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Development, geography, and the metropolis – a normative appreciation of an emerging agenda

Development, geography, and the metropolis – a normative appreciation of an emerging agenda International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development Vol. 3, No. 2, November 2011, 232–238 COMMENTARY Development, geography, and the metropolis – a normative appreciation of an emerging agenda Jeroen Klink* Center for Engineering and Applied Social Science (CECS), Federal University of ABC region, Sao Paulo, Brazil 1. The renewed investigation of space frontiers, the bulk of which was anyway being generated by city regions. Schumpeterian inspired The academic literature, so it seems, has redis- work on science, technology, and innovation also covered the economic role of city regions and led to an increasing awareness on the role of metropolitan areas in the process of national devel- metropolis in the creation of local innovation sys- opment. While Jacobs (1970) had already claimed tems (Nelson and Winter 1982), while the analysis that economic theory, be it within the Marxist, of global city regions (Sassen 1991; Hall 1995), Keynesian, or neoclassical tradition, had created strategic planning, and entrepreneurial urban man- the equivalent of a ‘fools paradise’ of a space- agement (Borja and Castells 1997) also triggered less economy, it was not until Krugman (1996) a growing debate within the planning literature launched his critique on the neoclassical narrative on the role of large metropolitan areas as cen- of perfectly competitive markets that territory was tral nerve points in an increasingly interdepen- being brought back into mainstream economics, dent world economy marked by intense flow of leading to renewed research on the significance information. of cities for national development. At the same This rediscovery of the role of cities was not time, authors related to regulation theory, such as consensual, however. For example, a political econ- Benko (1996), and industrial urbanism (Storper omy inspired view counterreacted, arguing that 1997; Scott 1998) argued that post-Fordist regimes the shift toward consensus-based strategic planning of flexible accumulation favored a more active and urban entrepreneurialism in effect reflected economic role for cities and metropolitan areas, a neoliberalization of urban and regional spaces especially when compared with the traditional fis- (Brenner and Theodore 2002), and transformed cal and monetary policies that were conducted cities into growth machines, being highly detrimen- at the national level under the Keynesian–Fordist tal to the lower income groups that also depended regime. Business economists such Porter (1990) on the city as a good place to live in (Logon and analyzed the implications of clustering for national Molotch 1987). competitiveness, while Ohmae (1996) even went At the same time, particularly from the mid- so far as to claim that nation states had become 1980s onward, as part of a broader tendency the equivalents of dinosaurs, focused on the (inef- toward decentralization and democratization, the ficient) redistributions of wealth within national Email: jeroen.klink@ufabc.edu.br ISSN 1946-3138 print/ISSN 1946-3146 online © 2011 Taylor & Francis http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19463138.2011.613289 http://www.tandfonline.com International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development 233 renewed territorial focus started to influence the 2. Spaces of investigation international policy arena. The concern with city Even considering that the previous synthesis pro- economies was of course not new, but an impor- vides an oversimplified view on the renewed debate tant driver behind the change of thinking was on the economic role of urban and metropolitan brought about by the influential World Bank policy territories, we argue that there are nevertheless a paper ‘Urban Policy and Economic Development: number of remarkable blind spots in an otherwise An Agenda for the 1990s,’ where the interde- growing literature. pendencies between macroeconomic restructuring The first of them is related to the role of and cities were made more explicit (World Bank, the state in the elaboration and implementation 1991). This publication, and similar international of territorial policies. As observed by Martin and policy-oriented research that was being gener- Sunley (1997, p. 278), to the extent that the state ated, emphasized the need for a better under- is considered at all, ‘it tends to be viewed sim- standing of the intrinsic linkages between macroe- ply as a deus ex machina, to be lowered on to conomic structural adjustment programs, urban the economic landscape to resolve this or that spe- productivity and poverty, and the urban envi- cific aspect of uneven development (typically via ronment; while cities, specifically in the Asian– ‘regional policies’).’ While Krugman’s work on African context, were the arena of an ongoing strategic trade theory and new industrial policies rural–urban transition, more strategic articulation recognized a potential role of the state in preparing between local and national governments was nec- regional economies for the global competition, it essary in order to improve the role of cities in was unclear how this could be achieved. As a mat- strategies toward poverty alleviation and economic ter of fact, much of the ‘new regional economics’ competitiveness. treated the state as exogenous, failing to recognize From the 1990s this concern also led to more it was actually embedded within broader processes operational and consolidated programs aimed at of territorial and productive restructuring. A recog- strengthening the role of cities and metropolitan nition of the endogenous nature of the state would areas within the overall development trajectory of allow to formulate more robust hypotheses on what national economies. In 2000 the Cities Alliance – Martin and Sunley labeled as the emerging qual- composed of the main development agencies itative state, characterized by dense interactions dealing with cities, such as UN-HABITAT, the among policymakers at several territorial scales World Bank, and the United Nations Development (from the global, national to the local) and other Programme, among others – pooled resources private stakeholders. Likewise, issues related to and know-how and created its so-called City city regional and metropolitan development cannot Development Strategy, which explicitly addressed be dissociated from politics in general, and pol- the potential of participatory strategic planning as itics at the national level in particular. Much of a tool in designing investment strategies for cities the effective leverage and autonomy of urban and and city regions. The Organization for Economic metropolitan areas depends on what is given by Co-operation and Development (OECD) – the national governments. policy think tank of the industrialized countries – Second, as observed by Biderman and Barberia also consolidated its so-called territorial reviews, (2010), much of the literature on local eco- a participatory diagnosis of the key features of nomic development is biased toward industrialized a metropolitan area, established by local stake- countries, which cannot be replicated mechani- holders and the OECD teams (OECD 2005). This cally to the context of developing markets and instrument nowadays complements the organiza- societies. Considering both the intense transfor- tion’s traditional macro- and micro-oriented coun- mations of the global economy and the specific try diagnoses. 234 J. Klink setting of developing countries, any linear Rostow On a more conceptual level, the assumption of inspired theory, according to which developing a ‘universal, ahistorical ‘natural’ legal definition economies would pass through similar stages as of property rights is simply a fiction’ (Fernandez were faced by industrialized countries, should be 2002). rejected. As Maricato (2010) observed, developing Third, there are not many linkages between the country cities are peculiar ensembles of the pre- analytical and normative dimensions of the emerg- modern, the modern, and the postmodern. Many ing agenda. The research that has been under- Brazilian metropolitan regions, for example, con- taken has not generated much spin-off in terms centrate significant slum areas and informal set- of the elaboration, implementation, and evaluation tlements and have not been able to completely of concrete projects, programs, and policies. This eradicate child labor and illiteracy. At the same is surprising, particularly considering the fact that time, and particularly from the 1950s onward, part of the regional and local economic develop- Brazilian city regions have developed into the main ment agenda is linked to the ongoing transfor- arena where modern (energy and resource inten- mations within the urban and regional planning sive) industrial complexes – car industry, metal- profession itself. More specifically, planning seems lurgy, petrochemical clusters, and agro-business – to have receded from its somewhat positivist and were set up as part of a broader strategy of instrumental view on reality, and broadened its tra- national import substitution. Finally, from the ditional physical outlook with an agenda on local 1990s onward, megacities like Rio de Janeiro and regional economic development planning. This and São Paulo have witnessed the emergence renewed perspective recognizes that cities and city of archipelagos of flexibly specialized, creative regions are inserted within broader socioeconomic industries, and services (finance, media, fashion, structures of class, race, and gender, which has nev- and so on). ertheless not transformed them into passive and Metropolitan areas in emerging countries also powerless containers of global economic forces. have a much larger informal sector, which gener- Particularly Healey (1997) has emphasized the ates additional complexities and contingencies for potential of strategic planning of urban areas, even the functioning of urban markets for land, labor, acknowledging the limitations