The results are also robust to the inclusion ofseveral economic and fiscal variables (e.g., unemploy-ment rate) and several measures of community stabil-ity (e.g., the percent of people in the same home in1985 and 1990). The results are not driven by housingprices or the change in housing prices, an alternativepathway through which diversity might shape prop-erty tax rates.

2.950

many of the most predictive variablesare economic measures such as the tax rate and themedian household income.

and included 15indicator variables denoting how long since the lastoccurrence of the dependent variable.15 Year indicatorvariables capture unobserved time effects.

This analysis shows that changing diversity—but notthe baseline level of diversity—matters in predictingdebt exclusion vote

Evidence: Diversity’s Impact

Avg. CommuteTime 90

it compares towns that pass increases to allothers, limiting the selection bias induced by thetown officials’ decision to hold the vote.

so wecannot use the election results as a straightforwardestimate of public preferences

leaders in diversecommunities will propose spending initiatives notsupported by their constituents—and so will seethem fail at the ballot box.

iverse communities’lower social capital might in turn dampen theircollective willingness to make public investments.

with opportunities toattract new voters, to gain recognition, and to ad-vance their agenda. These divisive questions can alsodivide local leaders and generate lasting cleavages,making it harder to bring together a coalition in sup-port of increased taxes.

So long as it shapesresidents’ long-term expectations, diversity couldmatter without becoming a visible topic of localpolitics

increasesin ethnic and racial diversity will mostly affect resi-dents’ support for capital projects and other long-termplans

Sociologists have demonstrated that racial andethnic considerations are often paramount when in-dividuals consider where to move.

moving decisions

Other work has shown that localdiversity shapes attitudes towards public spendingonly when race and ethnicity are highly politicized

a diverse locality might lead whites tosee public spending as having diminishing benefitsfor them

perceived

When called to the ballot box, local voters are likelyto know when the proposal will come to fruition.While current spending provides tangible benefits inthe near-term, capital investments take years, and sorequire both significant trust in the taxing authorityand a broad construction of one’s self-interest.

The second is that each ethnic group’sutility level for a given public good is reduced if othergroups also use it’

One is that different ethnic groups have differentpreferences over which type of public goods toproduce

By shaping whether towns ever considernew tax proposals, rising diversity can have a stealthimpact even absent visible and contentious localpolitical battles

the effect is strong only on votesabout long-term capital spending, suggesting thatdemographic changes operate in part by narrowingpeople’s time horizons.

willingness to hold or passmeasures that raise taxes

11 percentage points weighting towns by population.Massachusetts remains more homogeneous than Texas,but the same probability in Texas school districtsdropped by just two percentage points duringthe 1990s.

subsequent

ofeconomic decline or of urban labor markets

diverse environments generate distinctive opinions,which are then translated into policy by local leaders

If the candidate is good enough to hold his own withother voters, then the fact that he has the right kind of name maybe just the added fillip needed for success.319

ClearlytherewasnogreatdesertionofItalianDemocraticvoterstovoteforaRepublicancompatriot.‘Arethere,then,no exc

ontoadmitthatattimes,asSamuelLubell and other

Very frequently the nomination goes to the man withan “O” at the beginning or end of his name rather than to an indi-vidual who might make a good officcholder on other and perhapsmore significant grounds.

nklysaytheywillunlessthe leaders)demandsaremet?

nceofethnicrivalries,InthediscussionofNewHampshire,Tpointedouthowdevastatin

pwardsocialandeconomicmobilityofethnic‘minoritype

Democratic party.

leadership of the partyfand a general af

why substitute any moredebatable and contestable issu

ionofthesecond la

lprinciplesofthegreatMazzini, andhasourinterestsatheartbecauseheismarriedtooneofourpeople."Somepoliticiansnow claimthatLodgeoverdidthespecialappea

MereappealtotheOldSod,thevirtuesofMazziniorPulaskiisnotenough.Althoughabitmore

hepoliticalarrivaloftheItalians,thePolish,andtheFrench-CanadiansthreatenedthehegemonyoftheTrishleadershipoftheDemocraticpartyintheurbanareas,

eesas“Viewedtahistoricalperspe

Gnicfactors perse.Oveetime ethnicdistinctions anditacscseatssr'werdevay)Wigl

involved-—thereligiousdivisionsintheNewEag-faeelesosegare vottestprovlenseThaa-insomeresponstho factthat4

information is forbidden by law.

philosophic and social differences be-tween Protestantism and Catholicism,

snotuncommon:in1834aconventinChar

based as much on bigotry as land or building

building laws, lax health regulations, inefficient inspection of food andmilk, uncleaned streets, overcrowded school buildings, and unsupervisedplaygrounds”

housing developments be-came terrifying places to live, trapping people in prisons filled with vio-lence and drugs.

were the elite develop-ers, who were so powerful that city planning was often driven wholly bytheir preferences.

middle-class migrantstotheWestalsobenefitedfromreformgovernments’responsivenesstoresidentialdevelopers.

