Urban Growth Machines—But at What Scale?

Theories of the urban growth machine have long been a central analytical tool for contemporary research on urban governance. But in what sense are growth machines, in fact, “urban”? To what degree must “the city” serve as the spatial locus for growth machine strategies? To address such questions, this chapter critically evaluates the influential work of urban sociologists John Logan and Harvey Molotch on US growth machine dynamics. In contrast to an influential line of critique that reproaches these authors for their putative methodological localism, it is argued that their framework is, in fact, explicitly attuned to the role of interscalar politico-institutional relays in the construction of urban growth machines. These considerations lead to a dynamically multiscalar reading of the national institutional frameworks that have facilitated the formation of growth machines at the urban scale during the course of US territorial development. This analysis has broad methodological implications for the comparative-historical investigation of urban governance.

Cabal City

This chapter explores the interaction of politics and business through the lens of the city. The power of business to influence politics in India would suggest that Indian cities are, in the classic sense of the term, growth machines. Yet the chapter argues that fundamental problems of governance in India’s megacities have precluded the possibility of business coalitions exerting cohesive influence over investment policies in cities. The result has been the predominance of what may be called cabals that are expert at extracting rents from the city, but in the end fail to promote development. High levels of growth have not been accompanied by commensurate expansion of the cities’ infrastructure and overall coordination capacities. In the end, what is good for business and politicians has been good for neither dynamic capitalism nor inclusion.

Negotiating the Space between Avant–Garde and “Hip Enough”: Businesses and Commercial Gentrification in Wicker Park

Gentrification literature focuses mostly on growth machines pursuing profits or residents pursuing taste preferences, to the exclusion of cultural intermediaries that connect these processes, particularly businesses. Recent research addresses this gap, but even those focusing on commercial gentrification tell a partial story, neglecting the subjectivities of merchants and ignoring the diversity of businesses involved. This paper contributes to this growing literature by exploring merchants’ attitudes, and moving beyond boutiques and independent businesses. Examining Chicago's Wicker Park, it asks “Under what circumstances do merchants come to embrace or repudiate gentrification in their neighborhood?” Merchants support gentrification when they understand it primarily as an alternative to financial instability and repudiate gentrification when they understand it primarily as a disruptor of aesthetic stability. This paper identifies two specific neighborhood mechanisms that determine how merchants might arrive at such understandings: geographical location and perceived customer base. Additionally, while there is heterogeneity in terms of these two characteristics, there is remarkable homogeneity in terms of understanding of neighborhood reputation. Specifically, there is a common understanding of the neighborhood's reputational hipness across respondents. Those who support gentrification value this reputation instrumentally while those who oppose it value it intrinsically, but either way, everyone orients themselves to this reputation in forming attitudes and making consequential decisions.

The Significance of Place in Urban Governance: Mart 125 and the Politics of Community Development in Harlem, New York

The paper highlights the nexus between place and identity on the one hand, and urban entrepreneurialism on the other, which has become important nationally and internationally in recent decades. This refers to a form of urban governance that mixes together state with civil society and private interests to promote urban development. The city as a product of a common if perpetually changing and transitory urban life, “growth machines” or “urban regimes” play a significant role in the relationship between place and identity. This paper documents an instance of this relationship where the “growth machines” played themselves out in Harlem, New York City.

Iconic Urban Megaprojects in a Global Context

With a focus on the exemplary Bilbao case, this chapter shows how iconic architecture plays a fundamental role in the deployment of contemporary globalized urbanization and the increased desire of urban elites to surrender to the promise, and discontents, of iconic urban megaprojects (IUMPS). The chapter contends that the key to understanding the intensification and spreading of the belief by many urban elites worldwide that iconic architecture alone can revitalize an urban economy is to be found not in the financial feasibility and economic impacts of IUMPs, but rather in the force of iconic architecture to transform a city’s image. This explains why the planning and construction of IUMPs has grown into a standard policy choice by urban and regional elites in globalizing cities, and why politicians, business leaders, and others in local and regional growth machines fulfill their personal and professional ambitions by investing in and promoting IUMPs.