of the national and and capital. Both the collection of empirical data global economy. and the building of appropriate theory that take into account the nonlinearities and interdependen- 3. Perspectives cies between the formal and the informal urban lives have provided challenges for academia and Where does all of this leave us in terms of building policymakers alike. A well-known simplification an agenda for the economic planning and manage- is related to informal land markets. In much of ment of metropolitan areas? We argue that there the mainstream literature, the regularization and are two broad thematic areas where more interdis- formalization of freehold title deeds in informal ciplinary theoretical and empirical work should be settlements are portrayed as a direct link to poverty undertaken. alleviation and community entrepreneurship, par- The first is related to the paradox of metropoli- ticularly through business permits and access to tan governance. Metropolitan areas have been fac- credit. Nevertheless, more in-depth research has ing intense processes of technological and produc- pointed out the disappointing results of large- tive restructuring, without being able to count on scale titling programs in countries such as Peru solid institutional frameworks that guide the man- in terms of triggering access to credit (Pieterse agement, organization, and finance of their devel- 2008, p. 49). In many Latin American countries opment trajectory. Reinventing city, regional, and micro-credit programs and informal arrangements metropolitan governance cannot repeat the ‘one provide access to credit without a freehold title. size fits all,’ which was the prevailing approach International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development 235 in the 1960s–1970s. Instead, building collaborative have stressed the importance of enhancing our institutional arrangements in city regions will be understanding of the social economy. In countries an open-ended and customized process and will such as Brazil, social movements, frequently sup- emerge as a result of social learning among public ported by local governments, have been active in and private stakeholders around the planning and what has become known as solidarity economics, management of urban areas. The relational com- characterized by the proliferation of socioe- plexity and contingency of urban areas will require conomic and institutional innovation organized approaches that go beyond social and institutional around micro-credit and savings groups, incuba- engineering. Moreover, the multi-scalar process tors for cooperatives and local agendas for the 5,6 will oblige us to take a fresh look at the important so-called decent work, among other examples. linkages, and the politics, that surround national, The latter initiative also gained additional impe- regional, and metropolitan development strategies. tus with the launching of federal minimum income For example, in the Brazilian scenario, recent programs, conditioned to the continued enrollment research has generated a hypothesis that, partic- of children in basic education (the so-called Bolsa ularly from the 1990s onward, classic redistribu- Familia program). Cities such as Osasco (Greater tional regional development policies have lost posi- São Paulo) and Belo Horizonte have designed tion in relation to approaches that are aimed at clus- their local programs on solidarity economics in ters and local production and innovation systems order to trigger employment and income gener- (Costa 2007). While traditional regional agencies ation for the more vulnerable families, so as to such as the Superintendency for the Development reduce their continued dependency on federal min- of the Northeast and the Superintendency for the imum income programs. A growing number of Development of the Amazonia have been marginal- cities have undertaken efforts to link their slum ized, approximately 1000 local production sys- upgrading to complementary social, economic, tems have been stimulated by national, state, and and cultural programs, aimed at delivering citi- local governments, frequently with the support of zenship to the traditionally excluded segments of universities and training institutes. The initiatives society. often lack coordination and are not linked with However promising these initiatives may be, the national framework for regional development very little in-depth empirical research on the that was established in 2004. Likewise, and still impact of solidarity economics programs and simi- in relation to the Brazilian case, authors such as lar strategies aimed at the creation of a social econ- Leitão (2009) argued that the promulgation of the omy at city level have been undertaken. And even National Growth Acceleration Plan in 2007 (the in Brazilian cities with decades of experience with so-called PAC), a multi-billion federal investment participatory slum upgrading, there is a surprising package on transportation and logistics, energy, lack of evidence based on an adequate assessment and urban infrastructure, by and large bypassed the