Urban Ecology, Managerialism, and Neighborhood Revitalization: The Manhattan Experience

Southeastern Geographer Vol. 28, No. 2, November 1988, pp. 68-79 URBAN ECOLOGY, MANAGERIALISM, AND NEIGHBORHOOD REVITALIZATION: THE MANHATTAN EXPERIENCE David Wilson Neighborhood revitalization has recently spread beyond the confines of select downtown affluent enclaves, and attempts to explain it and predict its future consequences have seen the emergence of certain explanatory models. (1) They, in attempting to explain revitalization, have incorporated conflicting assumptions and continue to evolve largely independent of one another. The purpose of this paper is to examine the utility of the ecological and managerialist models as research frameworks for explaining urban neighborhood revitalization in North America. While ecological explanations have emphasized the causal role of neighborhood housing and population variables, managerialist analyses have focused on the effects ofresource allocators such as banks, realtors, and the like. Implicit in these two frameworks are divergent ascriptions of causality. Ecological explanations emphasize the sphere of household consumption; managerialism, in contrast, has made the production and allocation of resources its causal variable. They are thus different theoretical frameworks positing different explanatory notions. The urban ecological school, an outgrowth of Chicago human ecology, attributes patterns of reinvestment directly to the intrinsic character of neighborhoods and the urban milieu themselves. (2) City housing and population (ecological) characteristics are posited as either causal variables stimulating reinvestment or as significant intervening influences structured by processes external to urban areas. The most frequently cited causal processes include the unique architectural character of neighborhoods, amenity (reinvestment) spillover, and the influx of affluent households. More recently, ecological theorists have proposed the more sophisticated notions of the cyclical devaluation of fixed capital assets and the differential capacities of populations to blunt displacement as causal phenomena. (3) While the cyclical devaluation thesis emphasizes the depreciation of property (i.e., downgrading) as facilitating reinvestment, the other thesis has focused on politically vulDr . Wilson is Assistant Professor of Geography at Indiana University in Indianapolis , IN 46202. Vol. XXVIII, No. 2 69 nerable populations who are unable to prevent displacement. (4) The result in both cases is accelerated reinvestment and the unfolding of neighborhood revitalization. Common to all of these ecological explanations is the notion that the critical stimulus for urban change is a range of forces operating internally to that environment. The ecological model therefore takes as its starting point either urban ecological characteristics or a range of societal forces which implant a distinctive set of causative conditions. The alternative model, termed the managerialist school, sees urban ecological characteristics as playing a minimal role in leveraging reinvestment ; instead, emphasis is placed on city, regional, and national managers. (5) Explanations for neighborhood revitalization focus on those agents who provide the context for reinvestment, that is the institutions that allocate the social and political resources that permit upgrading to occur. Thus, reinvestment does not occur in isolation; it is the result, or aspect, of factors external to the neighborhood. (6) The work of Ray Pahl constitutes the most recent managerialist research agenda. (7) It places emphasis on public managers (e.g., urban renewal authority heads, block grant administrators) desirous of bureaucratic power and growth. Tb Pahl, these managers facilitate revitalization through the allocation of such resources as housing subsidies, political support, public amenities, and the like; and they are motivated by the growing need to generate tax ratables (often the result of neighborhood revitalization). The key to this theoretical framework is the evolving role of government at all levels. To Pahl, government in advanced capitalism seeks to increase its sphere of influence. No longer content simply to support wealthy elites, its activities increasingly seek to strengthen its directive role in local, regional, and national economies . The end product is an increasingly bureaucratic society and government intervention in local affairs. While both ecological and managerialist perspectives continue to cite evidence based on isolated neighborhood case studies, a serious weakness of these works is the lack of an empirical analysis testing their basic assumptions at a city-wide scale. (S) STUDY OBJECTIVES. This study seeks to provide a starting point for evaluating the ability of the ecological and managerialist models to explain neighborhood revitalization. It uses a two-tiered method. Initially, the study explores the spatial relationship between an array of neigh- 70Southeastern Geographer borhood...