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Definition
Author: Riordan
Meaning: Honest graft means to see the opportunities and take them, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, describes the difference between dishonest and honest graft: for dishonest graft one worked solely for one's own interests, while for honest graft one pursued the interests of one's party, one's state, and one's personal interests all together.
Significance: It was a way for political machines to make money and gain power, however it was considered to be more “honest” only to some.In being a member of a political machine, one could take advantage of inside information such as land uses and business decisions to make a huge profit. Although “honest” in the fact that blackmailing wasn’t involved, honest graft entailed using privileged information. Such a thing would not be considered in today’s world. |
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Author: Riordan
Meaning: Mornin’ Glories refers to reform committees like The Citizens’ Union that started out really good but only last a few years. “They were mornin’ glories — looked lovely in the mornin’ and withered up in a short time”.Plunkitt blamed the fact that the leaders of reform movements weren’t trained up in politics like the machine leaders were. Plunkitt and other leaders of political machines had more experience with politics and were able to stand the test of time.
Significance: Mornin’ Glories is significant because it shows that you need to know the political game in order to play hard ball in politics. These reformers have been going into things without much practice while the politicians, have been practicing all of their lives and know ever fine point of the political game. |
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Author: Riordan
Meaning: According to Plunkitt, the Civil Service Reform is a civil service law that is “the biggest fraud of the age”, it would create a merit-based system in which those who take government offices are those who passed the civil service examination. Men who have patriotism lose it when they take the civil services examination because if they fail, they lose the motivation to serve their city. They thought having patriotism was enough but the examination said otherwise. There are ten thousand good offices, but we can’t give no more than a few hundred of them because the men fail the tests. When men who wanted to serve their country can’t be placed, they become an Anarchist.
Significance: Plunkitt criticized Civil Service Reform, stating many patriotic people will end up losing their patriotism. In addition, the civil service reform hurt the political machines because their ability to provide jobs was a major source of their support and power. Because of civil service reform, political machines had to turn to private businesses to get jobs for their supporters. |
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Author: Lecture and Riordan
Meaning: : Professor stated in lecture the machine runs off of the citizens support- with out their votes the machine can not work- if the machine can not work- they can’t get into office. This shows how the machine worked in exchange for votes the machine would give its supporters jobs and other forms of patronage as a thank you for supporting the party- the more powerful it was the more favors/better favors it was able to give to its supporters. The definition from riordan reading: According to plunkitt, political ingratitude is demonstrated when one is disloyal to his/her friends who have helped him, who only pursues his/her own interests without regard to others. plunkitt says that telling the truth and standing by your friends leads to political success and longevity. political ingratitude is basically a political traitor. the consequences of political ingratitude is loss of followers which is detrimental to a politician because politicians need votes to be reelected and gain power.
Significance: Supporters of parties will have a say in politics, and the political machines will be more influenced by these supporters. |
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Definition
Author: Lecture 8
Meaning: Professor Ingram gave 3 ways of who runs/dominates a city (power relationships). A finding made by Floyd Hunter in Community Power Structure, focused on the role of economic elites in the city, stating that cities are ruled by an economic/business elite. C. Wright Mills backs up this finding by observing we pretend voting matters but the people who wield the real political power are the ones who have economic power. The pluralist response to the community power debate says the government is run democratically because although there are various interest groups competing for power, politicians call the shots because if they don’t the public won’t re-elect them (anticipatory power). The neo-elitist view is that economic elites use their influence to keep important issues off the political agenda to keep their power because capitalist democracies favor the needs of those who produce revenue over those who consume it (non-decisions)
Significance: Those with money, who create revenue, set the agenda in politics. Even if a community popularly supports or opposes a policy, the interest groups with the most power can influence policy. |
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Definition
Author: Jan 23 Lecture and Judd & Swanstrom
Meaning: Both in lecture and Judd & Swanstrom have the same meaning. . Political machines are basically these political organizations which provide support and rewards to various groups of people that supported the organization. The person at the top of the political machine is known as the party boss. The machine is organized in a hierarchy and people at the top were people who were able to gather a large amount of voters.
