城市作为增长机器:走向地方政治经济学

The City as a Growth Machine: Toward a Political Economy of Place

一个城市,更普遍地说,任何一个地方,都被认为是某些土地精英利益的表达。这样的精英阶层被认为是通过利用土地获利而日益强化的,其成员在这一地区内享有共同利益。精英们与其他区域的精英竞争,为促进资源增长,努力在自己的领域内而不是其他地区进行投资。在地方和非地方层级,政府部门被用于协助以牺牲地区竞争为代价来实现这一增长。社区生活境遇在很大程度上是这台增长机器所体现的社会、经济和政治力量的结果。在此背景下,特别是在涉及失业问题的情况下,对增长与各种社会团体利益的相关性进行了研究。描述了近年来反增长的社会趋势,并对其潜在后果进行了评估。

A city and,more generally,any locality,is conceived as the areal expression of the interests of some land-based elite.Such an elite is seen to profit through the increasing intensification of the land use of the area in which its members hold a common interest.An elite competes with other land-based elites in an effort to have growthinducing resources invested within its own area as opposed to that of another.Governmental authority,at the local and nonlocal levels,is utilized to assist in achieving this growth at the expense of competing localities.Conditions of community life are largely a consequence of the social,economic,and political forces embodied in this growth machine.The relevance of growth to the interests of various social groups is examined in this context,particularly with reference to the issue of unemployment.Recent social trends in opposition to growth are described and their potential consequences evaluated.