Who's in Charge Here?Urban Political Economy: Broward County Florida by Ronald K. VogelReview by: Gregory D. SquiresPublic Administration Review, Vol. 53, No. 2 (Mar. - Apr., 1993), pp. 182-183Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Society for Public AdministrationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/976719 .

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1992). In the first article, Bullock and Moore describe the total estimating pro- cess, citing their use of the State of Texas Econometric Model (STEM), along with a variety of other sources. Perryman then describes the Econometric Model of the State of Texas, which is apparently, but not explicitly, described as the model used by the comptroller's office. The two articles are presented as complementary perspectives on the Texas revenue esti- mating process, but the reader is left to try to figure out the relationship between the econometric model's archi- tect and the comptroller's office users.

Perhaps a failure to define the appro- priate audience for this volume con- tributes to its uneven quality. The audi- ence, according to the editor and contributor, Aman Khan, is intended be the "general reader" (Preface); one is left wondering who this general reader might be. As those of us who teach budgeting well know, students, who have some incentive to complete their assigned readings, may be motivated more by necessity than desire to read about government activities. That the general public might seize upon this volume is unlikely. The ingredients for general appeal are missing. For exam- ple, with the exception of the Wiggins and Hamm article, the contributions are curiously unpeopled; that is, little atten- tion is given to the impact of actors whose decisions affect resource alloca- tion. I refer readers to Glen Hahn Cope's description of former Governor Bill Clements' introduction of a policy budget to strengthen his policy leader- ship role through the budgetary process (Clynch and Lauth, 1991). Cope leaves the reader with the taste of adversarial controversy and enlivens our under- standing of the Texas budgeting process by describing potentially change-forcing events.

A final and distressing problem with this volume is its multiple errors in style. This is a volume I would hesitate to assign students without major caveats as to the quality of the writing and the edit- ing. Some errors are merely distracting. Capitalization usage is inconsistent even in a single sentence. Other errors appear sloppy. Sentence subject and verbs are mismatched, words mis- spelled, and phrases, perhaps sentences, omitted. Unfortunately, factual errors,

such as the statement that only three states other than Texas have a personal income tax, also exist. The reader is left wondering whether other errors, typo- graphical or substantive, could mislead one's interpretation of the content.

The unevenness of the collection tends to overshadow some fine articles. Less than thoughtful editing allowed errors to mar otherwise competent research and failed to coordinate the contributors coherently. With these editing oversights in mind, however, researchers will find some excellent descriptive information valuable to understanding budgeting in a single state.

References Clynch, Edward and Thomas Lauth, eds., 1991.

Governors, Legislatures, and Budgets. Divenity Across the American States. New York: Greenwood Press.

Hovey, Harold A. and Katherine Clatanoff, 1992. "Thoughts on the Effects the Recession Is Having on State and Local Governments." In American Society for Public Administration Section on Budgeting and Financial Management, News & Views (Spring), pp. 1, 3.

National Conference of State Legislatures, 1988. Legislative Budget Procedures in the 50 States. Denver: NCSL.

Who's in Charge Here? by Gregory D. Squires, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Ronald K. Vogel, Urban Political Economy: Broward County Florida (Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 1992), 160 pp.; $24.95 cloth.

H ow do deals get done? Who decides? Who benefits? For decades scholars and practition-

ers have spoken past each other with pluralists focusing on governmental decision making and elite theorists delineating the authority of private actors. In recent years, a political econ- omy perspective has re-emerged provid- ing at least the beginnings of a synthesis of these dominant traditions, shedding new light on the question of who gov- erns and opening up possibilities for influencing and altering that process at the local level. Ronald K. Vogel persua- sively argues the need to understand decision making in government and

business along with the interrelation- ships among representatives of both sec- tors in order to understand community decision making. If Vogel's advocacy of a political economy approach is not exactly a new message in 1992, this does not diminish the importance of his argument, or the fact that it simply has not been adequately heeded by either policy makers nor scholars alike.

Borrowing extensively from Clarence Stone's concept of regime, "the informal arrangements by which public bodies and private interests function together in order to be able to make and carry out governing decisions" (p. 16). Vogel examines community decision making in Broward County Florida. Broward County is the state's second largest county which includes the city of Fort Lauderdale. He used a two-step reputa- tional analysis to identify and interview a total of 31 individuals described by knowledgeable residents as influential citizens in the community. From his research in Broward County and primar- ily from his review of the literature on other cities he develops a typology of regimes in U.S. cities.