Significance: Political machines are significant for urban politics because they provided several services that city governments were unable to provide or were very slow in doing so. For example, that there were several unemployed workers in a neighborhood. In this case the political machine would help them find a job in exchange for their support. It also provided welfare services, centralization, and social mobility. So for those immigrant groups who wanted to move up in society, they would do so by working for the political machine to gather votes. |
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Definition
Author: Lecture 7
Meaning: Structural reforms are a set of political changes made during the late 19th century and early 20th century. They reformed several political institutions as well as the political system. For example, non-partisanship was a change made that prevented party labels from being placed on the ballot. Reason for posting this was because often times in the past, people voted by party and they would select all parties of a candidate. Non-partisanship attempted to change that.
Significance: The reason that structural reforms are significant is because they were made in an attempt to take power away from political bosses to make them weaker. Political bosses used to give people jobs and contracts in exchange for supporting the political machine. So reforms such as having people take civil service examinations and having contractors are important changes made by structural reforms. Without structural reforms, political bosses would have likely still had power. |
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Definition
Author: Lecture 12
Meaning: New Federalism (revenue sharing law) was signed by Nixon so we say Nixon’s New Federalism which is political federal program of sharing revenues and power with states and cities. New Federalism also involves the federal government providing “block grants” special revenue sharing- targeted at specific kinds of projects such as housing- to the states to resolve a social issue.
Significance: As federal government provides states to control in certain key areas, such as matters involving health, safety, and morals, the states and cities have more power. For that reason, the smaller cities where have lots of money can do many things and could get more benefits while the cities where have little money and lots of places cannot do anything. (Poorer regions may be unable to afford services for residents that wealthier regions may provide). |
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Term
| Governmental Proliferation |
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Definition
Author: Lecture 13
Meaning: It is the increase in the number of local governments throughout California. Local governments seek to achieve autonomy from the county. As a result, these local governments would have more control over several things like land use.
Significance: Government Proliferation is significant because many cities decided to create their own local governments to have greater control over their territories. For example, cities are able to let counties know that they don't want something to be placed in their territory, and the counties would more likely listen to them. There was less effectiveness on property taxes due to Prop 13 which created Governmental Proliferation. |
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Definition
Author: Lecture 13
Meaning: The inability of cities to recapture revenues of suburban dwellers, even when suburbanites may still rely on central city services, may cause insolvency. Suburbs may free ride, and the poorer populations left dwelling in central cities were a weaker tax base on which to build city costs. There are demands on central cities that they are unable to afford.
Significance: It is significance because there could be a focus on the movement of industries and the middle class away from the cities. |
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Term
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Definition
Author: Lecture 10 and Gotham reading (Molotoch)
Meaning:Molotoch's "growth machine" is made up of an array of real estate and banking interests that dominates and controls the urban redevelopment process. Proponents of the growth machine approach suggest that growth coalitions are prevalent throughout local government because (1) city leaders seek to sustain growth to maintain governmental services and fiscal health, and (2) local businesses become involved in local policies to maintain and increase their profitability by influencing and shaping the city’s regulation of land-use, tax and employment policy, and provision of services. According to lecture 10, The wealthy in cities want to make a profit out of their real estate assets (lead by local entrepreneurs and elites). Through systemic power, these people got support from politicians. Jaws is a good example of the capitalistic expansion pursued by the growth machine; the wealthy just focus on wealth and had no regard to how their actions would affect others, in the case of Jaws, had no problem with the death of others. Developers run the city and are willing to give whatever amount of resources to political campaigns that will get their guy in office. Local media and utilities companies want to increase their customer base, incentives in participating the growth machine (boosterism).
