Hegemonic Big Cities and the Rising Sunbelt

PART II in Retrospect: ONCE AGAIN WITH FEELING

This chapter marks the end of Part II: the Transition Years. And what a transition it has been. American ED is not what it was in 1929. Much water has passed over the proverbial dam. Looking at the landscape in 1961, the observer at the time had little sense of what lay ahead. By the end of that decade “things” had really changed—and few had a clue why. So what happened during the Transition Years?

The 800-lb gorilla was the federal government had intruded into state and sub-state affairs—economic development was profoundly affected. The most impactful change was noticed at the time, but its long-term implications put to the side in order to acquire or preserve advantages derived from federal policy. Regional change, almost without question, had been set in motion by FDR’s Second Reconstruction, and War Production and Industrial Decentralization created new jurisdictional economic bases almost from scratch. Those policies unleashed huge population shifts between and within regions.

Despite the end of a two/three-generational long hyper-immigration, population migration was on steroids during the Transition Years. The shift of so many overwhelmed the mature and tired western city-building policy systems and installed a new, younger, vibrant, growth-oriented policy system. The South for the first time was seriously fueling its own urbanization and new, modern jurisdictional economic bases. These changes sharpen the South’s “divided mind”, creating an ever-growing schism that, in its good time, would be labeled ‘the New South”. The South was the most discombobulated region by the end of the Transition Years—and economic development was a central policy area in its evolution. And the Big City hegemony was still in change, worried, unsure of the shifting sands of its own evolution.

Part of its confusion lay on the shoulders of the federal government. The impact of war production, and the permanent war that followed WWII’s end, set in motion entirely new industries and sectors in different locations—suburbs and other regions. Population migration flowed into the Big Cities, but they lost the middle class to the rapidly growing suburbs. The class structure of Big City politics and policy-making was shifting in a direction away from chamber-style ED toward community development. During these years suburbs acquired the critical mass necessary to form autonomous and capable policy systems.

To counter this decentralization Big Cities embraced federal Depression programs that created jobs, but also tore up obsolete housing and neighborhoods, now called slums with blight. Just in time for the new migrants from the South to pour in. Public housing, war production housing and slum removal continued tearing up neighborhoods for over a decade. And then the condition of the CBD attracted new players, the local business and real estate community into the fray to rebuild the CBD and nearby neighborhoods. By the time these new players had accessed the federal trough, a new federal program—interstate highways—provided funds for a really serious dig through city neighborhoods in an effort to connect the CBD and the Big City to its sprawling, but hopefully manageable hinterland.

Lost in this shuffle, however, was the real threat behind future Big City decline. It had no name during the Transition Years—we will later call it deindustrialization—but the ticking clock of the profit life cycle. Dominated by its aging and powerful industrial core, its jurisdictional economic bases were seeing evidence of closedowns, runaway plants—still production was robust and jobs seemed so very secure. When an entire industry, a New England agglomeration, began its implosion after the war, it was not at all clear to policy actors what was afoot. An aggressive southern economic development attraction program, the selling of the South, captured their attention and blame. New England’s reaction to southern imperialism began a shadow war, over economic development and new tools and programs, using the federal government as their instrument. In 1961 a proponent of New England’s shadow war was elected President.

There was lots going on within our profession and policy area as well. Amid the turbulence of incipient regional change and federal policies, the juices of competitive urban hierarchies had been set in motion. Uncertainty triggered attraction programs, many of which were more “promotional,” aimed at retaining existing firms rather than attracting new ones. New tools such as the IDB and a robust professionalization of attraction initiatives were hallmarks of the era. So was physical upgrading of tired and blighted neighborhoods, housing and CBDs. Big Cities were old and needed a new physical infrastructure to capture postwar economic opportunities, shifting economic trends and the latest and greatest logistics and process innovations—not to mention retain the economic loyalties of a newly emerging, intra-metropolitan competitive hierarchy.

The struggle between housing/neighborhood advocates and CBD/central city hegemonic advocates had created very serious tensions between community developers and traditional business-oriented, chamber-style ED. The fight seemingly was in Washington, where each had formed their own network of professional associations; but the real split could better be seen at the local level. Community developers lost ground in the last decade of these Transition Years. Symbolically, the fight was between housing authorities and redevelopment agencies—hybrid EDOs developed in these years to implement the respective programs of community developers and CBD business growth-oriented ED. Big Cities pursued different paths of modernization (the subject of this chapter) that further tempered effects of postwar urban physical modernization. Into this chasm one can see deindustrialization’s potential impact as industries and sectors declined, dividing the two wings ever further apart—and making more necessary the “fig leaf” that outside southern aggression and suburbanization were the real culprits of change.

Professionally, there were other important changes that had emerged in these years. First, not noticed except in the South, was the “rise” of more active state EDOs. At war’s end state-level EDOs had been established in most every state. Mostly marketing agencies, a new “cluster” of state-EDOs formed around the IDB—and a fury of court decisions regarding how each state could “make loans to the private sector” set the stage for a 50-state cast of characters, each with a somewhat different set of priorities and customized programs that were congruent with politics and political culture, as arbitrated by its particular administrative/local government structure and judicial interpretation of state constitutions. It’s just beginning, but by the end of the Transition Years seven different state models existed for the IDB—and some weren’t even IDBs, but more state guarantees. We won’t even mention the diversity of state systems for conducting slum clearance/public housing and urban renewal. The role of local government in this mélange was uncertain and varied by state. Programs and strategies called by the same “name” served different goals and constituencies and were implemented using customized structures and processes. Many were authorized, but not really used. By the end of the Transition Years, a remarkable diversity of state/sub-state economic/community development was already apparent—though youthful.

