Urban Fiscal Crisis Research Articles

The targeted crisis: on the ideology of the urban fiscal crisis and its uses

The targeted crisis: on the ideology of the urban fiscal crisis and its uses

Introduction: Urban Finance: Dollars, Decisions, and Dilemmas

O n May 17, 1980, the decade of the seventies ended, in Miami, in rage, fire, and murder. After listening to cries of fiscal crisis from numerous cities we had, perhaps, become used to the idea that people could say things were critical but that somehow the cities would survive, as did, for example, New York, Cleveland, Chicago, and the state of California in the aftermath of Proposition 13. As fiscal crisis followed fiscal crisis, in episodes sometimes laced with healthy doses of low comedy, we tended to focus our attention on structures, financial processes, and complicated rescue mechanisms. Urban fiscal crises became routinized. Cut-back management became a respectable, even comfortable, way to talk about doing less, providing fewer services, and diminishing the quality of urban life, albeit usually for more money. Miami shattered that complacency. Miami reminded us that people live in cities. Miami demonstrated the fragility of civil life in cities. Although the underlying causes of this riot seem to be both economically and racially based, the spark for the torch was set off by the failure to provide one of the most fundamental and elementary functions of a civil society-justice. Whether this particular incident ended the seventies or began the eighties is beyond our prediction. What we do know is that urban areas mix into relatively small geographic areas highly volatile but resilient groupings of people, each with its hopes and fears, ideals and aspirations, desires and despairs. It is no longer going to be so easy to talk about cutback management, especially in some sort of clinical sense. Cut-back management cuts back on services to people. That is the dilemma forced upon us by resource constraints: the dollars do not seem to go around and the decisions are made not in terms of who is going to get more, but rather who shall get less. How we solve that dilemma will help determine whether Miami represents a brief reminder of the sixties or a spark for burning in the eighties. This issue on urban finance is sponsored by HUD's office of policy management. Urban finance cannot help but be central to the quality of urban life. While individual incidents may exist outside the usual framework of urban finance, it is that framework which will routinely set the environment within which the drama unfolds. In this issue, the contributions examine the trends in urban finance, explore some of the consequences of the tax limitation movement, investigate the behavior of fiscal decision makers, discuss alternative means of service provision, funding, and fund accountability, and confront the impact of special issues like energy costs and intergovernmental mandates on urban governments. The issue begins with a consideration of the

Real Estate Tax Delinquency: Private Disinvestment and Public Response

Real estate tax delinquency is emerging as a major component of the urban fiscal crisis, affecting cities as diverse as Houston, Pittsburgh, New York, and Atlanta. A large and increasing proportion of uncollected taxes wreak havoc with any city's budgetary and planning process. Even more important, a growing rate of tax delinquency is symptomatic of fundamental changes in the role of the city in the American political economy. This study examines tax delinquency as a component of the flight of private capital from the central city. Delinquency trends in forty-eight cities over a twenty-five-year period are analyzed to set the national context, and an in-depth case study examines the problem at the neighborhood level. Interviews with 158 delinquent property owners uncover the reasoning behind the delinquency decision. Public policy options are evaluated in light of the severe practical and ideological limitations on public response to private disinvestment. Lake provides a brief survey of the available literature on tax delinquency, at both city-wide and neighborhood scales, focusing on the change in emphasis over time from a concern with administrative remedies to a search for systemic solutions. An overview of housing and demographic trends affecting the City of Pittsburgh in recent years is examined in depth. Lake surveys property owners to delve into the behavior of delinquent owners and concludes with discussing the City's role and implications for policy. Improving the situation is considered in terms of avoiding the conditions that lead to delinquency, and improving the city's capability of administering parcels acquired through tax-taking mechanisms.

The Impacts of Collective Bargaining on Local Government Services: A Review of Research

7IShe past decade's huge growth in local government expenditures, the near bankruptcy of major American cities, and the rising swell of taxpayer discontent are leading indicators of a continuing urban fiscal crisis. A belief of many local government officials, citizens, and scholars is that collective bargaining is partly, and perhaps substantially, to blame for this fiscal crisis.' The specific impacts of local government employee unionization and collective bargaining have been debated for the past decade. This debate has yielded occasionally conflicting and, on some issues, only fragmentary empirical evidence. This paper reviews available evidence as a means of developing generalizations about the impact of unionization and collective bargaining on local services and of identifying future research needs.

Fragmented government and the us urban fiscal crisis

Book reviewed in this article:Alcaly, R. and Mermelstein, D. 1977: The fiscal crisis of American cities: essays on the political economy of urban America with special reference to New York.MacManus, S. 1978: Revenue patterns in US cities and suburbs: a comparative analysis.Passell, P. and Ross, L. 1978: State policies and federal programs: priorities and constraints.