Significance: Growth machines are significant because they led to what we see in cities today, fragmented metropolises. Growth machines are heavily responsible for the suburbanization of America, investing a lot of money in infrastructure that would attract the wealthy out of the urban cities. The growth machines now are trying to bring people back into the cities by investing heavily in the tourism and entertainment sectors and by helping those that support their views get elected into office. Growth machines are significant in urban politics in general because they have a lot of power allotted to them because of the wealth they have and the potential wealth they can generate. Without growth machines, we would not have seen the explosion of urban and suburban expansion America went through in the past. |
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Definition
Author: Lecture 13
Meaning: Proposition 13 cut the amount of taxes that people paid on property .It also said that the maximum taxation that a person would be taxed on a piece of property would be 1 percent of assessed valuation. It also set the maximum annual increase in assessed valuation to two percent.
Significance: Proposition 13 is a significant in urban politics because it affected the revenues that cities would receive. Before proposition 13 passed, lots of cities received a majority of their revenue from taxing properties. They also increased the amount of tax every year dramatically. So when prop 13 came into effect, they lost a lot of revenue and they had to find some other way to make up for this loss. There was a decline in infrastructure and the California debt went up dramatically. |
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Term
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Definition
Author: Film "Trolley: The Cars that Built Our Cities"
Meaning: Origins- A fast, efficient form of transportation was needed to carry a large number of people in the cities. Horse drawn carriages were an inefficient use of power and elevated railroads were only useful in large cities. Cable cars were economical, but by harvesting electricity to power the wheels, trolleys were developed and grew.
Use- Trolleys provided a convenient form of transportation to and from work. It was successful in small towns (miles of tracks) and large cities (lhundreds of miles of tracks). They were a cheap, reliable form of transportation that allowed suburbs to grow around larger cities. Trolleys were also adapted to provided recreational use and services by transporting goods/cargo.
Decline and Revival- While lightweight and faster trolleys were developed, they could not compete with cars. Recently, concerns for the environment and our dependence on foreign oil revived the use of trolleys. Newer, rapid transit lines were created that reached out to the suburbs to decrease the reliance on highway transportation.
Significance: They are the cars that built our cities. They provided a cheap form of transportation that allowed for urban growth to occur (for villages to develop into cities); allowing easy travel within a city. They were adapted to create subways (which provided easier travel under the cities instead of the streets of the cities). Trolleys started suburbanization. |
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Term
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Definition
Author: Hogen-Esch
Meaning: Valley Voters Organized Toward Empowerment (Valley VOTE) created as an effort by business and homeowner interests to erect political boundaries
to ensure local consumption of the tax base. They wanted a new and improved secession bill to remove the city's veto power over secession because Valley does not receive fair share of city services, the closer they are to government the more they will respond to their demands, and local control is euphemism for asserting political power over the institutions of American local government.
Significance: The theory’s emphasis on “land-use intensification” suggests that growth machine theory in particular and the urban literature in general often overstate the level of antagonism between renter and homeowner groups. |
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Term
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Definition
Author: Clarence Stone
Meaning: Stone suggests that because of the power relations given in capitalist societies the upper class have the money and the influence. A capitalist democracy must favor those producing revenue over those who consume it. This is also why public officials tend to favor upper strata interests, which is what Stone calls “strategic dependencies”.
Significance: This theory puts the growth ideology in a bigger perspective. When the mayors focus on attracting investments its not only because they are mean capitalists, it is also because of a “strategic dependency” that is given by the stratified society. |
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Definition
Author: James Ingram III from TED reading
Meaning: A charter prescribed governmental officers, determines how they will be selected and defines the powers they will hold in office. The city’s charter establishes the process by which most municipal policies; ordinances, and resolutions are enacted. For L.A., no government is ever good enough and this is visible in the patterns of charter reform in L.A. over the past 100 years. There are threats of secession movements and LAFCOs ripping L.A. a part. L.A. Charter continues to keep changing.
