Logan on Molotch and Molotch on Logan: Notes on the Growth Machine-Toward a

Comparative Political Economy of Place

Author(s): John R. Logan
Source: American Journal of Sociology , Sep., 1976, Vol. 82, No. 2 (Sep., 1976), pp. 349-
352
Published by: The University of Chicago Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2777098

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 Logan on Molotch and Molotch on Logan

NOTES ON THE GROWTH MACHINE-TOWARD A

COMPARATIVE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF PLACE

For years the study of urban politics was burdened by the theoretically
sterile debate over the degree of concentration of power in American cities.
Researchers from both sides implicitly presumed that cities were relatively
homogeneous in their pattern of politics, to the point that one analyst
attributed variations in the results of case studies simply to methodological
differences (Walton 1966). It was therefore an important breakthrough
when Terry Clark (1968) initiated a program of comparative studies in
which he took seriously the possibility of real political differences among
communities.
From the functionalist perspective taken by Clark, the power structure
is expected to be differentiated ("decentralized") according to the social
differentiation of the urban community. Large, heterogeneous cities have
less centralized power structures than small, homogeneous cities; urban
growth is expected to create more pluralistic structures of power as new
interests develop and are accommodated within the political system. Fun-
damental to this model (and to that of the pluralists with whom Clark's
work is theoretically consistent) is the conception of power as influence
over a series of loosely related discrete decisions in a variety of issue areas.
Clark identified five such areas, ranging from mayoral elections to air
pollution controls; Dahl (1961) studied three. "Decentralization" is
operationally defined in terms of the number of types of interests which
participate in decision making in these areas and the degree of overlap in
influential persons and organizations among areas.
"The City as a Growth Machine" (Molotch 1976) challenges the pre-
mise and hence the conclusions of the functionalist model. Molotch asserts
that "the political and economic essence of virtually any given locality, in
the present American context, is growth," and therefore that "growth is
not ... merely one among a number of equally important concerns of polit-
ical process" (pp. 309-10, 313). This same identification of one type of
issue as the "big issue" of municipal politics can be found in Hunter (1954)
-he also emphasized the issue of growth-and I propose that it is this con-
ceptual step on which Hunter's interpretation of politics is based. From
this position, the "decentralization" which Clark associates with growth is
irrelevant to the essence of the urban political economy. Rather, growth is
the result of the usurpation of political control by unrepresentative land-
based local elites and is the source of their continuing coherence as a power
bloc.

AJS Volume 82 Number 2 349

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American Journal of Sociology

Many readers will contest Molotch's conception of what is at stake in

urban politics. I believe that he is correct at least in the extent that the
growth-related policies of a city affect its size, composition, fiscal resources
and responsibilities, and relationship to other cities in the regional or na-
tional system. But his essay aims to move another step toward a theory of
urban power structures: by identifying the substantive content of policy,
it becomes possible to analyze the interests and coalitions in favor of and
in opposition to growth and to examine sources of variation and change in
the conflicts over growth policy. How does growth present itself as an issue
in different communities? What are the interests represented in the growth
machine and when does it break down? What are the social bases of the
countercoalition and in what kinds of cities has it developed strength?
My purpose here is to examine some elements of this emerging theory, to
raise issues more than to settle them.

1. The Growth Coalition: Local and Extralocal Partners

Particularly important in Molotch's analysis of the local interests for and

against growth is what he says about the working class and what he does
not say about private corporations.
He argues (p. 325) that the working class is "politically passive (if not
downright supportive)" with respect to growth policies because of a false
belief that growth means jobs. It is true that the geographic distribution
of growth has no necessary relationship to the number of jobs created by
the national economy and that growing cities may have high rates of un-
employment. There are nevertheless some types of jobs which depend
directly on the growth machine: construction, transportation, government,
and wholesale and retail trade all grow with the metropolis. Such employ-
ment growth may increase the job security of the existing work force, but
in particular it increases the size and influence of the unions through which
the latter is organized. Thus although growth may create public problems
in the communities in which workers live, their unions are often strong
advocates of regional development.
Molotch does not include the private corporation in the growth machine,
but rather treats it as an outsider which, in its search for attractive loca-
tion, is responsive to local government policies. I would argue that its role
is considerably more active in several ways. First, once established in a
community, the corporation (as a major property owner) has a substantial
stake in local policy as this affects changes in the tax structure, service
levels, and regulatory action-the same policies according to which it made
its original decision to locate. Second, private corporations as well as unions
and some other interests are organized and active in regional, state, and
national politics to promote the preconditions of growth-not in any par-

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 Comments by Logan and Molotch

ticular municipality but in the region or state generally. Such extralocal

policies as investment tax credits or state-guaranteed loans for new indus-
tries, the federal assumption of welfare costs, and public investment in
urban redevelopment, highways, mass transit, and sewers may critically
affect the economics of growth. By its action on such issues, the corporation
-in its effort to maximize the profitability of new investment or to guaran-
tee old investments is a senior partner in the growth machine but beyond
the influence of local countercoalitions. One must question whether the
political economy of growth can be studied as a strictly local process.