Public Employee Unions and the Urban Fiscal Crisis

Public Employee Unions and the Urban Fiscal Crisis

The Urban Fiscal Crisis in the United States, National Health Insurance, and Municipal Hospitals

The fiscal stress which many U.S. cities are currently experiencing, the persistent problems of large-city local government hospitals, the recent decisions for selected public hospital closings in New York City and Philadelphia, and the prospective enactment of a program of national health insurance collectively raise questions about the viability of the nation's major municipal hospitals. While the majority of the nation's 40 largest cities are in a state of economic and demographic decline, the diversity which characterizes their fiscal conditions and their responses to fiscal stress suggests caution in generalizing from the highly publicized New York City experience in asserting the ability of cities to continue to maintain public hospital activities. Indeed, there is considerable evidence to indicate that the staying power of municipal hospitals is quite substantial even in circumstances of severe fiscal stress. Further, analysis of the effect of Medicaid implementation on municipal hospital utilization and of the impact of prospective national health insurance programs on the demand for and supply of medical services suggests that municipal hospitals will continue to be important providers of health care services for many years to come.

Social class and arts consumption

The last decade has witnessed a burgeoning of American high culture. The number of museums and theaters has increased, the number of orchestras, opera companies, and dance companies has skyrocketed, and attendance at all of them is up.1 Ironically, however, the upsurge in public enthusiasm has been accompanied by financial tension. Earnings from admission and ticket prices have risen far less quickly than expenses, traditional patrons have been unable or unwilling to bridge the gap, and inherently labor-intensive production systems, inflation, energy costs, urban fiscal crises, and constraints on ticket and admission fees promise to make the situation worse.2 The effect of this fiscal malaise has been to involve the government federal, state, and municipal in American high culture to a degree unprecedented in this country. In twelve years the National Endowment for the Arts' budget has grown from $3 million to $96 million, the number of state arts agencies has increased from 18 to 55, and the number of local arts councils has expanded from 175 to 900.3

Macro Theoretical Approaches to Public Policy Analysis: The Fiscal Crisis of American Cities

Most empirical research on the consequences of public policy follow a mirco, "historical," and incremental approach. Thus, the validity of the predictions have limited generality. A macro, theoretical, and structural approach is presented as an alternative. Such a reorientation to public policy analysis will not only provide understanding of the context of policy predictions, but also opportunities for test ing them both historically and comparatively. It would also bring together social science theory and policy research. This approach is illustrated with three macro structural theories of the urban fiscal crisis in the U.S.—the conflict between political demand for welfare and capital for economic growth; the decline of the city as a political force in national politics of economic distribution; and the changing techno logical base of cities and their economic viability. Each of these theories provide for different interpretations and predic tions of policies that are likely to be effective in achieving collective goals.

State capitalism and the urban fiscal crisis in the United States1

A quoi peut‐on attribuer la crise fiscale qui engouffre une grande partie du cœur urbain américain? Est‐ce que cette crise et l'intensification de la lutte politique présagent des changements fondamentaux dans la structure de l'économie politique des Etats‐Unis? Cet essai est une réponse tentative à ces questions. L'exposition de la crise fiscale urbaine aux Etats‐Unis demande une analyse générale de la relation entre accumulation du capital, urbanisation, et expansion de l'état. Cette analyse doit ětre le fondement d'une exploration des origines particulières du financement urbain qui confronte beaucoup de villes centrales, ainsi que de la relation entre crise fiscale et lutte politique. Il est suggéré en dernière partie que la menace posée par la crise fiscale urbaine et la lutte politique envers la stabilité et la légitimité des institutions capitalistes américaines est la cause d'une réponse parmi les sections les plus éclairées de la classe capitaliste, qui tend vers un accroissement de leurs efforts à developper la Cité Capitaliste d'état en tant que noyau d'un complex socio‐industriel grandissant.

Computer technology and the urban fiscal crisis

The extensive use of computer technology is often proposed as one tool to alleviate the fiscal problems facing many urban local governments. Employing data from a nationwide study of computer use in more than 500 larger city and county governments, this paper assesses the current and near-future financial impacts of computer technology on local government operations. There have been a variety of financial benefits from computer use, although few are dramatic. Of all local government functions, computer technology has been applied most extensively in the finance-oriented functional areas. Most current automated applications are unsophisticated: but those applications most commonly under development concentrate on exploiting the technology more fully in order to enhance financial control and to improve the capabilities for revenue generation. Computer technology seems one of the most feasible techniques available for short-term relief from the symptoms of the urban fiscal crisis.

A Tax Tool for Meeting Urban Fiscal Crisis*

A Tax Tool for Meeting Urban Fiscal Crisis*