Finally, the maturity and spectacular rise of port authorities in these years provided the first clear-cut picture of a process, a defining characteristic of our policy area that would explode during Part III years. Onionization (and siloization that would follow) pulled economic development’s most powerful EDO into a professional world of its own. With provision of key services and installation/modernization of infrastructure, port authorities, mostly transportation-focused, floated in a limbo-like cloud, involved in and apart from sub-state economic development. Increasingly autonomous and professionally specialized, they would develop their own picket-fence of financing and professional organizations, and separate themselves from others, such as chambers— and mayors.

Moreover, the increased use of new innovations, the Lakewood Plan, and service districts pulled the infrastructure strategy into a new set of EDO-like entities that, whatever else their benefit, were neither fish nor fowl to the ED policy area. Lurking in the wings was another major evolution, the rise of counties in sub-state economic development. More evident in the South and West, counties were often filling the gap left by suburban municipalities unable or unwilling to pursue ED/CD. Were counties a possible regional alternative to integrate the new hinterland sprawl of municipalities and mall, or were they rivals that threatened the hegemony of Big Cities—soon to be legacy cities?

There are more Transition Year changes that will be picked up in Part III, but it is evident the Transition period was critical to understanding the economic/community development that would follow. Part III is very much built on, and reacting to, change introduced in the Transition Years. For that reason this chapter will focus on the implementation of urban renewal across the nation. Using brief case studies of a number of major city urban renewal initiatives, we hope to allow the reader to taste the flavor of what is happening at the street level, at least the city hall level, in sub-state economic development.

Many of the themes and topics mentioned in this introduction ought to be evident. Also, a focus on the last stage of a three-decade set of programs designed to help the poor migrant and immigrant and to revitalize and preserve the primacy of the central city will open the reader up to the diversity and dynamics of program implementation—hopefully shedding in the process some useful light on the Scarlet Letter of our Profession. Less recognized today is the role urban renewal played in regional change—and how it poured the foundation from which our contemporary economic and community development was built—and the policy systems that governed our major cities for decades to follow. The children birthed from our Scarlet Letter grew up to be players, programs and strategies of our contemporary Practitioner and Policy Worlds.

The Big Hinge

Not only was each city different in its own way, but also the reader can see that UR served several gods (purposes or goals). UR ranked high on municipal policy agendas during this era. The future of the old order, the hegemony, seemed in question. In this highly intense policy environment, UR became linked with the viability of policy systems—i.e. elites and voters were willing to toss out old bums and bring in new ones. In the Sunbelt the goals/strategy purposes behind UR were less a counter to destabilizing decentralization than a coming out of a new urban and regional competitive hierarchy—and it too was linked to change in policy systems. UR was driven by population migration, by middle-class “moving up” and inter-regional generational migration. Both led to explosive growth that did not respect jurisdictional boundaries.

UR included a community development approach as well as the more well-known CBD business-led growth coalition. Cities did not have to choose one or the other; most blended the two approaches. Although CBD captured the headlines, neighborhood/housing-based UR also was fairly common. Generally, the two approaches involved different actors and certainly sought different goals. During this era there is a subtle struggle between housing, neighborhood-focused urban renewal and CBD, industrial parks and “eds and meds”-focused UR. A constant was the bureaucratic nature of the strategy that required specialized expertise, a sophisticated planning, legal and project management professional corps that approached change from the top-down. Neighborhoods, for example, may or may not have been involved in the “planning,” but UR was never their strategy of choice. CBD and “eds and meds” UR, however, was quite the reverse.

In the course of its implementation, new EDOs, tools and programs will emerge. Indeed, by the end of the era a second economic development professional association will be born—and a number of new community development associations will dot our professional landscape. Whatever else it may be, UR is a professional “hinge” that closes one door and opens another. UR was the midwife for the birth of contemporary economic and community development. This notion of professional hinge is an important underlying theme (and rationale) behind this chapter. To best understand our contemporary ED/CD a background as to how each wing congealed and evolved is critical. UR connects the pre-contemporary ED/CD to our present-day contemporary approaches. UR may be the Scarlet Letter no one (ED or CD) wishes to be held accountable for, but historically there is no denying their shared parentage.

Finally, as has been mentioned, UR displays a distinctive regional dimension. Big City UR is where the strategy originated, as a response to Big City dynamics, threats and policy actors. Big Cities drove the Washington connection until the 1960s. Western cities took advantage of UR to build modern CBDs congruent with their image of their high-status arrival in the competitive urban hierarchy. Over time (in the seventies) western UR confronted a rising neighborhood movement that wanted its share of the ED/CD pie—but that is a story left for another day and chapter. The South was more complex. Predictably, race played a large role, in a very surprising way; but southern cities did share with the West a need to conduct a “City Beautiful” UR to modernize their downtowns. Some cities, such Pacific coast and Atlanta, overlapped somewhat with Big Cities, but Texan cities in particular predictably put CBD UR on steroids to build downtowns that fit their Texan ambitions. To lend some clarity, each region will be treated in its section. For each region several cities are briefly discussed to offer flavor, examples and observations.