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Ties that Bind: Economic and Political Dilemmas of Urban Utility Networks, 1800-1990 (review)
- Technology and Culture
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 43, Number 3, July 2002
- pp. 612-614
- 10.1353/tech.2002.0111
- Review
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
Technology and Culture 43.3 (2002) 612-614
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Book Review
Ties that Bind:
Economic and Political Dilemmas of Urban Utility Networks, 1800-1990
Ties that Bind: Economic and Political Dilemmas of Urban Utility Networks, 1800-1990. By Charles David Jacobson. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000. Pp. xi+282. $35.
In Ties that Bind, Charles David Jacobson employs economic analysis to explain why networked utilities seem so immune to standard regulatory strategies. According to Jacobson, municipal officials have found their efforts foiled by natural monopolies when they sought to use direct governmental regulation, franchise bidding, and market competition to guarantee public service. In case studies of waterworks, electric street lighting, and cable television in many American cities, he demonstrates that utility companies only expand service to expected or promised levels when they see the installation of new infrastructure as essential to their profitability or to maintaining their customer base. Companies maintain this autonomy despite franchises requiring greater infrastructure investment or other public service because the physical fact of this infrastructure network gives [End Page 612] them enormous bargaining power and renders most provisions for market competition moot.
In the first section of his book, Jacobson explains that public authority over urban waterworks developed when private water companies could not or would not build systems capable of protecting American cities from fire. City leaders could not enforce fire-protection provisions of water service franchises because they could not measure the potential effectiveness of a waterworks in a fire emergency. The expense of building a water network adequate for fire protection discouraged water companies from building adequate systems, regardless of contract specifications or city rules. While this explanation is clear and concise, and emphasizes aspects of waterworks history frequently overlooked by historians more interested in partisan conflicts and social reform, Jacobson's exploration of public authority seems not to have benefited from some of the more recent literature on these topics.
Jacobson turns next to electric power utilities and the street lighting that many municipal franchises required of power companies. He argues that bidding for power contracts better protected public interests only because merely counting streetlights demonstrated whether electric companies fulfilled their contracts, and because stringing wire was cheaper than laying water pipe, and because electricity faced competition from other types of lighting. When state agencies supplanted municipal regulation, however, city leaders lost much of their bargaining power. The utilities, in contrast, found state regulation more friendly to their interests. It is unfortunate that Jacobson does not explore why state officials so favored utilities in the 1920s and 1930s. This section would also have benefited from greater acknowledgment of the public power campaign that shaped the relationships between government and utility companies at all levels during this period.
Jacobson's strongest case study, cable television, comes last. Here, he demonstrates that even the strictest contract language and clearest sanctions could not guarantee success in the implementation of policy. He does an excellent job of explaining the conflicts between freedom of speech and regulation of monopolies that greeted each new medium, from newspapers and radio to cable television, and explaining the implications of public access, local programming, and private enterprise autonomy in American legal tradition and for American democracy. Municipal officials insisted that cable franchises provide for broadcasting city business and citizen-produced content. Once established, however, cable companies evaded these rules by pleading financial hardship or by insisting on the renegotiation of contracts after merging with or acquiring other cable providers.
Jacobson tells a cautionary tale about why—in many cities and for many years—public officials cannot implement policies intended to protect the public. His book will be of greatest interest to policymakers and analysts seeking a realistic assessment of policy implementation. Yet, for a [End Page 613] book subtitled "Economic and Political Dilemmas of Urban Utility Networks," Jacobson's work is curiously cursory in its discussions of the political conflicts and debates that accompanied municipal and state regulation campaigns, and even public reactions to utility services. He could also have more critically examined how...