How did the recession affect the more entrepreneurial functions of the local state? Economic development was one of few areas of discretionary spending that local governments could cut or defer in response to mid-budget cycle revenue shortfalls. Did cities maintain or alter their approach to facilitating private development in the years following the crisis?
Category: Academic
Austerity as the New Normal: The Fiscal Politics of Retrenchment in San Jose, California
Across the world’s most industrialized economies, the financial crisis of 2007 caused a contraction of state budgets and stimulated attempts to reform debt-burdened governments. In the United States, a system of fiscal federalism meant this turn towards austerity took a uniquely fragmented and geographically diverse form. Drawing on case studies of recent urban restructuring, Cities under…
Structurally adjusting: Narratives of fiscal crisis in four US cities
The Great Recession unleashed a wave of fiscal stress in the USA, with austerity measures such as spending cuts, service reductions and privatisation predictably taking centre stage. Decades of federal withdrawal from urban policy and funding, combined with state retrenchment, have contributed to a landscape of urban fiscal stress exacerbated by the prolonged effects of…