Master Degree Paper for Public Administration

Does Anyone Care about the Poor? The Role of Redistribution in Mayoral Policy Agendas Author(s): J. Wesley Leckrone, Michelle Atherton, Nicole Crossey, Andrea Stickley and Meghan E. Rubado Source: State & Local Government Review, Vol. 47, No. 4, Special Issue: Economic Polarization and Challenges to Subnational Governments (December 2015), pp. 240-254 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24640422 Accessed: 10-06-2020 16:15 UTC

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Article

Does Anyone Care about the Poor? The Role of

Redistribution in Mayoral Policy Agendas

State and Local Government Review

2015, Vol. 47(4) 240-254 ) The Author(s) 2016

rvepnncs ana permission:

sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0160323X15624473

slgr.sagepub.com

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J. Wesley Leckrone1, Michelle Atherton2, Nicole Crossey1, Andrea Stickley3, and Meghan E. Rubado4

Abstract

Income inequality is widening in the United States, particularly in large cities. This study analyzes whether mayors address this issue through redistributive policies or economic development. State of the City addresses from 45 of the 50 largest cities were examined using the Policy Agendas framework. The findings show that mayors favor economic development over redistribution. There is no evidence that demographic characteristics of cities affect a mayor's attention to social welfare programs. Mayors focusing on economic development come from poorer and more conservative cities. A large negative effect is found on economic development attention for segregated and highly nonwhite cities.

Keywords income inequality, State of the City speeches, city policy agendas, mayors, poverty

Introduction

The populations of many major cities in the United States have begun to grow again. This has been driven primarily by an educated, afflu ent professional class that likes the diversity and cultural life of cities (Clark et al. 2002; Nielsen 2014). Gentrification has demographic consequences as new arrivals often displace lower-income groups that have been part of the city population through the years of decline (Sturtevant 2014). The income gap between these groups has the potential to lead to policy conflict. However, research has shown that a new political culture has developed in some cit ies that places a value on addressing postmater ial issues such as income inequality (Deleon

and Naff 2004; Deslatte 2015; Sharp 2005). This article examines whether redistributive

issues relating to income inequality and the

' Department of Political Science, Widener University, Chester, PA, USA

2 Institute for Public Affairs, Temple University, Philadel

phia, PA, USA 3 Delaware Law School, Widener University, Wilmington, DE, USA

4 Department of Political Science, Temple University, Phi ladelphia, PA, USA

Corresponding Author: J. Wesley Leckrone, Department of Political Science, Widener

University, One University Place, Chester, PA 19013, USA

Email: [email protected]

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Leckrone et al. 241

poor are part of current mayoral agendas or whether traditional issues of economic devel

opment still predominate. The research focuses on two primary questions: (1) how prevalent are redistributive and economic development issues on mayors' agendas and (2) is the atten tion given to these issues differentiated by the characteristics of the individual cities?

This article discusses the literature on local

redistributive politics and finds that changes in the American political culture may have resulted in a heightened awareness of inequal ity and more willingness to address the policy issues related to poverty. Hypotheses derived from the literature are then tested by coding 138 State of the City (SOTC) speeches with the Policy Agendas coding scheme. The results are analyzed by exploring how mayors discuss issues of poverty and a multivariate analysis of the types of cities most likely to focus atten tion on redistributive and economic develop ment issues.

Income Inequality and Cities Income inequality in the United States has increased dramatically over the last several decades. Prosperity was shared across income classes in the post-World War II period. The fortunes of economic classes began to diverge in the 1970s. Since 1979, the after tax income of the top 1 percent of Americans has increased 200 percent, while the middle 60 percent and the bottom 20 percent have only grown 40 percent and 48 percent (Stone et al. 2015, 9). The Gini Indexes measuring inequality have increased on the basis of market income, before-tax income

and after-tax income during this same period (Congressional Budget Office 2014,26). Ameri cans have shown tepid support for redistributive

politics because they have underestimated the amount of inequality in the nation (Partridge and

Weinstein 2013,405). However, as the country heads into the 2016 presidential contest, the elec torate has become more concerned with addres

sing the wealth gap between rich and poor (Scheiber and Sussman 2015).

Traditionally, scholars have focused on the impact of economic inequality in metropolitan

areas. As the affluent fled cities in the post World War II period, the focus was on the eco nomic divide between suburbs and increasingly impoverished cities. However, as urban areas have gained population, attention has turned to the effects of income inequality within cities.

A Brookings Institution study of the fifty larg est cities in the United States showed that the

income inequality in these areas exceeded the national average (Berube 2014). Urban eco nomic inequality has been linked to class and racial segregation, both of which have negative effects on economic mobility (Pew Charitable Trusts 2013). This has given rise to the notion of "dual cities" where

The postindustrral economy provides lucrative employment in financial and business services for those with the necessary education and skills,

while, at the other end of the spectrum, low skilled workers are relegated to the low wage ser

vice jobs that have replaced manufacturing jobs paying middleclass wages. (Reichl 2007, 665)

At the local level, big city mayors have tra ditionally focused on economic development and avoided redistribution (Longoria 1994; Saiz 1999). However, some local governments have begun to address issues of inequality in the absence of policy activity by the federal and state governments (Bergal 2015). Citizens now expect attention to poverty issues to be part of the mix of services provided by their local gov ernment (Abels 2014, 3). This is difficult since local governments face a "new normal" of lim ited resources and scaled back programs in post-Great Recession America (Martin, Levey, and Cawley 2012).