Asmentioned in chapter 1, none of these leaders could afford to rest on biasalone. They worked for reelection as all politicians do, by cultivatingareliable constituency.

symbolic benefits that cost few resources.

Daley’scity“thatworked”metthedemandsofthiscon-stituency.He focusedon streetrepairs and beautification,garbagecol-lectionandsnow removal, lowpropertytaxes and preservationofprop-ertyvalues

Irishpatronagefaroutstripped populationshares.

spending on roads and decreased spending on healthand welfare.

but represent large sums of real money.

Public good

I analyze expenditures in the categories of health andpublic welfare.'

Reformers’ core constituents werewhite, middle-class voters, and, thus, city spending on sanitation ser-vices—a major concern of homeowners—is used to represent their de-mands

broader community demands.

Narrowly Distributed Benefits

Oncethe regime collapsed, these areas again turned out at higher rates.

eripheral Core marginturnout turnout of victory turnout

bynon-corecoalitionmembers.

theseregimescouldwinreelectionwithonlyasmall shareoftheeligibleelectoratevotingthembackintooffice

.38*

monopolies focus benefits towards governing coalition elites andcore coalition members, away from the broader community.

core supporters to turn out.

Nonetheless, the relative distinc-tion between monopolized and nonmonopolized cities remains a centraltheoretical contribution of this work.

consequencesdidmonopolyhaveforthepeoplelivinginthesecities?

hallengingthoseinpowerdifficultifnotimpossible

MexicanAmerican,lackedpavedroads,streetlights,sewerage systems, andrepresentationonthe"citycouncil. SanJose’sLatinosenduredpolicebrutalityanddiscrimina.torytreatmentinthejusticesystem,theschool system,andincityhirin

were arrested and incarcer-ated at disproportionate rates, discriminated against in city hiring, andprovided with lower quality city services.

he was prepared to defend his cityat any cost from the success of such revolutionary elements.

Daley

organization

electedpositionsintoappointedos w

y abolishing districts and choos-ing at-large elections, reform charters ensured that minority preferences,even those of substantial size, remained unrepresented in the city legis-lature

Daley’s machine relied on creative district linedrawing to ensure that neighborhoods with black and Latino majoritieswere dominated by white, machine-loyal representatives

andactivelydiscouragedothers,biasingoutcomesinfavorofreformcandidates.

Elections were held when agricul-tural workers were not living in the city

Chinese work-ers in particular were targeted for restriction from social and politicallife at the state level.

Los AngelesTimes

In Austin only 37 percent of adults over the age of twenty ue had theright to vote in 1933 because of suffrage restrictions ae the Polltax and literacy test

By constructing theirideal electorate through fraud and intimidation, machines biased thesystem in favor of their incumbent organizations.

Duringyearswhenmachinecontrolwas strongest, fraud wasmuchlesscommon.

and/orlacktheinstitutionalpowertochangetherulestofavortheircandidates

excessive corruption served to undermine a machine’s pow-er if it became too offensive to voters or attracted the attention of higherlevels of government.

knewthattheyneededthemachineon theirsidetopassinspec-tions,secureutilityextensions,ignoreclosing laws,sellliquorduringtheprohibition,runlotteries,

m‘tionoftheDemocre™”>achinefaction izationwouldtranslatetoalognto voters th any other orga ;ab electing an) _ As a result election outcomes be.of benefits including patronage jobs

oercive patronage serves as a barrierto entry for challengers and a barrier to exit for voters.

incumbent can use public money to back his promise.’

benefits are awarded to a particular segment

thereby using government fesourc-es to engender loyalty to the incumbent regime and pay political workers

hischangedafterreformleaderspurchasedthepaperin1924.

thereisnolegitimatebasisfordisagreement”

promised to use public funds to help thecities grow, and growth translated into a larger market for news con-sumption.

control over the local media.

The lack of party cues to assist voters in the fo,mation of preferences resulted in systems biased in favor of candidatewith independent wealth or fame and incumbents

Nonpartisan elections also allowed reformers to build alliances actoparty lines more easily.

In converting electionsto nonpartisan contests, reformers sought to minimize divisions in theelectorate and among elites.

