City Futures

Approaches to the governance of US cities have many strong features. Over the decades democratic traditions have been healthy and many US urban residents – whether living in city or suburb – have enjoyed relatively high standards of living. However, the starting point for this paper is that all is not well in urban America. Indeed, some US cities face major urban challenges, not least because global economic restructuring has decimated job opportunities and prosperity for many citizens. Given this context of rapid change what, if anything, can US policy makers learn from experience with city planning and urban governance in other countries?

In July 2004 the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs of the University of Illinois at Chicago organized an International Conference on ‘City Futures’. Attended by over 250 urban scholars and policy-makers from 36 different countries, the conference set out to boost the level and quality of international debate about urban issues and challenges.

This paper, prepared specially for The Joyce Foundation, identifies the main ‘insights’ from the large array of scholarship presented at the conference that could be helpful to those concerned with US public policy for cities. In order to lend structure to this ‘lesson drawing’ exercise we identify seven major themes relating to US public policy for cities where experience abroad may have something to contribute:

City leadership, management and governance
Culture and diversity
Marketing the city
Economic development and employment
The urban environment
Financing cities
Social dimensions of the city

This is not a comprehensive review of ‘insights’ from abroad, but it does provide an injection of new ideas, concepts and experiences. The narrative discusses each of these seven themes in turn and cross references are made to 48 of the papers presented at the City Futures conference. These papers, listed in Appendix 1, stem from research by leading urban scholars working in 21 different countries. It is hoped that this paper can, by reframing debates and offering new sources of evidence, stimulate fresh thinking relating to US public policy for cities.

Introduction and background

In July 2004 the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs (CUPPA) at the University of Illinois at Chicago organized an International Conference on City Futures. Attended by over 250 urban scholars and policy-makers from 36 different countries the conference set out to boost the level and quality of international dialogue about urban issues by:

Creating a whole conference sharply focused on strengthening international exchange
Engaging different disciplinary perspectives and approaches
Welcoming papers that addressed policy concerns

We were very pleased with both the quality and the quantity of the papers presented at the City Futures International Conference. Over 160 papers were presented with many of them raising very different perspectives on the challenges now facing city leaders and urban change agents around the world.

The purpose of this report is to identify ‘insights’ from the large array of scholarship presented at the conference that could be helpful to those concerned with US public policy for cities.

Gone are the days when the leaders of cities and nations could safely ignore developments in far off lands in the belief that they were irrelevant. Rather, as argued by Thomas Friedman in his popular book, The World is Flat (2005), the forces of globalization require leaders ‘…to help educate and explain to people what world they are living in and what they need to do if they want to thrive in it’ (p. 280). In a modest way the City Futures International Conference was a step in this direction. It was an effort to explain what seems to be happening in cities around the world and, more than that, to identify lessons for public policy derived from urban research in different contexts.

The conference papers were divided into four tracks:

The Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Track
Comparative Urban Analysis (examining how cities are changing in different countries)
Comparative Urban Planning (examining how different countries are approaching the planning of cities and regions)
Comparative City Governance (considering alternative approaches to city politics, urban management and community involvement)

The City Futures Conference program, listing all panels and papers, is displayed on the City Futures website: www.uic.edu/cuppa/cityfutures. In addition most of the authors of the papers delivered at the conference were kind enough to agree to have their full papers presented on the website.

We are most grateful to authors for agreeing to have their papers on the site as this makes the scholarship of the conference available to a wider audience. It is important to stress that this was not a typical ‘academic’ conference with scholars talking to scholars as the sole activity. From the outset we made it clear that we wanted to include policy makers and practitioners and a good number of officials from central and local government as well as other agencies participated. The feedback from conference participants was very positive indeed. Many indicated that it was the most international conference they had ever attended and many praised the quality of cross-national dialogue that took place in the 46 panels.

Emerging themes for US public policy for cities

The scholarship presented at the City Futures International Conference represents a valuable resource for both policy makers and academics. We reviewed all 160 papers in a systematic way and, by taking account of the particular interests of The Joyce Foundation, we identified 48 papers for closer examination. These papers are listed in Appendix 1.

The papers deal with a range of complex issues and challenges now facing city leaders and managers. In order to gain coherence and identify ‘insights’ in an organized way we have identified seven major themes. Many of the papers we have listed do, of course, bear on more than one theme. However, for the purposes of exposition, we have grouped the papers according to their primary theme. The seven themes are as follows:

1) City leadership, management and governance

2) Culture and diversity

3) Marketing the city

4) Economic development and employment

5) The urban environment

6) Financing cities

7) Social dimensions of the city

In the narrative that follows we provide a brief commentary on each theme and cross refer to the papers as necessary. The papers are numbered by theme and, in the text below, the numbers refer to specific papers in Appendix 1. Thus, 1.1 refers to the first paper in Section 1) and 2.3 to the third paper in Section 2) and so on. We now discuss each theme in turn.