Restraints on Urban Redistributive Policies

Local governments in the United States are ill suited to address issues of income inequality in the American federal system. Peterson (1981, 1995) argues that city policy is subject to polit ical and economic limitations because of the

mobility of both capital and taxpayers across jurisdictional boundaries. Given limited policy options, cities champion developmental policies

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242 State and Local Government Review 47(4)

that focus on expanding the urban tax base while avoiding redistributive policies that could put them at a competitive disadvantage with other cities trying to attract economic growth. Logan and Molotch (1987) find that urban policy, particularly economic and land use policies, is driven by the "growth machine" of business interests backed by polit ical actors against city property owners and renters. Finally, Clarence Stone (1989) con tends that in order to interpret the dynamics of city government, one must recognize the weaknesses of formal government structures and the informal arrangements among nongo vernment elites and business interests that

thwart redistributive policy. In sum, most clas sic theories of urban policy stress the difficulty cities face when using redistributive politics to address income inequality.

However, other strains of literature add complexity to the reasons behind city officials' focus on developmental policy (Miranda and Rosdil 1995, 870-71). The transition to a post industrial economy has balanced the need to chase industrial relocation with the imperative to create the conditions for attracting a highly educated workforce. The concentration of this

demographic group entices business relocation as well as innovative start-up firms that create economic growth (Wolman and Spitzley 1996, 122). Under this scenario, developmental policy includes not only satisfying the needs of businesses but also establishing the urban ame nities that attract a desirable workforce (Clark et al. 2002). This group is drawn to city life because of urban diversity, tolerant attitudes, compact neighborhoods served by mass transit, and abundant social and cultural activities

(Deslatte 2015, S69-70; Florida 2003; Sharp 2005).

Whether cities seek to attract business or an

educated workforce, their priority in adopting developmental policies is to create economic growth that establishes a competitive advan tage over rival urban areas. The underlying the ory with managing income inequality and poverty is that economic growth will create jobs and fund educational and workforce devel opment programs that address issues of income

inequality and poverty. Traditionally, redistri butive policies are left to the federal or state governments to initiate and fund with little policy innovation coming from cities (Craw 2006, 377).

Federalism's disincentive for local redistri

butive policy may be exacerbated by income inequality. As cities become more economi cally stratified, they have a tendency to become more segregated on the basis of income (Florida and Mellander 2015). This can hurt support for redistributive policies on two counts. First, segregation produces more group stratification because individuals spend less time interacting with different classes. This results in less identification and empathy with the problems faced by the poor and may make wealthier individuals less willing to support redistribution. Second, residents of wealthier urban enclaves have the means to create their

own extra-governmental service structures through privatized services. This makes them less reliant on the provision of local govern ment services than the poor and consequently less likely to support more government spend ing on services that might mitigate the effects of income inequality (Essletzbichler 2015, 44^t5). Such a policy agenda can be particu larly detrimental to social mobility when racial as well as economic, segregation predominates (Jaret, Reid, and Adelman 2003, 306-8).

Support for Urban Redistributive Policies

Despite impediments to local redistributive policies, there are signs that the widening income gap may be leading to a new type of politics. Goetz argues that

the impact of uneven economic development within cities, the creation of wealth next to poverty

generally seen as a byproduct of economic restric

ting. . .contributes to the creation of a political environment conducive to more progressive pol

icy... [resulting in] an alternative and more redis

tributive development process. (1994: 103)

This shift is the result of a new type of pol itics that has been alternatively termed

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Leckrone et al. 243

postmaterial (Sheppard 2013), new political culture (Clark et al. 2002), unconventional pol itics (Sharp 2005), and progressive politics (Rosdil 2011). The nuances of each theory dif fer, but the overall trends show the emergence of a highly educated, affluent group of citizens that is more secular and willing to challenge traditional social structures and institutions.

Their primary political focus is no longer on using government to benefit their social class, since their own material security has been achieved. Rather, politics revolves around issues such as equality, inclusion, and sustain ability. There are indications that cities popu lated by a wealthy elite that are driven by postmaterial values might be challenging the structural and economic impediments to local adoption of redistributive policy. Rosdil (2010, 108) argues that while this new politics does not reject developmental policy, it does focus on holding business and government accountable for the "social costs that business

activity generates." One component of this pol itics is assistance for the disadvantaged that have not prospered during the resurgence of cities.

Hypotheses Literature on redistributive policies in Ameri can cities creates competing, if not completely mutually exclusive, claims. Traditionally, scholars saw redistributive policies as an impe diment to attracting business development and citizens seeking a low-tax environment. This is countered by a new class of urban residents predisposed to challenging the old growth pol itics in favor of new policies combating poverty and encouraging economic mobility for the dis advantaged. This article tests whether redistri butive policies are part of the priorities of cities or whether urban agendas focus more on developmental politics. It also examines whether some cities are more likely to focus on the politics of poverty than others. The fol lowing hypotheses test findings from previous literature concerning redistributive policies using an analysis of the contemporary agendas of big city mayors.