Significance: L.A. charter was one of the earliest charters drafted in the CA political context, and had many flaws due to the changing urban political landscape that came about in the end of the 20th century. This shows that policies change regarding to time periods. |
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Term
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Definition
Author: Sugrue
Meaning: Detroit’s Decline refers to the depopulation and abandonment of the city which began with the decentralization of the auto industry. The origin of Detroit’s power was through the development of automobile factories within its city at the turn of the century. Originally, the “big three” auto producers (Ford, General Motors and Chrysler) maintained large factories in the city. However, as the popularity of automobiles grew the workers moved out of the city and into the suburbs. In addition, the factories moved outside the cities to decentralize the work and to create parallel production lines to prevent the unionizing workers from stopping the factories. With the relocation of the factories and work force to the suburbs, the oldest parts of the city became depopulated and abandoned.
Significance: Detroit’s decline represents how suburbanization affects the urban city. Detroit underwent urban growth because it was easily accessed by the lakes and located in the middle of the railroad track allowing the automobile industry to grow. However, when society started benefiting the auto industry and large number of people could afford the cars being produced, people wanted to move out and away from the urban development to the suburbs. While suburbs increase, the urban city’s power decreases as its population decreases, urban factories are closed and its economy falls. Overall, while Detroit helped expand the populations around cities, it assisted in its own decline. |
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Term
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Definition
Author: Schragger
Meaning: This is essentially a commentary on the recent trend of well educated young people starting to make up the majority of the middle to upper-middle class and their taste for difference, individuality, and ability to fit into an environment.
Significance: The Creative class partake in individual problem solving, thus requiring high human capital. We, therefore, see most of these creatives are educated. |
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Definition
Author: Foglesong
Meaning: The term was meant to describe Walt Disney World as a city-state within the larger state controlled by the Disney company, because of Reedy Creek charter, enjoying regulatory powers reserved by law for popularly elected governments.
Significance: This is term is significant because it shows how interest groups like the elected Disney board and Disney lobbyists can influence districts like Reedy Creek and then influence the state to create a “loophole” for the Disney company to plan and zone freely. |
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Term
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Definition
Author: Schragger
Meaning:Cities are byproduct, product or process.
Byproduct - cities came into existence because of trade ports. As technology of travel evolved, cities became the byproduct of transportation
Product - govt makes urban spaces for firms to settle in and develop. firms bring in capital and some to the govt. govt invests capital in public works and protection (police). cities compete to attract persons, goods and capital. Cities are the product of the supply and demand of city land for firms/govt.
Process - cities thrive like a ripple effect. small changes in a neighborhood ripple out and eventually change the city as a whole
Significance: The idea that cities have come by innovations in transportation technology posits that cities are a mere byproduct of natural human involvement that is allowed to move further from the center of business.Yet, we can find examples of cities emerging without proper infrastructure and those without established culture or political structure. This leads to the idea of a city as a process. The city is a developing embryo, there is no real control of how a city will turn out. |
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Definition
Author: Lecture and Gotham
Meaning: In lecture, political elites, of different political ideologies, are all united by the growth ideology. As land owners and business owners, they have a vested interest in making sure that the city grows, regardless of any other ideology. When the city grows land becomes more valuable and more money flows into the city. This growth fuels enormous gains in the value of the land of this elite group. This growth ideology leads to boosterism - which is essentially cheer leading - talking up the city and it discourages real and substantive dissection of the city’s problems for fear it might shed a negative spotlight. From Gotham, The desire for “growth” creates a consensus among a wide array of actors and elite groups, no matter how divided they may be on a specific issue or policy.” The readings discuss the case study of Kansas city Missouri's growth and redevelopment in the 1940’s and 50’s. He discusses how the reformers laid the ground work the pro growth pro business groups to come in.