2. The Concept of Growth and the Conditions of Opposition

For the purposes of his essay, Molotch has defined growth as a unidimen-
sional variable; his reference to growth as an "entire syndrome of associated
events" (p. 310), encompasses both population and economic expansion.
Studies of metropolitan growth, however, have found that these associated
events are unequally distributed both between central city and suburb and
among suburbs themselves. The concept of growth has to be elaborated to
facilitate identification of the types or strategies of growth in different kinds
of municipalities: the kinds of growth they have experienced and are trying
to attract, the policies they may manipulate to achieve their aims, and
their competitive positions in relation to one another. In my own research
I have identified three types of suburbs emerging since the 1960s in which
growth issues present themselves in quite different ways, just as the growth
problems and interest coalitions are different in New York and Dallas, or
Los Angeles and West Palm Beach.
The unidimensional conceptualization of growth clouds real differences
in the nature of the oppositions to growth and the conditions under which
the countercoalition develops. The point can be made with examples of
antigrowth movements cited by Molotch:
a) The restriction of growth in Ramapo and Petaluma is difficult to
distinguish from the exclusionary practices of "meccas" like Beverly Hills
and Lake Forest, which attained high social status and a strong property-
tax base through zoning and land-use controls. Paradoxically, many exclu-
sive suburbs grew at a high rate in the 1950s; such suburbs were opposed
not to growth itself but to a disruption of their social status by industry or
lower-income, high-density housing. In such communities, "antigrowth"
policies are open to criticism from the point of view of their effects on
racial segregation and class stratification in the region.
b) The studies of the impact of growth in Palo Alto and Santa Barbara
were concerned with population growth, and in the case of Palo Alto were
closely associated with an environmental movement to preserve open lands
in the foothills overlooking the city. Opposition to growth has not pre-

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 American Journal of Sociology

vented the continued expansion of employment which, it can be argued,

provides a net fiscal benefit to these communities, helping to support excel-
lent public services for those who can afford to live there. Expansion of
employment in turn is the condition for population growth in other cities
in the region.
c) Notably missing among cases of strong antigrowth activity are the
working-class suburbs in which the bulk of population growth has occurred.
Yet these are the communities in which growth problems are most severe-
they are unable to attract the kinds of development favored by exclusive
suburbs or employment centers, and so suffer the tax costs and public
service burdens of extensive single-family subdivision development. We
can only guess at the reasons for lack of organized opposition to the growth
machine in such places: the absence of voluntary associations, the rapid
turnover of population, the large proportion of renters, racial and ethnic
cleavages, and the ambiguity and variability of people's perceptions of the
causes of local problems. It is not clear that persons in these cities share
the interests of or are benefited by the countercoalition in other areas.
The variety of contexts in which growth may be treated as the central
political issue implies that it is misleading to analyze the growth machine
and countercoalition in gross terms. We are certainly far from being able
to extrapolate the national effects of a victory by the countercoalition. The
challenge is to elaborate a comparative theory of the urban political econ-
omy, to reflect and to order this variety of American communities.
JOHN R. LOGAN
State University of New York at Stony Brook

REFERENCES

Clark, Terry. 1968. "Community Structure, Decision-Making, Budget Expenditures,

and Urban Renewal in 51 American Cities." American Sociological Review 33
(August): 576-93.
Dahl, Robert. 1961. Who Governs? New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.
Hunter, Floyd. 1954. Community Power Structure. Cbapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press.
Molotch, Harvey. 1976. "The City as a Growth Machine: Toward a Political Economy
of Place." American Journal of Sociology 82 (September): 309-32.
Walton, John. 1966. "Discipline, Method, and Community Power: A Note on the
Sociology of Knowledge." American Sociological Review 31 (October): 684-89.

VARIETIES OF GROWTH STRATEGY: SOME COMMENTS ON

LOGAN

John Logan usefully draws attention to the fact that while it is indeed the
case that urban development can be understood in terms of interlocal com-
petition for land-use enhancement, the processes at work are not an undif-

352

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