Regime Theory Revisited: the Role of Nonprofit Organizations in Urban Policymaking Michelle Lynn Wooddell Wayne State University
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Wayne State University Wayne State University Dissertations 1-1-2014 Regime Theory Revisited: The Role Of Nonprofit Organizations In Urban Policymaking Michelle Lynn Wooddell Wayne State University, Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations Part of the Public Administration Commons Recommended Citation Wooddell, Michelle Lynn, "Regime Theory Revisited: The Role Of Nonprofit Organizations In Urban Policymaking" (2014). Wayne State University Dissertations. Paper 1033. This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@WayneState. It has been accepted for inclusion in Wayne State University Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@WayneState. REGIME THEORY REVISITED: THE ROLE OF NONPROFITS IN URBAN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT by MICHELLE L. WOODDELL DISSERTATION Submitted to the Graduate School of Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 2014 MAJOR: POLITICAL SCIENCE Approved by: _________________________________________ Advisor Date __________________________________________ __________________________________________ __________________________________________ ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Although it would be impossible for me to personally thank all of the individuals who helped me make this dissertation project a reality, I would like to take a brief moment to acknowledge the contributions of the following people: Dr. Brady Baybeck: your insights and perspective have been invaluable to me throughout this process. Thanks for always, patiently, pushing me along. The members of my dissertation committee (Drs. Abbott, Jun and Fleischman): Thank you for stepping outside the world of political science for a moment to journey into the nonprofit sector with me. The men and women of Detroit’s nonprofit, business and professional communities: Thank you for generously sitting down with me to discuss your perspectives on my research topic. Wayne State University and the Institutional Review Board, for approving my research. The one who made it possible and fun by always being by my side during this process. My family and friends, especially Victor, Aleksey and Sasha, who made it both possible and worthwhile. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ___________________________________________________________ii List of Figures _______________________________________________________________iv Chapter 1 “Power and Politics in an Urban Context” _________________________________1 Chapter 2 “Theories of Community Power and Urban Policymaking”____________________16 Chapter 3 “The Nonprofit Sector’s Role in Urban Governance”_________________________36 Chapter 4 “Methodology and Research Design”_____________________________________54 Chapter 5 “The Cases of Midtown, Eastern Market and Detroit’s Riverfront” _____________66 The Case of Midtown ___________________________________________________82 The Case of Eastern Market ______________________________________________103 The Case of Detroit’s Riverfront __________________________________________121 Chapter 6 “The Cases of Jefferson East, M1 Rail and Detroit City Airport _______________139 The Case of Detroit City Airport __________________________________________139 The Case of Jefferson East _______________________________________________155 The Case of Woodward Avenue Transportation ______________________________174 Chapter 7 “Conclusions” ______________________________________________________192 Appendix A “Top 12 economic development issues in Detroit at the turn of the 21st century” 208 Appendix B “Preliminary Interview Questions”____________________________________ 209 Appendix C “Organizations Represented Through My Interviews”_____________________210 References _________________________________________________________________213 Abstract ___________________________________________________________________239 Autobiographical Statement ___________________________________________________240 iii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: Hypothesized Outcomes…………………………………………………………12 Figure 4.1: Hypothesized Outcomes…………………………………………………………56 Figure 5.1: Map of Midtown Detroit………………………………………………………...83 Figure 5.2: Map of Eastern Market and Surrounding Area…………………………………105 Figure 5.3: Map of Detroit’s Existing and Future RiverWalk………………………………132 Figure 6.1: Map of City Airport and Surrounding Neighborhoods…………………………141 iv 1 CHAPTER 1 POWER AND POLITICS IN AN URBAN CONTEXT By the start of the 21st century, Detroit was a troubled city on many fronts. The black- white segregation index was the highest in the nation (Darden and Kamel, 2000), the violent crime rate was nearly six times higher than the national average (U.S. Census, 2000), and the poverty rate was 26%, significantly higher than the national average of 11% in 2000 (U.S. Census, 2000). In at least one section of the beleaguered city, however, a quiet revolution was taking place, one that would largely be orchestrated by some of the most prominent leaders of Detroit’s nonprofit sector. Originally formed as a nonprofit organization in 1976, the University Cultural Center Association (UCCA), which is today known as Midtown Detroit, Inc. (MDI), approached the new millennium with a sense of renewed excitement and optimism. Led by an activist executive director and a board comprised largely of leaders drawn from other nonprofit organizations in the area, UCCA/MDI boldly took as its mission the redevelopment of a 2.8 square mile section of the city. The results speak for themselves: During the first decade of the 21st century, UCCA/MDI raised more than $55 million in support for projects in the area, launching economic redevelopment projects that drew residents and visitors to this small pocket of success within a troubled larger city. These results from a relatively small nonprofit organization would have been remarkable under any circumstances, but given Detroit’s continued decline over the ten years in question, the outcomes are nearly astounding. By 2010, Detroit’s average household income ranked second lowest amongst major cities in Michigan (Citizens Research Council, 2013), its crime rate had soared by 36% since 2000 (U.S. Census, 2010), and two of the region’s major employers, General Motors and Chrysler, had only barely survived near-death experiences. Detroit’s city 2 government fared no better during this same time frame, as the city’s general obligation debt reached a staggering $1 billion, and by 2009, both the mayor and city council president were forced to resign from office to fight corruption charges. Into this challenging landscape and significant leadership vacuum stepped the nonprofit leaders of UCCA/MDI, leading the charge to ensure that their small section of the city was able to grow and thrive amidst the chaos. While quite a bit has been written about the policymaking roles played by government and business actors, much less attention has been paid to the ways in which the U.S. nonprofit sector contributes to policy outcomes in urban areas. Given the tremendous growth experienced by the nonprofit sector during the last decade, as it grew to become the third-largest labor force in the country behind retailing and manufacturing, the lack of interest shown to the impact of nonprofits on urban policymaking provides a tremendous opportunity for new avenues of scholarly inquiry (Salamon et al., 2010). The dominant theory of urban governance, regime theory, has thus far marginalized the policymaking importance of nonprofits in urban areas, arguing that their role has largely been restricted to that of interested observer and occasional assistant rather than forceful actor or active partner. Those researchers who have actively included nonprofits in their case studies have generally focused primarily on so-called “governing nonprofits” – private organizations such as chambers of commerce or community development corporations that are expressly designed to bring together disparate community elements community in a search for policy solutions (Hula, Jackson, and Orr, 1997; Hula and Jackson-Elmoore, 2001). In certain urban policy arenas, however, I believe that the active participation of the nonprofit sector and its leaders can be a critical factor in the achievement of desirable policy outcomes, as government and business actors alone are not able to mobilize the resources 3 necessary to accomplish policy goals. By examining the actors, processes, and outcomes in selected policy arenas in a major American city during the first decade of the 21st century, my research will assess the degree to which the nonprofit sector can and often does play a collaborative and leadership role in urban policymaking. I expect to find that the nonprofit sector and its leaders play a significant, but thus far largely unmeasured, role in helping achieve the realization of policy goals in the area of economic development. My guiding hypothesis is that instances where nonprofit organizations are actively engaged with other stakeholders in identifying, developing, and implementing policy alternatives will have a higher rate of success when compared with instances that do not involve nonprofits in the process. Specifically, I will analyze six economic development projects within the city of Detroit during the time period 2000-2010 to test this hypothesis. Perspectives on Urban Governance The desire to understand urban politics has occupied researchers for more than half a century. By the mid-1950s,