For some machines at least, this strategy of bias was not neces-sary to dominate elections.

bribing editors or reporters, contributing heavily in advertising funds, orby offering publishers or editors public jobs

city agencies to destroy evidence, provide extended leaves to potentialwitnesses, and otherwise prevent people from cooperating with prosecu-tors

somecoalitionsachievedcontrolprimarilythroughtheuseofgovernmentresourcesforpoliticalend

They fall alonga spectrum.

but also to advantage those who have already won.

Put simply, the decentralized neighbor-hood control of district elections may trade spatially concen-trated inequalities (new housing units) for a spatially diffuseburden (citywide housing costs)

First, we find that district elections constrain the ability ofcities to permit new housing.

substantiverepresentation for racial minorities

We find that moving to district elections signifi-cantly decreases the disparity in permitting between whiteand minority neighborhoods.

Figure 2

As before, we remove the middle tercile of data

The positive in-teraction term in both models suggests that the effect of districtelections is smaller and less predictable in cities with larger andless overrepresented majority populations.

suggesting that citieswith lower levels of segregation may experience less dramaticchange from district elections.

new equilibrium that was below their pretreat-ment levels and below their causal counterfactual.

selection into districtelections on the basis of past permitting behavior and pre-emptive changes to housing outcomes in anticipation of elec-toral reform.

we interact the treatment in-dicator with an indicator for being in the top or bottom tercileon segregation

districtit

ri 1 ht 1 zi t

housing units permitted.

that would ultimately switch to districts, that havemore than 50,000 residents, and where there is at least oneunderrepresented minority that comprises more than 20% ofthe population

there was a great deal of random chance in thetiming of treatment

Race will become less predictive of a neighbor-hood’s housing burden under district elections com-pared to at-large, all else equal.

District elections will decrease the permitting ofmultifamily housing in cities where the council ma-jority is significantly overrepresentative of that racialgroup’s population share

District elections will decrease the permitting ofmultifamily housing in cities with low majoritypopulations.

Next, existing research has found the effect of districtelections on descriptive representation to be greatest in citieswith large shares of minority residents, where majority-minoritydistricts can be more easily drawn

District elections will decrease the permitting ofmultifamily housing in residentially segregated cities.

First, district elections are more likely to improve descrip-tive representation when minorities are segregated enough toform majority-minority districts

District elections will primarily decrease thepermitting of multifamily rather than single-familyhousing.

Counterintuitively, renters may op-pose new market-rate housing not only because it harms theirquality of life but also because they believe it will attract demandto their neighborhoods, causing rents in their neighborhoods toincrease

As a result, the six-unitproject is largely insulated from political pressure that couldeither downsize or even block the proposal.

finds that a nationwide sample of cities that switchedto district elections between 1980 and 2018 experienced adecline in housing units permitted annually

they are incentivized toshift LULUs out of their districts

, generally meaningwealthier, more highly educated white voters

but pricesout those seeking to move to cities with high upward incomemobility, exacerbating long-run income inequality

unwanted housing is morelikely to be concentrated in minority neighborhoods, all elseequal

endsthe disproportionate channeling of new housing into mi-nority neighborhoods, causing cities to more equally dis-tribute new housing between their majority and minorityconstituencies.

decreases the permitting of multifamily housing

Or, they may be assignedto smaller, single-member districts, with each citizen voting foronly one candidate (district elections).

Because LULUs are perceived to threatenthe property values, safety, or general quality of life of nearbyresidents, they historically have been channeled into the po-litically weakest areas

Central to the70democratic experience is contact with difference—other races, other nationalities, other economic classes,other language groups. And, too often, the end of urbanism has undermined that experience by promotingsocial homogeneity within municipalities, leading to the evolution of regional hierarchies in which“purified communities”

It is kept primarily by an intricate, almostunconscious, network of voluntary controls and standards among the people themselves, and enforcedby the people themselves.

to be an active agent in society, and to do sowithin the relatively public setting of city life.

it seemed quite sensible to put as many fetters as possibleon the rascals in fedora hats—whomever they might be at a given moment.

Even when stategovernment permits a city to impose a particular tax on its residents or property owners, the extent of anyexaction must be carefully limited—lest those most able to pay depart, leaving behind only those least ableto do so. Or consider school integration. If a central city rigorously integrates its schools, and white

Like any other corporation, cities can lobby in statecapitols for more favorable treatment, but they have no power of their own to set these basic policies, evenas they apply within municipal limits

but by the will of the legislature asset forth in some statute. The city is not merely the creature of the legislative will, it may be and often isthe helpless victim of legislative caprice.