Significance: This shows that cities aren’t run so much by political parties but by self interested elites who’s main objective is to remove the unwanted (slums) and develop downtown areas all the while gaining huge profits on the land that they own. They invest in the political arena of their cities so as to make on their property. |
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Term
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Definition
Author: Lewis and Judd & Swanstrom
Meaning: A balanced budget occurs when the total sum of money a government collects in a year is equal to the amount it spends on goods, services, and debt interest. From Judd & Swanstrom, Ninety-nine of the 100 largest cities in the are nation, by law, required to balance their budgets. State and county governments spend money within cities for such things as education, pollution control and infrastructure such as roads, bridges, water and sewer lines, health clinics and the like, but the cities finance nearly all of the basic municipal services and a great many infrastructure projects with their own revenues.
Significance: Balanced Budgets play a pivotal role in municipal budgeting and are a common legal requirement and considered an operative norm by participants in the budgetary process. There was a case study of Bridgeport to show that some cities tried to avoid having to balance their budget by declaring bankruptcy which is an unaccepted method. “The requirement of a balanced budget for governments is widely acclaimed as a means of achieving fiscal prudence and economy”. |
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Term
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Definition
Author: Judd & Swanstrom
Meaning: A global city is a city considered to be an important node in the global economic system. Places like New York-highest rank within the urban hierarchy created by globalization. Relates to the idea of globalization--globalization can be understood as largely created, facilitated and enacted by a cities location within the hierarchy of importance to the operation of the global system of fiance and trade.
Significance: When examining whether or not the urban crisis has disappeared, global cities are used as a source of measurement/observation because global cities tend to attract more diverse profile of immigrants than any other cities. The high concentration of multinational businesses, financial services corporations, and the businesses connected to them draws highly educated workers from all over the globe. Lower status service workers are then seen as indispensable to the working of a global city. |
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Definition
Author: Lecture 5, Judd & Swanstrom
Meaning: Lecture 5: States in 1868, Iowa Judge John Dillon ruled U.S. municipalities as mere “creatures of the state”. They are not sovereign and do not possess a right to protection against “impairing the obligation of contract” by the state legislature.
Significance: Cities are not treated as autonomous corporations like citizens or private businesses. The lack of powers granted to cities by the United States’ constitution is a product of the federalist belief in checks and balances. Municipal corporations are valued according to their niche in the state’s economy and may be abridged if they behave economically irresponsible at the state level. The trend of state capitols being less populous or economically vital than other municipal corporations in the state is a reflection of this legal precedent. The intent of this federalist structure is to check the ambitions of municipal corporations against one another. |
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Term
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Definition
Author: Judd & Swanstrom
Meaning: : Reformers wished to seek a more efficient city government that produced the services they wanted with lowest taxes and to be able to hold the government accountable.This model is the fourth “sacred principle to serve the public interest with city governance”. The idea that “government should be run like a business with cost efficiency being the ultimate touchstone for good government”(91). This was derived from principles guiding the scientific management movement of the Progressive Era, which produced a quasi-military model of hierarchical administrative control.
The business model operated efficiently because of the clear separation between policymaking and day to day administration. Applying the model to cities, it left policymaking to elected officials, but the principles were to be implemented by professional administrators.
Significance: This is important because it changed how cities were run to attempt to provide better services to its people but hold public officials accountable for their actions. Cities became more streamlined and productive to attract businesses to increase their tax revenues. |
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Term
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Definition
Author: Judd & Swanstrom
Meaning: The creation of a commission that exercised the legislative powers previously assigned to the city council, as well as the administrative authority to oversee the city’s services was spurred by the natural disaster in Galveston, Texas. Each commissioner assumed responsibility for a department of government. Such a concentration of authority seemed entirely appropriate, and even necessary, in the context of the emergency that followed the hurricane. The commission exercised sweeping powers. The successes of Galveston’s experiment in commission government captured national attention. It seemed to streamline government, make public service attractive to upper and middle class people, and offer a straightforward plan around which reformers could rally in challenging the machines and party bosses. The worst feature of commission government is that it did not fit the business model faithfully enough because a commission was not truly like a board of directors because commissioners engaged in both policy making and administration. Because each of the commissioners headed an administrative department, leadership was fragmented, with the commissioners often refusing to cooperate with one another. Sometimes they acted like political machines by handing out jobs and contracts. Reformers didn’t like this and had a new idea: place administrative authority into the hands of professional manager specifically trained for the job. As elected officials the major and the council would continue to make policy decisions, but the city manager would be responsible for the day-to-day operation of government…In this way, the city manager would bring local government administrative expertise and accountability. The city manager form of government was adopted as the model and the commission form was regarded as failure by 1920.
