A Typology of Suburban Economic Development Policy Orientations

This article explores variations in economic development goals and orientations among suburban governments and the impact of these on economic development programs. The research was conducted among suburban officials in the Chicago Metropolitan area who responded to a survey in 1987. The results of the survey show that suburbs can be divided into five types based upon their economic development policies: aggressive, regulatory, cooperative, retentive, and reactive. These general policy orientations were found to affect the specific city government staffing, planning, activities, fiscal programs, and regulation related to economic development in the community

Ethnic Political Power in a Machine City: Chicago\u27s Poles at Rainbow\u27s End

Machine politics in Chicago has been described as a successful example of exchange theory in which political party members received benefits in return for loyalty to the party. In 1988, Erie rejected the rainbow theory of machine politics, arguing that the Irish received the lion\u27s share of political benefits while other white-ethnic groups, such as Poles, were given limited and often symbolic rewards. These authors show that Chicago\u27s Poles were not fully incorporated into the rainbow of groups that benefited from and supported the machine. This led to a pattern of independence in voting and lends considerable support to Erie\u27s supply-side model of machine politics

Decentralization, Redistribution and Community Development: A Reassessment of the Small Cities CDBG Program

Recent studies of state assumption of the CDBG Small Cities program have been limited by two factors. First, they have been single-state case studies or confined to a small number of states. Second, they have adopted a narrow context for examining the likely impacts of community development following state assumption. This paper attempts to expand policy information based upon earlier work by studying a larger cross-section of states and considering the issues of redistribution and decentralization from a broader context. We find some significant policy changes from previous HUD program management but suggest that such may be due to the CDBG economic development amendment and an increase in multipurpose projects in the states. Unlike Morgan and England\u27s (1984) recent article in PAR, we suggest that decentralization may not necessarily lead to decreasing redistributive community development policies in the states. Rather, redistribution may be incorporated within the enlarging proportion of multipurpose projects

State Aid to Public Schools: An Analysis of State Responsiveness to School District Needs

Despite decades of attempted fiscal reforms throughout virtually every state, most state school aid is still allocated on a per pupil basis. The chance exists, nonetheless, that the remaining funds are at least somewhat targeted to socioeconomic or fiscal need. This research, covering two recent time periods, finds little evidence that non-enrollment-based state aid is targeted to need

City Council Legislative Committees and Policy-making in Large United States Cities

Theory: Legislative committees are extensive and integral to the structure and policy-making functions of Congress and state legislatures. Scant research exists on current roles of committees of city councils. Hypotheses: We hypothesize that city council committee systems are less common and not as vital to policy-making than is true of other legislative bodies. Contrary to much urban research, we further expect that city government structure, not the political environment, shapes development of committee systems and their policy roles. Methods: Logistic and OLS regression are the methods used to analyze the structure of city council committee systems. Differences in policy outputs are analyzed with t-tests and OLS regression. Data are from a 1992-93 mail survey of 160 large United States cities, and from Census Bureau reports on city government finances. Results: Committees are widely used in large cities and their use is directly due to structural aspects of city government, particularly size of city council. Broad policy-making roles are found to be uncommon, but a substantial part of city legislative business is assigned to committees. Legislative committees have a small impact on policy outputs