In Broward County Vogel found widespread sentiment that decision making was highly fragmented with many unfortunate consequences for the community. Simply put, things could not get done. There was less economic development than in more centralized communities. The county received less than its fair share from the state legisla- ture. It could not recruit good legisla- tive candidates. There was "difficulty putting together 'big deals"' (p. 47). Consequently, people tended to drift into and out of leadership positions. Part of the problem may have been the county's rapid growth. The population grew from just under 84,000 people in 1950 to over 1.2 million in 1990. With 29 cities and 16 chambers of commerce in the county, another critical problem was fragmentation in the structure of both the public and private sectors.

Vogel describes efforts in govern- ment and business to centralize commu- nity decision making. Such efforts met with mixed results. Both sectors recog- nized the need to work collaboratively, illustrating Lindblom's notion of the "privileged position of business," he found that business carried more influ-

182 Public Administmrion Review * March/April 1993, Vol. 53, No. 2

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ence than other interests. However, Vogel warns against assuming that busi- ness always dominates because at times the state can exercise significant inde- pendence.

The key variable of Vogel's typology of regimes is the degree of centraliza- tion. Where both the political and eco- nomic structures are decentralized, hyperpluralism exists, in which "The community, for all practical purposes, is ungoverned" (p. 113), a condition he says applied to Broward County in the 1970s. Where the economic structure is centralized but the political structure is decentralized, an economic elite domi- nates local decision making with the pri- mary focus on the maintenance of a good business climate. Conversely, a political elite is relatively more powerful where the political structure is central- ized but the economic structure is not. Even under these circumstances, Vogel argues, "business still is privileged" (p. 115) but more equality among diverse interests exists. Finally, where both structures are centralized, a tendency towards cooperation prevails. Both sec- tors more explicitly recognize their dependence on each other, particularly when it comes to competing with other communities to capture the benefits of economic growth. Vogel then places various cities within each of these four categories. The primary value of this exercise is to nurture an understanding of the linkages between institutional structure and behavioral outcomes rather than to definitively categorize diverse communities.

The analysis of Broward County and the proposed typology are both enlight- ening and frustrating. Vogel is undoubt-

edly correct in emphasizing the impor- tance of examining public and private sector actions and relationships in order to understand community decision mak- ing and to identify opportunities for var- ious parties, not just the local state, to influence it. That local government has room to exercise significant indepen- dence under selected conditions is an important lesson. The fact that local decision making can shape policy out- puts and the quality of life in cities pro- vides hope for many residents and chal- lenges for scholars and public officials.

Significant actors are left out of Vogel's formula and some ideological blinders limit the scope of his inquiry. He has virtually no discussion of the role of unions, community organizations (e.g. Alinsky-style protest groups, non- profit service providers, and develop- ment corporations), civil rights groups, and others outside the orbit of govern- ment and business. Such groups may have no significant impact on decision making in Broward County, but that is not the case in many other cities. (Vogel acknowledges the role of unions in Detroit, but there are many more cases where these entities do participate, or where their non-participation is an ongoing issue).

Particularly in his conclusion, Vogel's discussion focuses too narrowly on what he refers to as conservative and liberal approaches to growth. One conse- quence of this limited focus is a tenden- cy to assume a more sweeping commit- ment to centralization than in fact prevails. He concludes that "In an era of neoconservative politics emanating from the national level, it is considered critical for communities to centralize

their decision making, whether in gov- ernment, the private sector, or both, in order to pursue policies that enhance the business climate of the community" (p. 124). This ignores the commitment to balanced development on the part of Harold Washington in Chicago that has been widely documented by Rob Mier and several other scholars and former members of that short-lived administra- tion. It also ignores Norman Krumholz' notion of equity planning-where the city utilizes its resources to improve the quality of life of current residents rather than to attract more people-which he practiced as Director of the City of Cleveland Planning Commission and has subsequently written about extensively. And it ignores Peter Eisinger's notion of demand side policies that focus on gen- erating real new capital and markets locally in lieu of supply side incentives to attract mobile capital. These and other approaches to local decision mak- ing and development - proposed by political economy theorists and practi- tioners - challenge traditional approach- es and do so in large part by advocating decentralization of decision making by bringing in groups that have traditionally been locked out of the process.

Despite these limitations, Vogel has raised many of the right questions and he has provided critical guidance for scholars in their efforts to understand community decision making. More importantly, Urban Political Economy provides valuable insights on how lead- ers in the public and private sector and other residents of the nation's cities can shape policy outputs and improve the quality of urban life.

Book Reviews 183

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