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Urban Political Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Henry Bienen  and
Michael N. Danielson
Henry Bienen
Affiliation:
Princeton University
Michael N. Danielson
Affiliation:
Princeton University
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Abstract

Because many aspects of urbanization are similar in different societies, urban politics provides a rich opportunity for comparative analysis. Most urban political studies tend to focus on government rather than politics. In the case of the books under review, however, political variables are offered as the key to understanding. Anton's work on Stockholm, Baker's on Lagos, Cohen's on Abidjan, Cornelius's on Mexico City, Elkin's on London, Fried's on Rome, Taubman's on cities in the U.S.S.R., and Wolpe's on Port Harcourt share a concern with the ability of political systems to deal with forces of urban growth and change. Studies of industrial countries try to account for the ability of systems to develop policies that control the urban environment, while studies of developing countries attempt to analyze patterns of resource distribution, social mobility, and class formation. Despite their flaws, gaps, and manifold differences, these studies are important steps in the right direction.

Type
Review Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , January 1978 , pp. 264 - 295
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1978

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References

1 See, for example, Robson, William A. and Regan, D. E., eds., Great Cities of the World: Their Government, Politics and Planning (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications 1972)Google Scholar; Walsh, Annmarie HauckThe Urban Challenge to Government: An International Comparison of Thirteen Cities (New York: Praeger 1969)Google Scholar, as well as the individual studies that form the basis for this comparative volume: Austin, Allan G. and Lewis, Sherman, Urban Government for Metropolitan Lima (New York: Praeger 1970)Google Scholar; Calmfors, Hans, Rabinovitz, Francine F., and Alesch, Daniel J., Urban Government for Greater Stockholm (New York: Praeger 1968)Google Scholar; Cattell, David T., Leningrad: A Case Study of Soviet Urban Government (New York: Praeger 1968)Google Scholar; Johnson, Katherine Marshall, Urban Government for the Prefecture of Casablanca (New York: Praeger 1970)Google Scholar; Pusic, Eugen and Walsh, Annmarie Hauck, Urban Government for Zagreb, Yugoslavia (New York: Praeger 1968)Google Scholar; Walsh, Annmarie Hauck, Urban Government for the Paris Region (New York: Praeger 1968)Google Scholar; and Williams, Babatunde A. and Walsh, Annmarie Hauck, Urban Government for Metropolitan Lagos (New York: Praeger 1968)Google Scholar.

2 Elkin's inquiry is the most limited in terms of scope. He concentrates on central London and rests his analysis on two detailed case studies of planning decisions made in the early 1960's by the London County Council, which until 1965 was the governing body of the inner portion of the London metropolitan area. Fried too focuses on planning within a single local jurisdiction. But the scope of his study is considerably broader than that of Elkin, in part because Rome's city government encompassed most of the undeveloped land where growth occurred in the decades following World War II. Anton's frame of reference includes an entire metropolitan area whose political turf was divided among the city of Stockholm and 28 suburban governments. Taubman's study has broad scope, since he examines the entire Soviet Union in general terms and deals with more than a dozen cities in some detail. Cornelius focuses on six communities, widely dispersed around the periphery of the urban area; his aim was to examine various kinds of urban dwelling environments. Baker is concerned with central Lagos, but she ranges widely over time and issue areas, as does Wolpe. Cohen's work is almost a country study of the Ivory Coast seen through the prism of Abidjan.

3 In treating this question, Elkin relies heavily on the work of Eric Nordlinger in The Wording-Class Tories: Authority, Deference, and Stable Democracy (Berkeley: University of California Press 1967)Google Scholar.

4 Public hearings are not common in British local government. There is no formal public participation through referenda on policy or spending questions. Nor are the courts readily available to those who wish to challenge governmental actions, as is the case in the United States.

5 Cohen does not define class until p. 194, where he says that his definition of class structure is suitable to African conditions: “Classes are categories of people sharing common political and economic interests arising from their access to public authorities and the public resources and opportunities which they control."

