Pragmatic municipalism or austerity urbanism? Understanding local government responses to fiscal stress

ABSTRACT

While national governments responded to the Great Recession with austerity, local government responses were varied. Two contrasting views are found in the literature: ‘austerity urbanism’ and ‘pragmatic municipalism’. We argue austerity urbanism best reflects local responses in contexts where local governments have limited autonomy and cuts in local government aid have been severe, such as Detroit in the US, England, and the southern states in the EU. Pragmatic municipalism best explains local responses in contexts where local governments have more fiscal autonomy, as in the US. Differences in state-local relations as well as methodology (case study or large-scale analysis) lead to these two different views. While responses to fiscal stress differ, we find the process opens up local government services to more marketisation in both contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Local government
• austerity urbanism
• pragmatic municipalism
• fiscal stress
• Great Recession

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. A similar search in SCOPUS, which is considered to be a little less biased towards the English language and a better tool to analyse publications in social sciences in Europe, shows 6,004 results in the 2009–2019 period and of these, 2,429 results are from the UK (followed by 861 from the USA, 333 from Italy, 327 from Spain, 291 from Greece) and 5,734 results are in English (followed by 113 in Spanish, 56 in German).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported in part by funding from the Agricultural and Food Research Initiative Competitive Program of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) [2017-67023-26226].

Notes on contributors

Yunji Kim

Yunji Kim is an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University (Korea). Her research focuses on how local governments collect revenues and deliver services within the constraints of demography, economy, and state policy; and how these choices shape community wellbeing. More information can be found at www.yunjikim.com.

Mildred E. Warner

Mildred E. Warner is Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University. Her research is on local government finance and service delivery, and economic development, environmental and social policy. Current work looks at state policy, remunicipalization, and the links between planning and public health. Her website is www.mildredwarner.org.