The City as a Growth Machine

The City as a Growth Machine by Logan and Molotch                                        

"The growth machine idea makes a substantive argument about the empirical substance of U.S. urban regimes. It asserts that virtually every city (and state) government is a growth machine and long has been. It asserts that this puts localities in chronic competition with one another in ways that harm the vast majority of their citizens as well as their environments. It anticipates an ideological structure that naturalizes growth goals as a background assumption of civic life. In a social science realm where successful empirical generalizations have been few, the growth machine idea robustly and usefully describes reality."

Logan and Molotch argue that certain actors in the city – who have seemingly disparate interests – team up over the shared need to promote and enhance growth in their city. Real estate developers, financiers, real estate agents, business leaders, sport team- and local newspaper-owners all join forces in a political machine to promote growth largely through enhancing the exchange value of land. This is because revenue-enhancing land-development projects are still the best way to raise revenue for the city given the recurrent dependence by local area jurisdictions on the property tax. Conflicts arise, however, when other stakeholders place a different ‘value’ on land. All these actors can emerge to challenge the growth machine’s use value of lands in their jurisdiction. As such, understanding the politics of place is fundamentally linked to this conflict over the ‘exchange’ versus ‘use’ value of land.

The authors argue that in any locality, land-based elites (people who profit directly or indirectly from the increasing value of land) try to promote growth in order to increase the value of their land interests. For them, the city is a growth machine. And to the extent that these land-based elites are also able to control political discussion and actions, policies and plans that promote growth take precedence over other possible policies. Furthermore growth-oriented policies are framed in such a way that the city as a whole is portrayed as benefiting while the reality of growth benefits is not nearly so widely distributed. This is an interesting framework to examine the politics of cities, towns and suburban communities. Borrowing Marxian terms while expanding the framework, Logan and Molotch discuss the tension between “exchange value” and “use value” and the actors tied to each. Exchange value is gained by making money off the land, whereas use value comes from people actually using the land and communities attached to it as part of their daily lives. The “growth machine” concept is central to their work because they argue that it is those for whom “the city is their business” that are dominant in the shaping and governance of cities and that this is thriving globally, informed by the logic of free-market capitalism.

Even though the capital and political cards are certainly stacked in favor of growth, the conflicts that arise between those whose interests are exchange value and those who are seeking use value make a place what it is. Furthermore, although difficult, those who live and use a place can shape and even change the course of growth. It is in this that Logan and Molotch do not see the growth machine is an omnipotent force. A major problem is the predominating doctrine of “value-free development”—the underlying assumption of the growth machine that the free market should decide what is produced and where it is produced. This assumption disregards any consideration of the value of the product or venture to the community and the social consequences of its production. Instead it is uncritically accepted that all growth is good and will bring value to the community, increase job opportunities, and expand the tax base and all that that entails. This is not just a belief held by conservative developers and politicians. More often than not it goes unquestioned by liberals and progressives, labor, and even residents who will bear the brunt of its negative consequences.

As prevalent as the “all growth is good” agenda is, in many cases it simply is not true. Logan Molotch point out that it’s hard enough for cities to coordinate the most basic services (e.g., schools, health and safety, environmental protections) competently, much less manage the impacts of the growth machine. They evaluate the effects of growth on fiscal health, employment, job and income mobility, eliminating social problems, the environment, accommodating natural population increases, and satisfying public tastes—that the growth machine is often toted as benefiting. They conclude that, “Some of these claims, for some times and places, are true. … Nevertheless, for many places and times, growth is at best a mixed blessing and the growth machine’s claims are merely legitimating ideology, not accurate descriptions of reality”. For example, Logan and Molotch find that in most cases growth does not create jobs, it merely distributes them; and social problems are not reduced, instead class and racial inequalities are often exacerbated by growth policies.

In terms of resistance to this sort of value-free city building, “there is precious little evidence” of such resistance. He further argues that it is especially difficult to organize opposition in the neighborhoods of those most negatively affected by the growth machine—poor people—because the organizations that represent their interests are ineffective and “low-income people are difficult to mobilize; their day-to-day marginality makes it hard for them to contribute time or funds”.

Those who do challenge the growth machine must be mindful of the different strategies governments use to control them. “When residents’ claims on behalf of use values threaten to undermine growth, government can turn back the challenge, either by invoking police power or by distracting dissidents with payoffs (for example, relocation allowances to displaced tenants)”. To question the growth machine as someone within the political mainstream is to potentially kill one’s political career. Logan and Molotch argue, “To question the wisdom of growth for any specific locality is to threaten a benefit transfer and the interests of those who gain from it”. Politicians who question the growth machine are disciplined by the denial of funds and the funding of opposition by business interests and bad press.