Despite anecdotal evidence that urban pol icy makers are paying more attention to redis tributive issues, they will remain secondary to economic development on mayors' agendas. Previous research shows that mayors focus on increasing the competitive advantage of their cities through economic development. As a result:

Hypothesis 1: More attention will be given to economic development issues than to redistributive policy.

Demographic characteristics of cities should make some mayors more likely to place redis tributive issues on their agenda than others. Racial characteristics of the city should be one of those factors. Since minorities are dispropor tionately affected by income inequality, there should be a relationship between the diversity of a city and redistribution. However, segrega tion in cities prevents interaction among races that would lead to empathy for the disadvan taged. As a result, it is expected that racially segregated cities would be less prone to focus ing on redistribution.

Hypothesis 2: Attention to redistributive issues will increase as the minority popula tion of a city increases. Attention to eco nomic development issues will increase as the minority population of a city decreases.

Hypothesis 3: Attention to redistributive issues will decrease as cities become more

racially segregated. Attention to economic development issues will increase as cities become more racially segregated.

Residential income will have an effect on

mayor's attention to redistributive issues. Poorer cities lack a residential or commercial

base that can accommodate redistribution. Con

sequently, they will focus on attracting busi nesses and affluent taxpayers. Traditionally, local officials avoided advocating for economic redistribution because it would create an

outflow of business and wealthy residents. However, a new politics has emerged where educated, wealthy citizens are focusing less

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244 State and Local Government Review 47(4)

on their own economic status and more on the

need to help the poor. As a result:

Hypothesis 4: Attention to redistributive issues will increase in cities with lower pov erty rates. Attention to economic develop ment issues will increase in cities with

higher poverty rates.

Hypothesis 5: Cities with higher median incomes will focus more attention on redis tributive issues. Cities with lower median

incomes will focus more on economic

development.

Finally, the rise of a new politics in support of local redistributive policy might not be pres ent in every city. Consequently, it is expected that mayors from politically liberal cities would be more likely to place redistribution on the agenda while economic development would remain the focus of mayors from conservative cities.

Hypothesis 6: Attention to redistributive issues will increase in cities that are more lib

eral. Attention to economic development will increase in cities that are more conservative.

SOTC Speeches Scholars studying Policy Agendas often engage in textual analysis of presidents (Lim 2002; Schonhardt-Bailey, Yager, and Lahlou 2012) and governors (Coffey 2005; DiLeo 1997, 2001; Ferguson 2003; Weinberg 2010). Annual addresses such as the State of the Union or State

of the State are useful because they provide an inventory of the chief executive's priorities for the year and also guide the agenda setting pro cess for their governments (Coffey 2005, 89 90). This article builds on the use of executive speeches by analyzing mayors' SOTC addresses to determine whether they speak to economic inequality. Absent survey data or individual interviews with mayors, the addresses serve as an excellent database of the policy priorities of a large group of city chief executives.

There are, of course, drawbacks to using SOTC speeches. For example, Gerber and

Hopkins (2011) find that the intergovernmental constraints on local governments often prohibit drastic shifts in policy spending by mayors of different parties. They argue that "the struc tural and political constraints imposed on local government officials largely nullify their abil ity to enact their preferred policies or respond to the preferences of partisan majorities in the local electorate" (p. 337). However, within the guise of these restraints, mayors have been shown to be able to affect policy changes within their cities (Wolman, Strate, and Mel chior 1996). It is also important to note that the priorities discussed in SOTC addresses are not limited to actions undertaken solely by one level of government. Mayors can also use their speeches to call for action by the federal and state governments on issues where they lack the funding or capacity to initiate programs at the city level. Finally, unlike State of the Union or State of the State speeches given before spe cial joint sessions of legislatures, SOTC addresses are generally delivered before busi ness groups like the local Chamber of Com merce. It is possible that the text of speeches given before these groups could be influenced by business' focus on economic growth poli cies (Clingermayer and Feiock 1990). How ever, SOTC addresses showcase a mayor's agenda for the forthcoming year and the media reports their contents to the general public. There is always a political context to the deliv ery of speeches and it is unlikely that the venue has much impact on the overall agenda of a mayor.

Collection of these speeches is problematic for three reasons: (1) not all mayors give them, (2) the full text of speeches is not always released by the mayor or is not available from media outlets, and (3) speeches are often purged from official websites when administra tions change. Since there is no single repository of SOTC addresses, more than two years was spent compiling a database. The initial vehicle for locating speeches was typing "[City Name] 2013 State of the City Address" into a search engine. If that did not yield results, the mayor's official website, local new outlets, and local Chamber of Commerce sites were explored. If

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Leckrone et al. 245

a mayor was still in office and we could not find a speech, we attempted to contact them. When the text was not available, videos of speeches that were posted on city websites, YouTube, or other media outlets were transcribed. In sev

eral cases where SOTC speeches were not given, inaugural addresses or budget addresses were used to complete a four-year set. The data set is composed of available SOTC addresses from the fifty largest cities in the United States

by population. There are 138 speeches compris ing a total of 30,711 sentences in the data set. All four speeches given by mayors in thirty one cities over the period of 2010-2013 were included in the data set. In an effort to expand the number of cities in the study, speeches from 2013 for an additional fourteen cities were col

lected. The forty-five cities used in this study are listed in Supplemental Table 1.