A city is the only collective body in America that cannot do something simply because itdecides to do it. Instead, under American law, cities have power only if state governments authorize themto act.

It will allow entrepreneurs to develop firms in endlessvariety and to quickly respond to emerging consumer needs. It will protect residents and visitors alikeagainst crime, disease, and risk of fire. Almost as important, it will protect city people against thedebilitating of crime, epidemic, and fire. It will generate and maintain an appropriate housing stock,fearand infrastructure to support it. It will provide for the education and civilizing of children, and it willprovide relevant indoctrination for newcomers. It will find ways to protect the weak and helpless, althoughit may very well resist making this service to humanity the special and unique role of one municipality inan entire region.

may providelimited illumination of the second question (about governance of what matters most to a city and itspeople).

but they would make those moves at a disadvantage

But Ford and hisproduction engineers determined more about New Haven and hundreds of other cities than did anyoneliving in those places at the time

the suburban idea wasembedded in the American scene

Freedom seemed for many to lie in escape to open space beyond city limits.

its rotten tenements, its failed sanitation, itsvulnerability to epidemic, its corrupt building inspectors, its clattering factories, its sulphurous chimneys,its manure-strewn avenues, the rudeness of its poor, and the avarice of kleptocratic party bosses.

Economic citizenship, expressed as the ownership and active management of enterprise,generally coincided with political citizenship, expressed as local residence and electoralparticipation

This was driven less by taste than by economic and technological forces thatcompelled those engaged in either industrial work and management, or in the operation of otherenterprises, to live fairly close to the job

social cohesion, a localized network of relationships,and an important stream of income to proprietors.

retailspace supported by employee wages

Within a few years, the balance would shift perceptibly toward a44dispersion of residential population, work activities, and commerce—and toward what I will call the end ofurbanism

Their yearly numbers averaged more than 500,000 for the five decades, rising to nearly a35million (994,000) each year from 1904 through 191

The inevitable consequence of this was that industry was concentrated in compact anddensely populated industrial towns, or directly along the waterfront in sea ports.

Railway transportoverthrew, for the first time in history, the natural barriers which had hitherto prevented too great aconcentration of industry in any urban center. The great cities of the world up to that date indeed had beenstill built up primarily for political, military, or religious importance rather than their commercial orindustrial functions; from 1830 onwards the latter were to predominate.

rushed outward-bound manufactured goods to continental markets.

mmigration allowing accelerated growth in thesupply of urban labor; and a delayed and uneven spreading out and implementation ofdistance-compressing technologies such as alternating current (AC) electricity

nationalmarkets accessible from centralcity manufacturing plants

an agricultural revolution allowing the nation to supportmore and larger urban centers

absence of fast, flexible transportation capable of linking peripheral locations to thecentral city

creative

but instead by the rapid accumulation of small changes.

In seeking ever fresh forms of production, ever larger markets, ever higher returns oninvestment, capitalism routinely destroys older ways of doing business, older technologies, olderplants—and in so doing profoundly transforms the communities that have formed around them

Capitalism drives growth by remorselessly refusing to preserve the past

capitalism creates new wealth and new demands for itsconsumption scarcely imaginable at the outset.

These buildings, along with the wavy asphalt parking lot on Crown Street,are material artifacts from the end of urbanism

Even as the Depression set in, the city churned out enough demand that a smart kid could find his way intothe money stream on a weekend’s notice

Scarcely discernable in these few artifacts is a city in its era of urbanism

his store’s decrepitude

He needs to be good, because New EnglandTypewriter & Stationery is under water.

Third, dam removalsare more likely when states are in better fiscal health, willing to innovate inrelated policy areas, and pressured by pro-change advocates

Status quo interests

While this diffusion has been particularly noticeable insome regions, several outlier states have also pursued significant river res-toration.

caused substantial environmental damage

33 states had established riverprotection programs

Secretary of the Interior Babbittnoted that the Quaker Neck removal would stimulate creative thinking atdam sites across the country

Over 300 dams havebeen removed from United States' rivers

in orderto restore migratory fish routes on the Neuse River.

Historically, the U.S. government hasdeferred to the states in matters of water allocation, use, and managemen

clean up American waterways and setaside portions of rivers as wild and scenic

with water interests and members of Congress eagerto bring home capital water projects, like dams

institutional variables may play a greater role for less controversial policies

I hypothesize that the more entrenchedthe status quo becomes, the less likely that policy reversal will occur.

States are more likely to adopt policy innovations for which their citizensexpress a demand.

Accordingly, Ihypothesize that state fiscal stress will deter policy reversals.

will be less consequential in predicting policy reversal