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Stakeholder Participation in New Governance: Lessons from Chicago Texas A&M University School of Law Texas A&M Law Scholarship Faculty Scholarship 1-2009 Stakeholder Participation in New Governance: Lessons from Chicago Lisa T. Alexander Texas A&M University School of Law, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Lisa T. Alexander, Stakeholder Participation in New Governance: Lessons from Chicago, 16 Geo. J. on Poverty L. & Pol'y 117 (2009). Available at: https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/771 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Texas A&M Law Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Texas A&M Law Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law & Policy Volume XVI, Number 1, Winter 2009 Stakeholder Participation In New Governance: Lessons From Chicago's Public Housing Reform Experiment Lisa T. Alexander* ABSTRACT The efficacy of the public-privatepartnership as a tool for social reform is the subject of continued scholarly and public debate. New governance theory, an increasingly popularform of jurisprudence, constructs an optimistic vision of stakeholder collaboration in public-privatepartnerships that justifies the use of the public-private partnership in regulatory reform. New governance scholars contend that recent governance trends such as devolution, deregulation, decen- tralization, and privatization create opportunitiesfor previously marginalized stakeholders to more fully participate in public problem-solving. New gover- nance scholars expect that both public and private stakeholders, with differing interests, skills and objectives, will effectively collaborate to solve public problems in the absence of traditionalformal legal protections. New gover- nance 's implicitpromise is that traditionally marginalizedstakeholders, such as poor public housing residents, will be empowered as a result of their participa- tion in social reform. This Article examines stakeholder participation in Chicago's landmark ten-year HOPE VI public housing reform experiment as a test of these claims. Chicago's reform process is a national example as other cities replicate Chicago's model. Specifically, this Article examines the effect of * Lisa T. Alexander, Assistant Professor of Law, University of Wisconsin Law School., J.D. Columbia University School of Law, B.A. Wesleyan University. I am especially grateful to Elizabeth Mertz and Louise Trubek who have both consistently supported me throughout the development of this Article. I am very grateful to Samuel Bagenstos, Susan Bennett, Alfred Brophy, Dorothy Brown, Joel Handler and Mark West for their comments on early drafts of this Article. I must also thank, for their comments, participants at the Affordable Housing and Public-Private Partnerships Workshop, sponsored by The University of Colorado Law School and the Center on Property, Citizenship and Social Entrepreneurism (PCSE) at Syracuse University Law School; the Jurisgenesis 2007 Conference, sponsored by Washington University and Saint Louis University Schools of Law; as well as the Interschool Junior Faculty Poverty Law Workshop, sponsored by American University's Washington College of Law where I first presented my thoughts on new governance theory and poverty. Lastly, I would also like to thank Scott Cummings, Shelia Foster, Nestor Davidson, Heinz Klug, Stewart Macaulay, and William Whitford for reviewing final drafts of this Article. For research assistance, I am eternally grateful to Emily Long, whose enthusiasm for my work and able research assistance has helped me immensely, as well as Timothy Kidd, who worked diligently at the inception of this Project. I also owe thanks to Kenneth Chung and Kyra Olds whose research assistance helped me complete this Article. Lastly, to Thomas Mitchell and to my parents whose constant support both sustains and strengthens me. © 2009, Lisa T. Alexander. The Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law & Policy [Vol. XVI social fissures along race, class and gender lines on the participationof public housing residents in Chicago's urban reform plan. This micro-study of Chicago's process reveals that empowered stakeholderparticipation is difficult to achieve under conditions of social conflict in the absence of traditional rights-based protections. This Article proposes a balance between "hard-law" and "soft-law" measures to provide a public law frameworkforfuture nationalHOPE VI reform. These recommendations may guide future new governance reform efforts that include traditionallymarginalized stakeholders in public-privatecollaborations TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ........................................... 