Coding and Variables This study examines the amount of attention that big city mayors give to issues of poverty and inequality. To accomplish this, Baumgart ner and Jones' Policy Agendas Project coding scheme was utilized in coding the speeches (www.policyagendas.org). This system was developed as a trend recognition system to study policy attention across time and institu tions of government. "Categories in the coding schema are exhaustive and mutually exclusive and the expert coders must make key decisions about where items are to fall" (Baumgartner and Jones 2002, 53). The Policy Agendas cod ing scheme is composed of 20 major topic codes and 220 subcodes embedded within the

major topics. Each item of data is assigned a single code based on its topic. Most data points are relatively easy to code. For example, if a mayor discusses increased funding for elemen tary schools, the statement is coded for "educa tion." However, some data points include multiple or conflicting policy content. Two rules assist coders in these situations: "what

central policy purpose is being served" and "who is the policy intended to help." An exam ple of how this would apply to coding redistri butive policy would be:

property tax relief for the elderly could potentially fit into... Elderly Issues and Elderly Assistance programs or... Local Tax and Revenue Policies, Including Property Tax Relief —[T]he central purpose of this kind of legislation is to help the elderly, who are the ben

eficiaries, and so we have placed it in [Elderly Issues and Elderly Assistance Programs]. (Penn sylvania Policy Database Project 2010, 40)

The Policy Agendas coding scheme allows researchers to take a set of mayoral addresses and compare how much attention is given to a range of policy topics within each speech. This model has been widely used by scholars study ing Policy Agendas in the United States (fed eral and state level) and comparatively among nations. It has been used in more than 300 articles and books (see http://www.poli cyagendas.org/sites/policyagendas.org/files/ PET-biblio-2014.pdf).

The current research method involved cod

ing each sentence of mayors' SOTC speeches with one of the eighteen policy topic codes as adapted to state and local government (McLaughlin et al. 2010 and www.tem ple.edu/papolicy). The policy topic codes are listed in Figure 1. Each speech was double coded by a team of two master coders that have extensive experience with the Policy Agendas system and two undergraduate research assis tants. Intercoder reliability for the 138 speeches was 77 percent. A master coder made the final decision in cases where coders disagreed. Not all of the sentences in the SOTC addresses con

tained policy content. For instance, a mayor's conclusion to a speech that contained "Thank you all and God Bless" was not coded for pol icy content. These statements were separated out of the data sets discussed below. Mayors' speeches varied in size from a low of 51 lines to a high of 924. The average was 222 and the median 206. In order to control for the size of

the speeches, the policy content was calculated as a percentage for each SOTC and then added into the data set rather than reporting the policy distribution of all 30,711 lines of text.

There are two codes in the Policy Agendas scheme that relate to the issues of redistribution

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246 State and Local Government Review 47(4)

»v>w/ </ ^ ^ ^ oP° </" v/ ^ J

jr/'W/'*y/y > ^>o v

^ sO°

f/ / S'S Figure I. Percentage mentions of policy codes 2013.

and economic development. The first, social welfare encompasses the major cash and goods transfer programs for the poor as well as pov erty programs directed toward the elderly and disabled. Aid to nonprofit associations that help the poor is also contained in this code. Commu nity Development and Housing Issues contains issues related to urban development such as General Local Economic Development. How ever, it also included a couple of issues related to redistribution. Since social welfare and

Community Development and Housing Issues are the two dependent variables in this study, the Policy Agendas coding scheme was chan ged to facilitate the current project. Three sub codes were shifted from the Community Development and Housing Issues category to the social welfare code so the codes more accu

rately reflected poverty and economic develop ment issues: Low and Middle Income Housing Programs and Needs, Elderly and Handicapped Housing, and Housing Assistance for Homeless and Homeless Issues. The reconstituted social

welfare code contained all of the major redistri butive issues contained in the Policy Agendas scheme. The Community and Housing Issues category was renamed community and eco nomic development. Subtopics contained in these codes are listed in Supplemental Table 2.

A second, and for purposes of this study, rel atively minor, change was made as two codes were collapsed to more adequately reflect the practices of local government. When McLaughlin et al. (2010) adapted the national Policy Agendas scheme to subnational govern ments, it interpreted local politics in terms of state policy activity. Consequently, there was a State government operations code that included intergovernmental relations with cities and a sep arate Local Government and Governance code

that discussed state regulation of local govern ment on issues such as debt, taxes, government structure, and home rule. This study merged those into a Local government operations code.