Significance: At the specific time and circumstance at which they were created, therefore, commissions made sense. They were a way for cities to overcome the typical bureaucratic obstacles but would usually slow down the process of disaster relief. |
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Term
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Definition
Author: Lecture
Meaning: The Great Depression was caused by a U.S. stock market crash on 1929, also known as Black Thursday, made way to President Roosevelt’s New Deal Program , which was intended to revive the U.S. economy and way of life. The New Deal was focused on the 3 R’s: Relief, Reform, & Recovery. Programs like the Public Works Administration (PWA) revolutionized America through the establishment of new schools, hospitals, etc. while the Works Progress Administration (WPA) served as a welfare program to help the unemployed.
Significance: The Depression and New Deal changed America. While the Depression devastated the lives of many, the New Deal brought forth hope. The authority of the federal government increased and the establishment of new federal programs/agencies served to protect the rights of citizens. Moreover, public works projects improved American transportation routes. |
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Term
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Definition
Author: Lecture 12 and Judd & Swanstrom
Meaning: Public housing was a federal subsidized urban renewal program. Enacted in 1949, the Housing Act made a commitment to rebuild the cities, eliminate slums and blight, and provide decent housing for the nation’s citizens. Legislation received support from key business, real estate, and housing interests. The Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA) was established to distribute grants-in-aid to help local urban renewal agencies acquire land at bargain prices. HHFA provided loans to cover the cost of land assembly and site clearance, and authorized the construction of low-rent public housing.
Significance: Despite its intent to provide housing for the needy, real estate and local governments took advantage of HHFA flexible provisions to favor commercial development instead of its intended effect to provide residential housing. Business leaders and politicians believed that public housing would negatively impact property values. Public housing was ambitious but it encountered resistance from local politicians who did not want integration with their own neighborhoods. Any attempts were responded to with protest and violence. (From lecture) In the example of Los Angeles, Mexican Angelinos living in Chavez Ravine were forced to leave so that a public housing project could be built for them; instead the Dodgers Stadium was built. In Judd & Swanstrom, ○ The majority movements for and against public housing public were all very racially motivated in a white vs. black context. Suburbanites felt that black movement into the white suburbs would bring down property values, as did the white business owners in the cities. Therefore slums were torn down with the promise of making new public housing developments but in most cases none were build. |
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Definition
Author: Gotham, Judd & Swanstrom
Meaning: set of programs proposed by Lyndon Johnson, the 2 main goals were to end poverty and racial discrimination. “eliminate poverty and treat other social ills through federal action on civil rights, the cities, health care, welfare, education and employment”. Congress authorized 219 new programs.
Significance: When Kennedy was assassinated, the civil rights bill had just reached the House Rules Committee. Johnson pushed the civil rights bill quickly and began implementing programs wanting to be perceived as the second Roosevelt. There was an explosion in federal spending and a shift to believing the federal government was responsible for changing the fate of the nation. Largest significance was Johnson’s “War On Poverty”. Unfortunately, “the funds were spread as thinly as thought necessary to secure annual program budgets. The deleterious effect of this strategy was that it virtually guaranteed that no program in any city could deliver on its promises”. |
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Definition
Author: Judd & Swanstrom
Meaning: : incorporation of helping cities in covert way. Clinton tried to do this by targeting ‘all low to moderate-income groups, not just minorities’ . This was to help him get more white votes and assuming blacks would just fall in line with his targeted group.