119 I. NEW GOVERNANCE AND COLLABORATIVE STAKEHOLDER PARTICIPATION .......... ............................ 124 A. The Critique of "Command and Control,"Regulation and Public Impact Litigation ........................... 124 B. Stakeholder Participationin New Governance ........... 127 C. Reflexive Organizationaland InstitutionalNetworks ....... 128 D. Informality and Soft Law ........................... 131 E. The Missing Analysis of Power ...................... 133 F. Power and the Profit Motive: DemographicRepresentation, Opportunism and Acquiescence ...................... 135 1. Demographic Representation ..................... 138 2. Representative Opportunism ...................... 139 3. Representative Acquiescence ......................... 141 II. HOPE VI As NEW GOVERNANCE: EXPLORING STAKEHOLDER COLLABORATION AND POWER ............................ 142 A. Hope VI as New Governance ........................ 142 B. Chicago's "Planfor Transformation"................... 146 C. Identity Politics: What's Race, Class and Gender Got to Do W ith It? ....................................... 149 1. The Birth of the Mixed-Income Norm: Demographic Representation ............................... 154 2. Site-Based Resident Screening Criteria: Representative Opportunism and Acquiescence ................... 160 III. ACCOUNTABLE DEVELOPMENT IN CHICAGO'S PUBLIC HOUSING REFORM PLAN ....................................... 165 A. Henry Homer Homes ............................. 166 B. Cabrini-Green ................................... 170 C. Lessons from Chicago's Public Housing Reform Experiment. 174 IV. A PUBLIC LAW FRAMEWORK FOR HOPE VI As NEW GOVERNANCE ....................................... 176 A. Hope VI Improvement and ReauthorizationAct of 2007 ..... 176 B. Rivalry, Complementarity & Hybridity in New Governance.. 178 No. 1] Stakeholder Participation in New Governance 1. Hybridity: A Public Law Framework for HOPE VI as New Governance ............................. 180 a. Best Practices ............................. 180 b. Independent Resident/Developer Screening Comm ittees .............................. 181 c. Independent Grievance Committee and Judicial Intervention .............................. 181 d. Technical Assistance Funding ................. 182 e. The Role of Lawyers ........................ 183 f. Participation Ratings and Benchmarking ......... 184 CONCLUSION ............................................ 184 "At the bottom of the Deep Blue Sea, drowning mortals reached silently and desperately for drifting anchors danglingfrom short chainsfar far overhead, which they thought were lifelines meantfor them." Patricia J. Williams1 INTRODUCTION On May 27, 1999, Chicago's Mayor Richard M. Daley formally announced "the beginning of a new era in public housing in Chicago." 2 His pronouncement introduced Chicago's landmark public housing reform plan, known as the "Plan for Transformation" (the "Plan").3 Chicago's Plan is the nation's largest recent urban public housing reform process given the number of units slated to be demolished and rebuilt.4 Chicago's Plan is a national example as many other cities replicate Chicago's innovations.5 Chicago's Plan is financed, in part, by a 1.5 billion dollar public subsidy6 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ("HUD") to the Chicago Housing Authority ("CHA") under 7 the Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere Program ("HOPE VI"). HOPE VI is U.S. federal legislation, formally enacted in 1992, and revised in 1. PATRICIA J. WILLIAMS, THE ALCHEMY OF RACE AND RIGHTS: DIARY OF A LAW PROFESSOR 1 (1991). 2. Janet L. Smith, The Chicago Housing Authority's Plan for Transformation, in WHERE ARE POOR PEOPLE TO LIvE?: TRANSFORMING PUBLIC HousING COMMUNITIES 93, 101 (Larry Bennett et al. eds., 2006). 3. Id.; see also Chi. Hous. Auth., The CHA's Plan For Transformation-Plan Summary, http:// www.thecha.org/transformplan/plan-summary.html (last visited Apr. 27, 2009). 4. CHI. Hous. AUTH., PLAN FOR TRANSFORMATION BROCHURE 2 (2002) available at http:// www.thecha.org/transformplan/files/plan-for-transformation-brochure.pdf (explaining that "[n]o other city in America has ever attempted public housing reform of this magnitude."). Chicago demolished 38,000 severely distressed units of public housing and is slated to rebuild 25,000 units of public housing. Smith, supra note 2, at 93. 5. See Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh et al., Chicago Public Housing Transformation: A Research Report, at i (Columbia Univ. Ctr. for Urban Research & Policy, Working Paper, 2004), available at http://www.curp.colum- bia.edu/publications2/PHTransformation-ReporLpdf (explaining that "[tihe experiences of family relocation and resettlement in Chicago have informed other cities facing similar challenges").
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