Six independent variables were utilized to determine their effects on the attention big city mayors paid to redistribution and economic development. Five variables discussed in the hypotheses were used: racial demographics, level of segregation, poverty levels, median income, and ideology. Population was added as an additional independent variable. Racial composition of the cities was compiled using data from the American Community Survey (ACS). The nonwhite population of cities was calculated using the non-Hispanic or Latino "white only" statistic calculated for each year of the study. To see if racial segregation played

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Leckrone et al. 247

a part in willingness to address redistributive issues, data from the U.S. 2010 project at Brown University were used (http://www. s4.brown.edu/us2010/segregation2010/Defaul t.aspx). The project created a "dissimilarity index" calculating the difference between white and black residency across the census tracts of a city. Using a 1-100 scale, 60 showed very high degrees of segregation, 40 moderate, and 30 low amounts. Poverty rates were exam ined using the percentage of "all people" whose income in the past twelve months was below the poverty level for each year from the ACS. To determine whether the wealth of a city influenced Policy Agendas, median income was calculated using the ACS. Finally, the ideology of a city was used to determine whether liberal or conservative cities were

more likely to have mayors that addressed the issues of poverty (2014). Tausanovitch and Warshaw's index of policy preferences for cit ies over 250,000 was employed. A score of 1 indicates an extremely conservative city, while a — 1 on the other end of the scale signals an extremely liberal city. Data for each variable by city are given in Supplemental Table 1.

Results

Each SOTC address is unique. However, pat terns emerged from the 138 speeches in the database. Most speeches were diversified with a broad range of topics addressed. There were exceptions. For example, in 2013, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson spent 40 percent of his address discussing a new downtown arena for the National Basketball Association's (NBA) Sacramento Kings. Some mayors, particularly early in their tenure, focus primarily on the challenges that currently face their cities. Mayors that have been in office for several years tended to trumpet their accomplishments and then discuss ways to build on these past successes. Finally, cities that were doing well economically tended to have mayors that cited all of the publications that listed their cities in the top ten for various categories.

The speeches showed mayors weary from the Great Recession. Facing deficits caused

by declining revenues and intergovernmental aid, as well as increased costs associated with pension obligations, they were forced to make drastic budget cuts. The SOTC speeches showed little penchant for expanding or initiat ing large-scale government programs. Rather, they were long on civic boosterism and short on calls for new expenditures. Mayors stated that hard times had produced lean budgets where everyone had to sacrifice. The number of city employees was reduced and those still employed lost some benefits. Years of budget cutting in the aftermath of the recession left many mayors claiming that efficiencies had all been achieved and there wasn't anything more to cut.

Policy Content in Mayors' Speeches

The analysis in Figure 1 shows that fiscal and economic issues (17.9 percent), community and economic development (15.0 percent), government operations (12.2 percent), law crime and family (10.6 percent), and education (9.76 percent) were the top five issues dis cussed by the mayors in the study, social wel fare policies accounted for 7.9 percent the total content of SOTC speeches and were sixth of the eighteen policy codes. The composition of the top five policy topics is not surprising, fiscal and economic issues contains all the dis

cussion of the overall budget process and gen eral taxation policy, community and economic development has been shown by the literature to be one of the primary concerns of local gov ernment. government operations includes dis cussions of making government more efficient and city pensions. Finally, crime and education are both fundamental quality of life issues for cities.

All of these topics are traditional areas of policy undertaken by local government. Each is also an important ingredient in economic growth and/or getting and retaining city resi dents. Not surprisingly, issues that are not typ ical local policy responsibilities such as international affairs and foreign aid (0.1 per cent), defense (0.5 percent), and agriculture (0.6 percent) were mentioned the least.

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248 State and Local Government Review 47(4)

Talking about Poverty and Redistribution

Direct mention of income inequality was rare in SOTC speeches. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino called inequality "the issue of our time," Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villarai gosa implored "LA can't be two cities," and Washington, DC, Mayor Vincent Gray stated that "[w]e once worried about the District becoming a city of'haves' and 'have-nots.' But now we are increasingly in danger of becoming a city of only 'haves.'" However, this type of stark language from mayors was rare. Redistri butive policies and discussion of the poor were not as prevalent as calls for more economic development in SOTC speeches. For many mayors, economic growth was the primary means for eliminating poverty. This was exem plified by Nashville Mayor Karl Dean's quote from Jane Jacobs in his 2013 speech:

A metropolitan economy, if it is working well, is

constantly transforming many poor people into middle-class people, many illiterates into skilled people, many greenhorns into competent citizens.

A common theme was that employment growth, combined with programs to shift the economically disadvantaged into these new jobs, would lead to shared prosperity. This was often framed in terms of the benefits to the city

as a whole and not just the poor. For example, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg cited the following benefit of finding welfare recipients jobs: "[i]nstead of the City using tax dollars to support them, they'll be paying tax dollars to help support the City." Mayors were careful not to stigmatize the

poor in speeches. They generally claimed that poverty was the result of lack of social capital, poor educational opportunities, and discrimina tion. Given the right opportunities, the poor could achieve economic success. Mayor Bloomberg again summarized the rhetoric from many SOTC speeches when he stated that the poor needed "a hand-up, not a hand-out."

