Policies on the Move: The Transatlantic Travels of Tax Increment Financing

Abstract

Growing influence of the new mobilities paradigm among human geographers has combined with a long and rich disciplinary tradition of studying the movement of things and people. Yet how policy ideas and knowledge are mobilized remains a notably underdeveloped area of inquiry. In this article, we discuss the mobilization of policy ideas and policy models as a particularly powerful type of mobile knowledge. The article examines the burgeoning academic work on policy mobilities and points toward a growing policy mobilities approach in the literature, noting the multidisciplinary conversations behind the approach as well as the key commitments of many of its advocates. This approach is illustrated using the travels of tax increment financing (TIF) with the role of learning and market-making within efforts to introduce TIF in more cities highlighted. In conclusion, we discuss some of the political and practical limits that often confront efforts to mobilize policy ideas.

人文地理学者的崭新能动性范例逐渐增加的影响, 与研究事物和人的移动的长久及丰富的学门传统相互结合。但政策概念与知识如何被动员, 显然仍是发展不足的研究领域。我们于本文中, 探讨政策概念和政策模型的动员, 作为特别强大的移动知识之类型。本文检视迅速兴起的政策能动性之学术研究, 并指向文献中逐渐成长的政策能动性取径, 关注该取径背后的多重领域对话, 及其诸多倡议中的关键承诺。此般取径, 运用税收增值信贷 (TIF) 的移动进行描绘, 并凸显将 TIF 引进更多城市的努力中, 学习和市场创造所扮演的角色。我们于结论中, 探讨经常与动员政策概念的努力相互冲突的部分政治及实际限制。

La creciente influencia del nuevo paradigma de las movilidades entre los geógrafos humanos se combina con una larga y rica tradición disciplinaria en el estudio del movimiento de cosas y personas. No obstante, la manera como se movilizan ideas políticas y conocimiento sigue siendo un área de indagación notoriamente subdesarrollada. En este artículo discutimos sobre la movilización de ideas políticas y modelos de política como un tipo particularmente poderoso de conocimiento móvil. El artículo examina el pujante trabajo académico sobre movilidades políticas y destaca la notoria aplicación del enfoque de movilidades políticas en la literatura, notando las conversaciones multidisciplinarias que se desarrollan detrás de ese enfoque lo mismo que los compromisos claves de muchos de sus defensores. Este enfoque se ilustra usando los viajes del financiamiento del incremento tributario (TIF, por su acrónimo inglés), destacando el papel de aprender y crear mercado dentro de los esfuerzos por introducir el TIF en más ciudades. En conclusión, discutimos algunos de los límites políticos y prácticos que a veces tienen que confrontar los esfuerzos emprendidos para movilizar las ideas sobre política.

Key Words:

• policy mobilities
• tax increment financing
• urban redevelopment

关键词：:

• 政策能动性
• 税收增值信贷
• 城市再发展。

Palabras clave:

• movilidades de política
• financiamiento del incremento tributario
• renovación urbana

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge all those that have contributed to this article through their comments at various conferences and on various papers over the years. More specifically, we thank Graham Bowden at the University of Manchester for generating Figure 1. The paper is better for the comments from three anonymous reviewers and the Editor, Mei-Po Kwan. Responsibility for the arguments here are ours alone.

Notes

1. More details are available at http://www.cdfa.net/cdfa/cdfaweb.nsf/pages/about.html (last accessed 10 Septem-ber 2014).

2. This is in contrast to borrowing against already realized revenue streams, which is the case for the issuing of general obligation (GO) bonds that are backed by the full faith and credit of the issuing (borrowing) government.

3. The focus of this article is not the arguments for and against the use of TIF (on which see Man 2001; Jonas and McCarthy 2009; Briffault 2010).

4. The full speech is available at http://www.libdemvoice.org/full-text-nick-cleggs-speech-to-liberal-democrat-autumn-conference-21236.html (last accessed 8 September 2014). This was an attempt by Clegg on behalf of the Liberal Democrats to distinguish their approach to financial decentralization and the empowering of local government from that of their coalition partners, the Conservatives.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tom Baker

TOM BAKER is a Lecturer in the School of Environment at the University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include urban politics, public policy, and social service provision.

Ian R. Cook

IAN R. COOK is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences and Languages at Northumbria University, Newcastle, NE1 8ST, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include the policy mobilities of urban development strategies, the policing of urban space, and the representation of cities in film and television.

Eugene McCann

EUGENE McCANN is a Professor in the Department of Geography at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include policy mobilities, urban politics, planning, and social policy, with an emphasis on the politics of urban drug policy.

Cristina Temenos

CRISTINA TEMENOS is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities Center at Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115. E-mail: [email protected]. She is an urban geographer interested in the ways in which social movements produce and mobilize knowledge about human rights and social justice to advocate for policy change in cities and the ways in which policy mobilities remake urban spaces to contribute to reconceptualizing contemporary urbanism.

Kevin Ward

KEVIN WARD is a Professor in Geography, School of Environment, Education and Development, and Director of cities@manchester (www.cities.manchester.ac.uk), University of Manchester, Manchester, M21 8UP, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include comparative urbanism, economic and social governance, policy mobilities, and urban and regional political economy.