Online First: Leveraging Public Land Development Initiatives for Private Gain The Political Economy of Vacant Land Speculation in Phoenix, Arizona

Leveraging Public Land Development Initiatives for Private Gain

The Political Economy of Vacant Land Speculation in Phoenix, Arizona

1. Benjamin W. Stanley1

1. ¹Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

1. Benjamin W. Stanley, School of Sustainability, Arizona State University, P.O. Box 875502, Tempe, AZ 85287-5502, USA. Email: bwstanley@asu.edu

Abstract

Land speculation has been an integral component of the political economy of land development in American urban history. In the American Sunbelt, land speculation occurs amid progrowth governance regimes that engage in intermunicipal competition for capital investment. This article presents a mixed-methods case study of vacant land speculation in downtown Phoenix, Arizona, before, during, and after the mid-2000s property boom. Results indicate that land speculation represented a significant barrier to both public and private infill development efforts, and that some municipal development initiatives actually facilitated private speculative profits. Speculative strategies are enabled when weaknesses in the coordination and bargaining power of urban growth regimes, derived from conflict within and between governmental scales, can be exploited by individual market actors. The self-propulsive nature of speculative property market cycles, unconstrained by local regimes increasingly dependent on nonlocal capital investment, represents an autonomous force actively orienting entries into property markets and influencing the ability to enact sustainable infill development.

• land speculation
 
• urban regime
 
• infill development
 
• land-use policy
• urban sustainability

Online First: The Everyday Emergency Planning and Democracy Under Austerity Regimes

The Everyday Emergency

Planning and Democracy Under Austerity Regimes

1. Carolyn G. Loh1

1. ¹Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA

1. Carolyn G. Loh, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Wayne State University, 3198 FAB, 656 W. Kirby, Detroit, MI 48202, USA. Email: cgloh@wayne.edu

Abstract

In the last several years, the governor of Michigan has placed seven cities under the control of emergency managers (EMs), who have the authority to make drastic cuts and rearrangements of public processes and services. I investigate what happens to planning processes under these circumstances, and how EMs use planning to accomplish their goals. I find that many of the cities devote renewed attention to planning, and that the planning process may function as an alternative public participation process, given that the normal democratic process had been disrupted. I also find that the implementation of the plans is likely to be problematic because of staffing cuts, and that planning in itself cannot solve the structural problems that led to these cities’ financial distress.

• emergency managers
 
• public participation
 
• implementation
• comprehensive planning
 
• urban crisis
 
• austerity
 
• neoliberalism

As featured in CityLab: Macro-Level Determinants of Local Government Interaction How Metropolitan Regions in the United States Compare

Rise of the Fragmented City

Does the number of governments in a given metro area really matter?

by Richard Florida

See more in CityLab ... 

http://www.citylab.com/politics/2015/04/rise-of-the-fragmented-city/391556/

Original article by Rebecca Hendrick and Yu Shi of the University of Illinois at Chicago, featured in the May 2015 issue of Urban Affairs Review.

http://uar.sagepub.com/content/51/3/414

Online First: ¿Eres Amigo o Enemigo? Contextual Determinants of Latinos’ Perceived Competition with African-Americans

¿Eres Amigo o Enemigo? Contextual Determinants of Latinos’ Perceived Competition with African-Americans

1. Tony E. Carey Jr.1
2. Valerie Martinez-Ebers1
3. Tetsuya Matsubayashi2
4. Philip Paolino1

1. ¹University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA
2. ²Osaka University, Toyonaka, Osaka, Japan

1. Valerie Martinez-Ebers, University of North Texas, 1121 Union Circle, Wooten Hall 125, Denton, TX 76203, USA. Email: valmartinez@UNT.EDU

Abstract

Prior research has examined how racial and socioeconomic environments influence the racial attitudes of Whites and Blacks. We extend this line of research to explore how local context influences Latinos’ perceived competition with African-Americans. We use the 2006 Latino National Survey and a newly appended contextual data set. We find that having more Black neighbors heightens Latinos’ perceived competition with Blacks, but only when Latinos are economically vulnerable. The presence of African-Americans within Latinos’ neighborhoods is a necessary but insufficient condition for increasing their perceived competition with Blacks; Latinos’ perceived threat is shaped by thecombined effect of the neighborhood racial composition and their group’s economic status.

• racial–ethnic relations
 
• Latino politics
 
• political behavior