Significance: : By doing this, money would go to help urban populations without having to advertise that as a motivation.Unfortunately the only initiative that went through was the EZ/EC program. |
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Term
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Definition
Author: Judd & Swanstrom
Meaning: 1992 Presidential election, Clinton focused on getting the white suburban vote. His campaign was said to “target all low to moderate income groups, not just minorities”. The EMPOWERMENT ZONES/ENTERPRISE COMMUNITIES (EZ/EC program) was included as Title XIII of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993. The idea was to “cut taxes and regulations in inner cities, with the intention of stimulating investment in depressed neighborhoods”- a “free-market approach”. Investment in these zones was encouraged through tax credits for people who hired residents of the zones, eligibility for “accelerated depreciation” on property for businesses in the zones, and construction in the zones was supported by “tax-exempt bond financing”. Residents who needed an education, job training, or child care were also given grants. 31 empowerment zones were created in the US along with 74 “distressed areas” that also won grants, this, along with other social welfare programs, was cut by 1994 when the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress.
Significance: The EZ/EC Program is significant because it shows how policies helping cities can be a bigger picture to helping the economy as a whole. Judd & Swanstrom state that the "primary goal was to stimulate the economy and that aiding cities would be a secondary effect". |
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Term
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Definition
Author: Feb. 6th Lecture and Judd & Swanstrom
Meaning: Refers to the sunbelt cities and states that became part of the defense economy during the Eisenhower era. ○ For example, San Diego, before WW2 had a small population, not a lot of business, and it expanded during wartime due to government subsidies to promote the defense industry.
Significance: The local economy depended almost entirely on its relation to the armed forces, which Eisenhower warned them against in his Farewell Address. He worried that the “military-industrial complex” could potentially bring the rise of misplaced power. Local representatives where able to vote in congress keeping military/federal spending in the sunbelt, this also contributed to funding for local infrastructure. |
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Term
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Definition
Author:Lecture and Judd & Swanstrom
Meaning: Suburban movements refers to the exodus of people who left the central city for its outskirts in the twentieth century. These movements were supported by the federal government through the FHA and VA loan policies. Rooted in a historic distrust of cities, developers noticed that Americans dreamed of another way of life, capitalized on this and created “country-club” suburbs.
Significance: Urban flight showed the anti-urban sentiment prominent among Americans as they sought the American dream of a more Jeffersonian way of life (yeoman farmer). This became possible because of the transportation revolution, bringing the wealthy-middle class out of the cities and away from the “horrors” of the urban environment. According to lecture, due to the manner of the expansion, the new growth was created as urban sprawl spreading urban misery to further peripheries many city problems such as air/water pollution and crime do not follow political boundaries created by those fleeing the city to the suburbs. Urban flight led to the massive urban sprawl present and dependency upon transportation, as well as the spread of urban problems to a more vast area. |
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Term
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Definition
Author: Lecture and Judd & Swanstrom
Meaning: According to lecture, you get suburban sprawl because of land use decisions--the city can control that factor of production and it’s cheaper to build out far from core. Incentive for sprawl-land use is cheaper the farther you get from the core. According to the Judd & Swanstrom, Sprawl came from the decentralization of cities due to the increase of population in urban areas, advancements in technology (such as electricity, railroads), and the decentralization of business thanks to the creation of urban highways . as a result the suburbs became more independent from the core of the cities. The biggest issue with sprawl was the increase of population and the huge commuting traffic that it created.
Smart Growth is the urban development process that involves using preexisting structures and turning them into housing, businesses and other new developments. This is the opposite of sprawl and rather the inward growth of the city. According to the Judd & Swanstrom, Smart Growth was coined by Governor Glendening of Maryland to describe policies he proposed and to aim at building public infrastructure in designated growth areas while at the same time protecting other areas from developments. Smart Growth became popular for its positive connotations. Environmental agencies supported and agreed with Smart Growth because it battled population growth. Smart Growth was supposed to be the answer to Urban Sprawl: because growth should occurred but it should be balance Growth.