6 And although he is correct in arguing against Samir Amin's mechanical description of three classes in the Ivory Coast (pp. 194–95), what is needed are more categories for encompassing class cleavage, not a reduction to the two categories of the rulers and the ruled. See Amin, Samir, Le developpement du capitalisme en Cote d'lvoire (Paris: Editions de Minuit 1967) 195–97Google Scholar.

7 Ahluwalia, Montek S., “Income Inequality: Some Dimensions of the Problem” in Chenery, Hollis and others, Redistribution with Growth (London: Oxford University Press 1974)Google Scholar, 8, 12.

8 Actually, Cohen does not say that what he calls “spontaneous unlotted housing” of traditional African styles and materials is squatter housing. This is for him the lowest strata of housing. In Lima, at least 25% of the city's residents are squatters; about the same proportions have been given for Djakarta and Manila. In Mexico City and Caracas, a larger share of the population consists of squatters. For some estimates of the squatter proportions of various cities, see Nelson, JoanMigrants, Urban Poverty, and Instability in Developing Countries, Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, Occasional Paper No. 22 (Cambridge 1969), 72–73Google Scholar; Ross, Marc Howard, The Political Integration of Urban Squatters (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press 1972)Google Scholar, 4.

9 A recent, unpublished paper by Gustav Ranis, “Growth and Distribution: Tradeoffs or Complements” (Yale University, n.d.), reviews the question of competition or complementarity between growth and distribution. Ranis notes that most evidence to date points in the direction of inevitable and severe conflict between most measures of equity in a society and the society's growth performance. William R. Cline also undertakes a review of the literature on growth and distribution in “Distribution and Development: A Survey of Literature,” Journal oj Development Economics, I (February 1975), 1–42Google Scholar. Among those who have seen conflict between growth and distribution, and a worsening of distribution patterns at early growth stages are: Kuznets, Simon, “Economic Growth and Income Inequality,” American Economic Review, XXXXV (March 1955), 1–28Google Scholar; Adelman, Irma and Morris, Cynthia T., Economic Growth and Social Equity in Developing Countries (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1973)Google Scholar. Among case studies, see Weisskoff, R., “Income Distribution and Economic Growth in Puerto Rico, Argentina and Mexico,” The Review of Income and Wealth, No. 16 (December 1970), 303–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fishlow, Albert, “Brazilian Size Distribution of Income,” American Economic Review, Vol. 62 (May 1972), 391–402Google Scholar.

10 Ahluwalia (fn. 7), 13, 17.

11 When Cohen comes to discuss the problem of inequality in the Ivory Coast (pp. 208–28), many of his own proposals can be described as intermediate goals and incremental, rather than proposals for social and political transformation. He is in favor of aiding low-cost housing construction, more training of nationals for middle-level jobs, more decentralization of decision making, and decentralized administration of public services. If there really is only one meaningful cleavage in urban Ivory Coast between rulers and ruled, it is rather odd that proposals for greater equality are aimed not at a fundamental restructuring of social and political relationships, but at institutional or policy changes that are more likely, in Cohen's terms, to be outputs, not outcomes.

12 Sklar, Richard, “Political Science and National Integration—A Radical Approach,” Journal of Modern African Studies, v (May 1967), 6Google Scholar.

13 It would have been welcome if Wolpe's respondents, both elites and non-elites, had given us a sense of their own feelings about communal ties. We have relatively little of this information for urban milieus in Africa, especially for elites, although we have data generated from responses to survey questionnaires. See, among others, Ross, Marc Howard, Grass Roots in an African City: Political Behavior in Nairobi (Cambridge: MIT Press 1975)Google Scholar; Hanna, William J. and Hanna, Judith L., Urban Dynamics in Black Africa (Chicago: Aldine-Atherton 1971)Google Scholar.