Mayors suggested three primary means of dealing with poverty in the SOTC addresses. First, given the financial situation of cities in

the years 2010-2013, there was little mention of large-scale, own-source revenue redistribu tive programs. One of the few examples was the discussion of San Francisco's Earned Income

Tax Credit (EITC) for the working poor. In 2010, Mayor Gavin Newsom lauded this as the only EITC sponsored by a local government and discussed the ways in which the city was helping recipients save their tax credits in local banks. Second, public-private partnerships were the most prevalent suggestions because they allowed cities to leverage their money with the funds of nonprofits. Columbus' Youth First program was cited by Mayor Michael Coleman as a good example of local govern ment aiding existing private programs. Cole man discussed the virtues of sports and recreation as a means to underprivileged chil dren acquiring social capital from coaches and other volunteer mentors. Unfortunately, the costs of participating in sports programs inhib ited impoverished families from participating. The Youth First program used city funds to pay for low-income children to participate in exist ing recreation leagues in the city. Finally, many mayors pursued volunteers to assist programs that government could not subsidize. Wichita's No More Hungry Kids program sought volun teers to fill backpacks with food to be distribu ted to hungry students at their schools. The program was run by volunteers and the food was distributed at no taxpayer expense in gov ernment run schools. Mayors often cited exam ples of how specific individuals overcame poverty, homelessness, or addiction through the assistance of volunteers or community organizations.

Partnerships with businesses and nonprofits were particularly important in programs that helped poorer people. For instance, mayors cited examples where companies hired summer workers from disadvantaged backgrounds as well as charities that helped gather food for hungry students. Mayors were cognizant that for their cities to thrive there needed to be

shared, voluntary collaboration between gov ernment, business, and nonprofit organizations. Financial retrenchment reinforced the idea that

government was not capable of addressing

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Leckrone et al. 249

every problem in urban life. Rather, mayors painted a vision of success through broad based action by all in the civil community (Elazar 1970, 1975). Abels (2014, 5) claims that these types of collaborations are part of the "new normal" for post-Great Recession Amer ican cities.

The statistical analysis below examines the amount of attention that mayors pay to redistri butive issues within the Policy Agendas social welfare code. However, mayors also mentioned non-social welfare policies for the poor, partic ularly through investing in programs that would give people the skills to emerge from poverty. This is differentiated from the subsidies that

helped alleviate the effects of poverty found in the policies contained in the social welfare code. Five topics recurred among mayors in their SOTC speeches, education and economic development were the issues most discussed. Both of these topics can be viewed as public goods from the perspective that a better educa tional system or local economy benefits every one in a city. However, mayors focused on how these specific programs would be useful to help people in poverty. For example, in 2013, Min neapolis Mayor R. T. Rybak framed education in the following terms:

It is very clear to me that the most significant fac

tors that contribute to the achievement gap hap pen outside of school—poverty, public and mental health, family success, segregation, and discrimination. But it is also an inescapable fact that our schools are not as successful as they must

be in closing these gaps.

Similarly, other mayors discussed how peo ple could not escape poverty without economic development that is more equitably distributed. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa explained this in 2012: "We must take up the vital mission of bringing the benefits of economic growth to every part of Los Angeles. If our economy is to work, it has to work for everyone." On both issues, mayors consistently voiced the need to use these traditional services provided by local governments to create pathways to the middle class for people in poverty.

Mayors also focused on job training as a means to provide people without social or edu cational capital a way to escape poverty. This involved helping people get the training they needed in growing fields such as health care as well as providing community job centers where the unemployed could be matched with jobs aligned with their skills. Mayors touted summer and year-round job programs for teens as a means to instill work skills and lower

crime. They also pushed for more contracts for city services to be set aside for minority and women contractors to help spur business devel opment for these historically underserved groups. A number of mayors also created "hire local" programs to make sure that unemployed city workers got preferential treatment on eco nomic development projects involving govern ment funds. Finally, mayors made connections between poverty and health. This included inequalities in access to health care as well as higher obesity rates among the poor who have little access to fresh, healthy foods.

A Bias toward Economic Development

Literature on urban public policy has tradition ally claimed that developmental politics prevail over redistributive policies in city govern ments. However, recent scholarly literature points to a new generation of urbanités that is more accommodating to redistributive politics. This study examines the topic more closely by focusing on the social welfare and community and economic development codes from 2010 to 2013 (Figure 2). Mayors dedicated more of their agendas to the latter. Consistent through each year, community and economic develop ment trumps discussion of social welfare issues by at least 200 percent, if not greater, as in 2011, when social welfare issues occupied 3.7 percent and community and economic development 13.3 percent. The most attention was paid to social welfare issues in 2013 (7.1 percent), four years after the official end of the Great Recession and community and economic development took up the largest amount of the agenda in 2012 (16 percent). These findings are in line with the literature

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250 State and Local Government Review 47(4)

Social Welfare Economic Development

14.9 160 155 14.9 ___ 13.3 Hi mm

6.2 6.4 71 5 8

II ■ il I I 2010 2011 2012 2013 Average 2010-13

Social Welfare Economic Development

14.9 160 155 14.9 __ 13.3 ■■ mm**

6.2 6.4 7 1 m/ 5.8

■M il il II I 2010 2011 2012 2013 Average 2010-13

Figure 2. Attention to social welfare and economic development 2010-2013.

on cities that discovers little appetite for spend ing on redistributive issues.