Significance: Smart Growth became an issue when it began to seclude people by race/ ethnicity and income from the Smart Growth suburbs. |
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Term
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Definition
Author: Lecture and Judd & Swanstrom and mildy in Sugrue
Meaning: The times of fiscal crisis for the cities began during hardships such as the Great Depression.
A state of fiscal crisis occurs when the government is unable to raise enough tax revenue to pay for programs/services. Cities themselves have fewer sources of revenue and operate under a strict budget code imposed on them by the state.
Significance: J & S mentions a theory by a fiscal expert that states fiscal crises do not necessarily arise from mismanagement of money, but rather cities are at the mercy of circumstances out of their control. For example, over time, less and less tax revenue has been coming from property taxes (prop 13 and lots of properties being tax exempt), so in response to that, the bulk of revenue was coming from sales tax, entertainment tax, etc. The response to September 11th resulted in a decrease in revenue that was being brought in by sales tax and transportation/tourism taxes. Lecture and the Sugrue article focus on suburbanization. The movement to the suburbs was aided by the introduction of the automobile. More affluent workers were able to move from the cities and able to commute from work. Factories also began to move away from the cities. With the closure of factories, unemployment in the cities increased, forcing the city to deal with more revenue consumers than revenue producers. |
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Term
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Definition
Author: Judd & Swanstrom
Meaning: It is the long-term bonds issued by cities to generate revenues to pay capital improvements and provide adequate services. Two types: General obligation bonds are used to build public infrastructure and Revenue bonds are paid off by future revenues from the facilities that are constructed. The municipal bond market is essential for the building and maintaining public. Many municipal bonds are purchased by investors who find the federal tax exemption.
Significance: Abuses such as private purposes, risky investments, and underwriters could lead economic crisis of the local governments. The market in municipal bonds exerts a powerful influence on public officials by imposing a tight fiscal discipline, and by reinforcing the dynamic of the metropolitan chase for business investment and affluent residents. |
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Term
| Deindustrialization/ Gentrification |
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Definition
Author: Judd & Swanstrom
Meaning: Deindustrialization: Refers to the rapid restructuring of urban economies from industrial to the service sector during the 1970s to the 1990s as a result of technological advancements and immigration/outsourcing. Gentrification: Refers to the process of affluent newcomers moving into a neighborhood, driving up land values, and as a result the less affluent, minority, and older residents are forced to move out.
Significance: The significance of deindustrialization and gentrification is their role in the revival of downtown and inner-city neighborhoods and the impact this has on local jobs, demographics, and employment. Deindustrialization contributed to an increase in employment in the service industry, and this accompanied the rapid loss of manufacturing jobs. Gentrification is significant because it created tiers separating into different cross-sections of the urban landscape. Affluent individuals tended to gravitate towards dowtnown areas where property values were higher, and outside of the downtown, members of affluent middle class lived within condo towers or gated communities to be protected from poverty-stricken areas. |
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Term
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Definition
Author: Gotham reading and Judd & Swanstrom
Meaning: The Gotham reading describes Downtown Revivals taking the form of a combined effort between city or county governments and business interests to invest money into a downtown area to bolster its property values and to increase infrastructure in shopping facilities, parking structures, etc. In Judd and Swanstrom, they give 2 reasons for downtown revival:
1) Downtowns are becoming the centers of businesses connected to a new global economy centered around electronic trade and commerce, telecommunications, finance, marketing, and corporate services. Cities do well tied to the global economy. 2) Tourism/entertainment, culture, and urban amenities are becoming clustered in and near downtown areas. Jobs are connected to amenities; the affluent residents who live downtown want to commute less but also prefer to live in an environment with exciting street life, nightlife, culture, and entertainment.
Significance: They recognize a commitment by city governments and businesses in placing investment and interest in promoting downtown districts often at a heavy cost to taxpayers and citizen input. |
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