|
Items in cart [1] |
Questions? Call 888-624-8373 |
HARDBACK + PDF HARDBACK PDF BOOK PDF CHAPTERS Free Resources |
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
The following HTML text is provided to enhance online readability. Many aspects of typography translate only awkwardly to HTML. Please use the page image as the authoritative form to ensure accuracy. [I]t has become clear that Twin Cities suburban communities are not a monolith with common experiences and political needs. The emergence of these patterns has created a metro-majority political coalition between the central cities, which make up one-third of the region's population, and the inner suburbs and middle-class developing suburbs, which make up another third. . . . On the merits, these middle-income, blue-collar suburbs are the largest prospective winners in regional reform. To them, tax base sharing means lower property taxes and better services, particularly better funded schools. Regional housing policy means, over time, fewer units of affordable housing crowding their doorstep. The appeal of Orfield's argument is that majority political coalitions based on self-interest and built around class-based concerns that will yield favorable returns to cities are politically possible, at least in terms of the numbers involved. The problem is whether the "objective" self-interests that Orfield identifies will be recognized and acknowledged and, even if they are, whether they will be powerful enough to overcome the class- and race-based concerns that exist among the city's potential coalition partners. Even in Minnesota, where enlightened attitudes and the relatively low proportion of minorities in the Twin Cities metropolitan area suggest a highly propitious environment for a self-interest, class-based coalition, the relatively modest success thus far gives pause. Other types of coalitions beneficial to cities are also possible. In Oregon, the state legislature passed Portland's Urban Growth Boundary with the support of a coalition that included farmers, environmentalists, and urban interests (Abbott, 1997:28-29). The housing element of Oregon's state land use program has been consistently supported at the state level by environmental groups, city interests, and, after initial opposition, business and developer groups (Knapp, 1989). Efforts to affect the spatial distribution of population in metropolitan areas through breaking down exclusionary zoning or fostering inclusionary zoning are more likely to succeed when contested at the state level than at the metropolitan level (Knapp, 1990). This is because the strength of interests differs significantly at the state and local levels. Residential and homeowner groups are particularly strong at the local level, but less so at the state level. As Knapp observes (1990:44), "Environmentalists and developers, who are outnumbered at the local level, are more effective at the state level, where organized interest groups are more effective and it is difficult to mobilize exclusionary interests." He also admits that "It is difficult . . . to predict whether an environmentalist-developer coalition can be formed in other states." Notes
|
|
|||||||||||||||