Types of Cities and Attention to Redistributive and Economic

Development Issues

To potentially explain the variance across cities and across time, two models were constructed

using an ordinary least squares regression with random effects and robust standard errors due

to the expectation of autocorrelation within cit ies. The first model used the social welfare

code as the dependent variable with nonwhite population, segregation, poverty, ideology, household incomes, and population as the inde pendent variables. The second test used the community and economic development code data as the dependent variable with the same independent variables. Population yielded insignificant results on both counts and is not included herein. Due to the problem of multi collinearity with the poverty variable, the household income variable was not included

(the correlation score was —0.82). Table 1 details the findings.

The hypotheses claim that mayors in cities with higher minority populations, median income, education levels, and liberalism and those with less segregation and poverty would be more likely to focus on issues of redistribu tion. None of these hypotheses were confirmed as the analysis showed no significant results with social welfare as the dependent variable. This proved the case both with and without

interactive effects. The fact that there is no dif

ferential between characteristics of cities and

the attention to redistribution is surprising. This runs contrary to the idea that there is a new pol itics or culture of urban progressivism develop ing in cities. The absence of attention to redistributive policies in mayors' agendas does not necessarily signal that this new culture does not exist. However, there may be other factors at work. For example, mayors may not feel the electoral pressure to push for redistributive demands from progressives, particularly if they view them as running counter to economic development plans. Or, as discussed earlier, mayors may seek to satisfy demands for pov erty reduction through programs other than tra ditional social welfare policies in areas such as education and job training. Ultimately, the low levels of discussion of these issues combined

with the lack of differential by various munici pal characteristics helps lend credence to Mar tin Saiz' claim that "[ajbove all, cities avoid redistributive politics" (1999, 823).

The hypotheses also claim that mayors in cities with more segregation, poverty, and con servatism and those with lower minority popu lations and median incomes would pay more attention to issues of economic development. The analysis yielded significant results at the p < .05 level with no interaction effects for seg regation, poverty, and ideology. The relation ship between segregation and development attention is strong and negative, while for pov erty is strong and positive, indicating that as segregation increases, attention to development

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Leckrone et al. 251

Table I. Results of the Ordinary Least Squares Regression.

Economic Economic

Social Welfare as Social Welfare as Development as DV, Development as DV, No Interaction DV, With Interaction No Interaction DV, With Interaction

Effects Effects Effects Effects

Variables Coefficient p Value Coefficient p Value Coefficient p Value Coefficient p Value

Nonwhite -0.0006 .992 -0.1816 .34 -0.04595 .37 0.3214** .047

Segregation -0.0154 .773 -0.2293 .264 -0.1748** .018 0.2581 .226 Poverty 0.2391 .115 0.2361 .13 0.3879** .004 0.3869** .004 Ideology -1.1248 .667 -I.I 751 .658 5.1434** .016 5.3540** .01 Interaction of 0.0034 .332 -0.0069** .033

segregation and nonwhite

R2 = .021 R2 = .027 R2 = .206 R2 = .232 # Of observations = # Of observations = # Of observations = # Of observations =

138 138 138 138

# Of groups = 45 # Of groups = 45 # Of groups = 45 # Of groups = 45

< .05

Economic Economic

Social Welfare as Social Welfare as Development as DV, Development as DV, No Interaction DV, With Interaction No Interaction DV, With Interaction

Effects Effects Effects Effects

Variables Coefficient p Value Coefficient p Value Coefficient p Value Coefficient p Value

Nonwhite -0.0006 .992 -0.1816 .34 -0.04595 .37 0.3214** .047

Segregation -0.0154 .773 -0.2293 .264 -0.1748** .018 0.2581 .226 Poverty 0.2391 .115 0.2361 .13 0.3879** .004 0.3869** .004 Ideology -1.1248 .667 -1.1751 .658 5.1434** .016 5.3540** .01 Interaction of 0.0034 .332 -0.0069** .033

segregation and nonwhite

R2 = .021 R2 = .027 R2 = .206 R2 = .232 # Of observations = # Of observations = # Of observations = # Of observations =

138 138 138 138

# Of groups = 45 # Of groups = 45 # Of groups = 45 # Of groups = 45

< .05

declines, while poorer cities dedicate more of the agenda to community and economic devel opment issues. The results for ideology indicate a strong relationship as well, the more conser vative the city, the more attention paid to development.