1) City leadership, management and governance

The first theme we consider is ‘City leadership, management and governance’. Many of the papers presented at the conference suggested that cities are not helpless victims in a global flow of events. Rather, city leaders can make a significant difference in relation to what happens to their city and the arrangements for urban governance can also support or frustrate the achievement of local objectives. Four interlinked sub-themes relating to city leadership, management and urban governance emerge from the papers presented at the conference:

New ideas on the nature of city leadership
Rethinking the roles of politicians and officers
Comparing approaches to metropolitan governance
Enhancing the legitimacy of government through participation

We now consider each of these sub-themes in turn.

i) New ideas on the nature of city leadership

In the past city leaders often tended to focus their attention on the internal management of city hall. The public services provided by local authorities are enormously important and they need to be well run and managed. Overseeing the city bureaucracy is, however, only part of the city leadership task. Several of the papers suggest that new forms of city leadership are emerging that emphasize the importance of working with various stake holders. Orchestrating collaboration across the public, private and non-profit sectors is essential if the new challenges facing city leaders are to be confronted successfully. For example, in a period of rapid change leaders may find it beneficial to strengthen arrangements for public participation as a means not just of legitimizing decisions but also as a way of learning about conditions and challenges that are relatively new. Examples from Italy (1.1) and from other European countries (1.2, 1.6) suggest that urban leadership and community involvement can be creatively combined. These papers suggest that city leaders can play a vital role in facilitating the creation of an effective participatory governance arrangement.

There are lessons here relating to the style of city leadership. Clearly approaches to local leadership need to be tuned into their local setting – local culture and context are critical. There can be no ‘one right way’ to lead a city. However, comparison of leadership approaches in several European countries suggests that the ‘city boss’ approach to city leadership is not well suited to the complexity of the challenges now facing cities nor the rapidity of social change. The evidence suggests that leaders adopting a ‘consensual facilitator’ style, taking time to consult and collaborate, can generate policy innovation as well as legitimacy for their leadership agenda. Research in Europe (1.2, 1.6, 1.9) as well as in the US (1.13) supports this view.

ii) Rethinking the roles of politicians and officers

Several of the papers explore the important contributions both politicians and appointed officers make to effective urban governance. In many cities there appears to be a tension between, on the one hand, pressures to streamline decision making to improve service delivery and, on the other, demands for more effective political control of the bureaucracy. Too often these forces are seen as contradictory. However, it may be possible to reframe discussion by picturing new ways of closing the ‘gaps’ between modernizing the bureaucracy and building community engagement (1.11). Both professional staff and elected politicians have an important contribution to make, but the settings within which they interact are not always conducive to learning. There are implications here for the training of both politicians and appointed officials (1.8, 1.11).

Different institutional designs for handling politician – officer relations are available. Different countries have adopted various models. Some are familiar within the US context – for example, the ‘strong mayor’ model and the ‘council manager’ model. Other models, involving a more collective approach to city leadership – for example, the ‘cabinet’ model – operate reasonably effectively in other countries. Several papers examine these different models and note that institutional design influences significantly the interplay between politicians and officers (1.9, 1.13). There is room for more innovation with neighborhood decentralization as a means of tackling the problems encountered in highly centralized bureaucracies (1.4). And there is a need for fresh thinking in the way ‘leadership teams’ work both within city hall and among city hall and other agencies (1.8, 1.11, 6.2).

iii) Comparing approaches to metropolitan governance

There are striking differences in approaches to metropolitan governance in different countries. To some extent the variety in approaches reflects different conceptions of the role of the state. Thus, in many European countries the state is relatively interventionist in reshaping the form of metropolitan governance to meet new challenges. For example, in 2000 the UK central government created an entirely new form of governance for London – the Greater London Authority – via an Act of Parliament. In the US arrangements for metropolitan governance are more likely to emerge from a process of negotiation among numerous place-based centers of interest and power. In the past this ‘bottom up’ approach to reform has served the country reasonably well. But, in an era of intense global competition between nations and city regions, it is worth debating whether the existing US pattern of fragmented metropolitan governance (compared with other countries) is delivering a cost effective and democratic form of governance (5.8).

The dramatic changes taking place in urban areas across the world – and particularly the growing pace of urbanization in countries like China and India – suggest that the arrangements for metropolitan governance that now exist in many countries, including the US, are being overtaken by events. Many commentators take the view that the city region is becoming the key economic unit driving economic progress. It follows that central governments will need to pay more attention to the health of the city regions within their countries if they are to achieve their national economic and social objectives (1.5).

