishing itself within these markets. Indeed, the ideas that cities are limited politically, and are severely dependent on various forces beyond their control have almost become tenets of urban political studies. The term is still useful in the broader discussion of democratic governance because, where visions are backed by useful metaphors and are successfully established (which usually takes several years), they tend to reinforce or even create changes in institutions, classes of wealth, and in local systems of power. These may be made more responsive or accessible to individual classes or groups of citizens who may have been victimized, historically, by the dominant institutions of government and/ or the private sector. There may be room for competing visions, even though this was not exhibited in the Gateway case White maintained views that were similar to those of Voinovich with regard to the Gateway project. But even here, the urban political economic interest should be central to public debate and political decisionmaking (Elkin, 1987; Keller, 1993).
5. Accountable Policymaking Structures
The normative basis for accountability is established in democratic political theory. It gets to the heart of "who answers to whom" and reflects the need, from time to time, to alter certain parties or parts of the policymaking process. In order to determine which party or part needs to be altered, one needs to be able to trace, as closely as possible, the source of public decisions. More importantly, one needs to know that where the trust that citizens place in government or in public-private arrangements has been misplaced they have some mechanism for correcting matters. Usually, at all levels of government, there are several administrative and/ or political mechanisms for correcting unaccountable situations.
Through the election of representatives and the creation of a bureaucracy, the public gives its officials independence in enacting and implementing public policies. The public retains a manner of control, or accountability through the threat of removal from office (Gray, 1978). Thus, accountability refers to the quality of being chargeable, responsible, and in some instances, liable. The term is here used in a structural sense. While it is generally thought that hierarchical, and other top-down structures, are ideal settings for ensuring accountability these may be ineffective or inappropriate in highly networked settings (OToole, 1997), though several others may conceivably meet this requirement (Harmon & Mayer, 1986; Hult & Walcott, 1990). In any case, the objective would be to determine the organizations lines of accountability, who selects the development corporation officials, who oversees them, who evaluates them, whether independent or ongoing audits are performed, and whether mechanisms exist for determining the validity of these audits.
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.