Contents

Introduction: Shadow Governments and the Remaking of the American Local State

Dennis R. Judd, Evan McKenzie, and Alba Alexander

Part I. The Eclipse of the (Municipal) State

1. City Building Capacity and Special-Purpose Authorities: Institutions, Interests, and the Local State

James M. Smith

2. Phantom Governments: Multiple Function Special Districts as Substitutes for Municipalities

Evan McKenzie

3. Governing Detroit: The Withering of the (Municipal) State

Peter Eisinger

Part II. The Evolving Role of Public-Private Authorities

4. Transportation Empires in the New York and Los Angeles Regions: From the Old to the New Politics of Governance and Development

Steven P. Erie, Scott MacKenzie, and Jameson W. Doig

5. Whetting Their Appetites: Privatization Schemes and the Case of Water

Ellen Dannin and Douglas Cantor

6. The Role of the State in Public-Private Initiatives: Lessons from Great Britain

Alba Alexander

Part III. The Fiscal Politics of the New American Local State

7. Financing Urban Infrastructure (and Services) under the New Normal: A Look at Special Assessments

Shu Wang and Rebecca Hendrick

8. Devolution and Debt: Financing Public Facilities in an Age of Austerity

Rachel Weber, Amanda Kass, and Sara Hinkley

Part IV. Bringing the (Public) State Back In

9. Building the Public City, Privately

David Perry and Mary Donoghue

10. The Fate of the Public Realm: Conclusions

Dennis R. Judd, Evan McKenzie, and Alba Alexander  

Contributors

Index

Dennis R. Judd is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including The City, Revisited: Urban Theory from Chicago, Los Angeles, New York (Minnesota, 2011).

Evan McKenzie is professor and head of the Political Science Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is author of Privatopia: Homeowner Associations and the Rise of Residential Private Government and Beyond Privatopia: Rethinking Residential Private Government.

Alba Alexander is clinical associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

"Examines the complex ecology of quasi-public and privatized institutions that mobilize and administer many of the political, administrative, and fiscal resources of today's metropolitan regions"--