One area where considerable rethinking is taking place relates to the concept of the city region. Various papers examine this concept and the processes driving change at the city regional level (1.5, 1.7, 1.14). There may be new ways in which national governments can stimulate change at the city regional level (1.5). We may also need to clarify the distinctions between ‘government’ and ‘governance’ at the metropolitan level – several papers suggest that new forms of governance can provide a better way forward than reorganizing the formal structures of local government (1.7, 1.10, 1.12, 1.14).

iv) Enhancing the legitimacy of government through participation

While there is variation it is possible to suggest that, in many countries, there has been a move from ‘representative democracy’ towards ‘participatory democracy’ at the local level of government (1.4). Instead of relying simply on the votes of citizens for legitimacy, political leaders in many cities have taken active steps to involve communities in the process of adopting policies that will affect them. There is now a good deal of experience with public participation in urban governance and there are interesting differences in practice in different countries. Again it is important to refer to the fact that different countries have different conceptions about the role of the state and this certainly affects the level of local participation. In Scandinavia, for example, public spending is highly valued and consequently, the state has a major impact on the local quality of life. Not surprisingly, voter turnout in local elections is high – well over 50% of the electorate votes and, in some areas, over 60%. In the US, public spending tends to be lower and interest in local politics tends to be lower - the voter turnout in US local government elections may be less than 30%. Thus, the national context is important – innovations in participation that work well in one particular country may not work so well in the US because of differences in political traditions and practices.

A key theme in many of the discussions at the City Futures International Conference concerned the growth of the multi-cultural city. In one sense cities have always been ‘gateways’ for new migrants seeking a better life. But the level of migration – particularly cross-national migration – has accelerated rapidly in recent decades with the result that most major cities now house people from very different cultures and walks of life. This has major implications for civic engagement and public participation because methods that may have served the city well in the past may no longer be appropriate. Unless cities pay attention to this challenge they could find that they have built up a local democratic deficit – with some groups of citizens being largely left out of the process of governing the city (1.3). We refer further to culture and diversity in the next section.

Several of the papers stem from a major European project – known as the PLUS project - involving 18 cities in nine different countries (1.1, 1.6, 1.9). What unites these papers is an effort to throw new light on the relationship between ‘leadership’ and ‘community involvement’. In various ways these papers show that outgoing leadership at the top can foster and encourage the growth of local leaders in the neighborhoods of the city. Certainly there is often conflict between grassroots movements and city hall, but a key finding of this European study is that fostering local mobilization can have many benefits – not just for local communities but also for the politics of the city.

2) Culture and diversity

While the idea of embracing culture and diversity is constantly stressed by American policy makers as crucial to the success of urban communities, it is not always clear how to support diverse communities or how to engage traditionally disenfranchised populations. Three sub-themes emerged from the City Futures conference that speak to this theme.

Creating economically diverse communities
Recognizing the strengths of homogeneous communities
Engaging diverse communities

i) Creating economically diverse communities

In recent years, American housing market research has, in large part, condemned influxes of upper income residents into low income neighborhoods as leading to widespread displacement of existing residents and the destruction of existing communities. Research on ‘gentrification’ suggests that increased demand for housing in low-income neighborhoods often drives up rents to levels that existing residents cannot afford. However, gentrification processes in all localities are not the same – there is a need to embed analysis within the political economy of particular housing markets and particular state intervention policies (2.1).

In light of this more nuanced framework, European researchers are finding that the American model of gentrification – with the better-off displacing the poor - does not necessarily arise in all countries. Internationally, gentrification has unfolded in different ways, with local economic ground rules and regulatory systems playing a crucial role. For example, in Germany, gentrification some cities has helped to create communities with a mix of incomes (2.1).

Germany’s regulatory and housing tenure systems have affected the rate and distribution of gentrification activity in Berlin and other larger German cities. In this way, the rent a particular land lord charges, does not only depend on the supply and demand in the housing market, but also on the legal framework that determines how, where and to what extent rents can be increased. It follows that ‘gentrification’ is not some kind of inexorable process in which the rich inevitably displace the poor. This is an important insight for US policy makers. There is widespread experience in urban Europe suggesting that the social ills of gentrification can be mitigated if not eradicated. Sensible regulation can ensure more equitable outcomes for poor families without impairing the dynamism of local housing markets.

ii) Recognizing strengths of homogeneous communities

It is claimed by some urban commentators that policies to create economically diverse neighborhoods can lead to significant improvements in the quality of life for low-income residents. But is this true? In The Netherlands this topic has received considerable attention. Bold attempts have been made to integrate better off families into public housing estates that have been overwhelmingly occupied by low-income, immigrant families. In order to attract middle and upper income residents, low-rent social dwellings have, to a degree, been replaced with more expensive owner-occupied and rental units. There is evidence to suggest that this policy may have been misguided – that it has actually damaged rather than enhanced social cohesion (2.3) This research suggests that social cohesion flourishes in homogeneous neighborhoods, where people have a common set of values and norms, where friends can be found within the neighborhood and where people have a long-term connection to their neighborhood. By attracting higher income groups to low-income neighborhoods and creating greater socio-economic and socio-cultural diversity, low-income residents may experience fragmentation and feel isolated from residents of higher incomes. These researchers call for strengthening communities from the inside rather than relying on external actors as a stabilizing force.

iii) Engaging diverse communities

Recent conflict in housing estates on the periphery of a number