The inclusion of interaction effects between

segregation and nonwhite resident population yielded interesting results. Adding an interac tion variable between segregation and nonwhite population shows that poverty remains highly positive and significant, as does ideology. The percentage of nonwhite residents moderates the effect of segregation on the percentage of the agenda dedicated to community and economic development policy. In cities with nearly the highest (89 percent) nonwhite populations, the effect of an increase in segregation on the per centage of the agenda dedicated to development is more negative than it is in cities with the mean

nonwhite percentages. In cities near the mini mum of nonwhite populations (25 percent), the effect of a unit increase in segregation on devel opment is predicted to be slightly positive but is

basically zero. So, on the one hand, segregation has no effect on the economic development agenda in mostly white cities. On the other hand,

it has a fairly substantial negative effect in cities

with a mostly nonwhite population.

Poverty and ideology had the predicted sig nificant effects on mayoral attention paid to eco

nomic development. Poorer cities, without a critical mass of wealthy citizens or established businesses, need to promote economic develop ment to provide jobs and infrastructure to build the tax base. More conservative cities would

be more likely to support economic develop ment policies, given the ideological belief that the free market will provide benefits and improve the lives of all citizens. However, the two other significant variables are perplexing because they moved in the opposite direction of the hypotheses. The results showed that as segregation increased, attention to economic development declined and that there was less discussion in highly segregated cities with mostly nonwhite populations. In other words, as cities become more and more nonwhite, how

desegregated the minority populations are mat ters more with regard to the agenda space given

to talk about economic development. This means that economic development matters less to mayors who run highly segregated and highly

nonwhite cities. Perhaps this is because other issues like the public good of education, access to opportunity, and safety and family legal issues, crowd out the concerns surrounding eco nomic development.

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252 State and Local Government Review 47(4)

Conclusion

After decades of decline and disinvestment, many cities are growing again. Absent sustained federal attention and investment, cities have charted paths on their own to increase the for tunes of their residents and attract new and weal

thier ones. These new residents are often better

educated, youthful, and more well off than the inhabitants of the cities to which these recent

transplants move. Concurrently, wealth and income of the middle and lower classes across

the country has grown slowly or not at all, lead ing to policy conflict. Urban economic inequal ity has been linked to class and racial segregation, both of which have negative effects on economic mobility. As such, this article investigated the prevalence and emphasis on both the redistributive and economic develop ment agenda within cities across the United States and to what extent this might be correlated with such characteristics as poverty level and income, racial composition, ideology, segrega tion, nonwhite population, and population size.

As the urban policy literature suggests would be the case, social welfare is not at the top of the agenda for mayors across the United States over all. fiscal and economic issues trump all other con cerns in our data set, though admittedly this could

be a result of the 2010-2013 time period, fresh on the heels of the Great Recession. Statistical tests

show no significant relationship between the focus on social welfare and other variables, so those that

do pay attention to this issue are varied. However,

the analysis found significant predictors surround

ing focus on the economic development agenda including ideology, nonwhite populations and segregation interaction, and poverty levels. Poorer

cities dedicate more of the agenda to economic development issues. More ideologically conserva tive cities pay more attention to economic devel opment issues, too. The interaction effect between segregation and nonwhite populations shows that on the one hand, segregation has no effect on the economic development agenda in mostly white cities. Yet on the other hand, it has

a fairly large negative effect on the economic development agenda in cities with a mostly non white population.

Looking at the rhetoric within the mayoral addresses, partnerships with business and non profit institutions were very important to mayors in the postrecession period. Budget cuts and fiscal austerity led mayors to work closely with community partners to leverage limited funds for economic development and social services. Mayors relied heavily on them for job development and public-private cooperation during the time of financial retrenchment. There were repeated calls for citizen, as volun teers, and business engagement in solving pov erty and inequality.

Depending on one's political persuasion, cit ies either sadly have their hands tied in their approach to solving the social ills and inequality of their populations or they are finally on the road

to recovery through a neoliberal agenda-corpo rate partnerships and attracting the "right" type of resident, the citizen who is well-educated and

equipped to contribute to the tax base while demanding little in social services.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of inter

est with respect to the research, authorship, and/or

publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the

research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Supplemental Material

The online data supplements are available at http://

slg.sagepub.com/supplemental.

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Author Biographies

J. Wesley Leckrone is an associate professor of political science at Widener University. He is the editor of Commonwealth: A Journal of Pennsylvania Politics and Policy. His publications include articles in Publius: The Journal of Federalism, State Politics and Policy Quarterly, and the Journal of Urban Affairs.

Michelle Atherton is the associate director of the

Institute for Public Affairs at Temple University. She is also a senior adviser to the Pennsylvania Pol icy Database Project and senior policy writer and editor for Temple's Center on Regional Politics. Her publications include articles in State Politics and Policy Quarterly and white papers on subjects including institutional reform in legislatures, municipal services, and public pension and educa tion finance.

Nicole Crossey is an undergraduate research assis tant at Widener University. She is pursuing a triple

major in political science, international relations and history and will graduate in Spring 2016.

Andrea Stickley is a former undergraduate research assistant at Widener University. She graduated with a political science degree in 2015 and is currently a student at Delaware Law School, Widener University.

Meghan E. Rubado is a doctoral candidate in polit ical science at Temple University and a graduate research assistant for the Center on Regional Poli tics, also at Temple University. Her publications include a co-authored articles in Publius: The Jour

nal of Federalism and white papers on the topic of public education finance.

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