of both the costs and the benefits, and of the effec- redistributive directives of this national framework tiveness of linking these programs with broader for regional development in favor of the creation of urban development strategies aimed at inserting the internationally competitive, resource-intensive city favelas into the urban and metropolitan develop- regions. ment patterns. A second thematic area where more work This is also one of the intriguing issues that needs to be done is on the relation between have come up after 8 years of federal pro-poor economic growth and poverty alleviation at city and pro-growth policies under the Lula admin- and metropolitan levels, and the potential role istration in the period 2003–2010. This adminis- of cities versus senior levels of government in tration, particularly from 2006 onward, explicitly these thematic areas. Authors such as Amin (2006) developed a strategic urban development agenda, 236 J. Klink which, among others, was reflected in institutional bound to fail. Without adhering to an overly roman- strengthening (the creation of a new ministry tic vision on the role of survival strategies of for cities, the institutionalization of participa- the poor, recent urban mobilization in cities and tion through community councils), a substantial metropolitan areas give us reason to believe that increase in the volume of financial resources for there is scope for alternative spaces of represen- slum upgrading, and a framework legislation that tation (Randolph 2007), which are driven by daily enabled cities more leverage over speculative real spatial practices of communities. In that sense, estate markets through the so-called statute of the and referring to the specific South African con- cities. Nevertheless, socioeconomic and environ- text, Pieterse (2008, p. 104) discusses the so-called mental disparities at city regional, metropolitan, insurgent urbanism, whereby a ‘ “quiet encroach- and interregional levels have shown to be remark- ment” describes the silent, protracted pervasive ably persistent. Work undertaken in the context of advancement of ordinary people on those who are the Brazilian State of the Cities Report provides propertied and powerful in a quest for survival and intriguing evidence on the complexities of the rela- improvement of their lives.’ It seems indeed that tionship between economic growth, urban poverty, we have only just begun to explore the contours of and improvement in the living conditions of the an interdisciplinary research agenda on local and urban poor in the country’s 5506 municipalities regional economic development in cities. (Rolnik and Klink 2011). To illustrate, in the eco- nomically more dynamic cities (defined in terms Notes of the growth in gross domestic product (GDP) 1. Important work on the city and metropolitan per capita during 2002–2006), average wages per economies, both in the industrialized and in the worker have lagged substantially behind the growth developing countries, had been undertaken in the of GDP per capita, while urban living conditions 1950s and 1960s. I am grateful to Nigel Harris for (as defined in terms of a series of indicators on this point. 2. A range of policy-oriented research along these lines basic sanitation and urban infrastructure, and over- emerged in the beginning of the 1990s. For example, crowding of the dwelling unit) have improved Peterson et al. (1991), United Nations Development over time, but continue to show a statistically Programme (1991), and Harris (1992). For more significant dispersal, with a relatively high pro- recent work see World Bank (2009). portion of dynamic/high-income cities represent- 3. I am grateful to Nigel Harris for making this point. 4. See, for example, de Soto’s work in ‘The Mystery of ing very low urban living conditions. Likewise, Capital.’ the more dynamic economic sectors (producer 5. The International Labor Organization has elabo- services, logistics, durable consumer, and capital rated the decent work concept. According to Egger goods) remain concentrated in the southeastern and Sengenberger (2001, p. 1), decent work implies regions of the national space economy, with a ‘access to employment in conditions of freedom, the recognition of basic rights at work which guar- moderate spread out to the south and part of the antee the absence of discrimination or harassment Midwest. Apparently, without structural change in at work, an income enabling one to satisfy basic the way urban and regional space is produced in economic, social and family needs and responsibil- Brazil, the transformative impact of the favorable ities, an adequate level of social protection for the policy environment of the last 8 years appears to worker and family members, and the exercise of voice and participation at work, directly or indirectly remain rather limited. through self-chosen representative organizations.’ This is neither to deny the scope for local Several Brazilian cities are active in the collective ‘agency,’ nor to claim that, considering the broader construction of a local agenda for decent work. structuring conditions in the economy and soci- 6. Also see the special issue of labor in urban areas of ety, city strategies aimed at poverty alleviation, HABITAT International of June 2008 (volume 32, issue 2). social inclusion, and economic development are International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development 237 7. One of the exceptions was a 2008 study on inclusive from: http://ilomirror.library.cornell.edu/public/eng local economic development strategies in Brazil, lish/region/ampro/cinterfor/tcm/docref/doc3/index. South Africa, and the Philippines, commissioned htm by the Cities Alliance and the International Labor Fernandez E. 2002. The influence of De Soto’s “The Organization in the context of a mutual effort to Mystery of Capital”. Land Lines. 14(1):5–8. establish closer links between the earlier mentioned Hall P. 1995. Cidades do amanhã. São Paulo (Brazil): city development strategies and the Decent Work Perspectiva. Agenda. In the Brazilian case study for Osasco, Harris N, editor. 1992. Cities in the 1990s: the challenge a mid-sized city of about 720,000 inhabitants in for developing countries. London (UK): UCL Press. metropolitan São Paulo, which was part of this Healey P. 1997. Collaborative planning: shaping places project, Klink (2009) mentioned that, despite of the in fragmented societies. London (UK): Macmillan. achievements in terms of reduced informality and Jacobs J. 1970. The economy of cities. New York (NY): unemployment levels of the more vulnerable seg- Vintage. ments, several challenges remained in terms of link- Klink J. 2009. Inclusive economic restructuring in the ing the beneficiaries of the redistributional minimum fringe of metropolitan São Paulo – Brazil. The case income programs that had been established by fed- of Osasco. Geneva (Switerland): ILO. Mimeo. eral administration under Lula and the overall local Krugman P. 1996. Development, geography and eco- economic development policies at city level. Only nomic theory. Cambridge (MA): The MIT Press. approximately 20% of the persons older than 15 Leitão K. 2009. A Dimensão territorial do programa years that were in minimum income programs were de aceleração do crescimento. Um estudo sobre o effectively linked to some form of emancipatory PAC no Estado do Pará e o lugar que ele reserva program, receiving training, technical assistance, a Amazônia no desenvolvimento do país [Tese de micro-credit, or other forms of support through an doutoramento]. São Paulo (Brazil): Universidade de incubation process. São Paulo. 8. About half of the cities with a level of GDP per Logon J, Molotch H. 1987. Urban fortunes. The politi- capita, and a growth figure of the GDP per capita cal economy of place. Berkeley (CA): University of above the Brazilian national average, can be char- California Press. acterized as having less than 40% of their housing Maricato E. 2010. O estatuto da cidade periférica. In: stock as adequate (i.e., adequate urban infrastructure Ministério das Cidades e Aliança das Cidades (Org.). and absence of overcrowding). O estatuto da cidade comentado. São Paulo (Brazil): Ministério de Cidades e Aliança das Cidades. p. 5–22. Martin R, Sunley P. 1997. The post-keynesian state and References the space economy. In: Lee R, Wills J, editors. Amin A. 2006. The good city. Urban Stud. 43 Geographies of economies. New York (NY): Arnold. (5–6):1009–1023. p. 248–258. Benko G. 1996. Economia, espaço e globalização Nelson R, Winter S. 1982. An evolutionary theory na aurora do século XXI. São Paulo (Brazil): of economic change. Cambridge (MA): Harvard HUCITEC. University Press. Biderman C, Barberia LG. 2010. Local economic Ohmae K. 1996. O fim do Estado nação. A ascensão development: theory, evidence and implications for das economias regionais. Rio de Janeiro (Brazil): policy. Geoforum. 41(6):951–962. Campus. Borja J, Castells M. 1997. Local y global, la [OECD] Organization for Economic Co-operation and gestión de lãs ciudades em la era de la informa- Development. 2005. Building competitive regions. ción. Madrid (Spain): United Nations for Human Paris (France): OECD Publications. Settlements/Santillana de Ediciones, S.A. Peterson GE, Kingsley GT, Telgarsky JP. 1991. Urban Brenner N, Theodore N, editors. 2002. Spaces of neo- economies and national development. Washington liberalism. Boston (MA): Blackwell. (DC): US Agency for International Development. Costa EJM Da. 2007. Políticas públicas e o Pieterse E. 2008. City futures: confronting the crisis desenvolvimento de arranjos produtivos locais of urban development. Cape Town (South Africa): em regiões periféricas. Tese de doutoramento. UCT Press. Campinas (Brazil): Universidade estadual de Porter M. 1990. The competitive advantage of nations. UNICAMP. New York (NY): The Free Press. Egger P, Sengenberger W. 2001. Decent work issues and Randolph R. 2007. Do planejamento colaborativo policies [Internet]. [cited 2011 Aug 22]. Available ao planejamento “subversivo”: reflexões sobre 238 J. Klink limitações e potencialidades de planos diretores Storper M. 1997. The regional world: territorial devel- no Brasil. Scripta Nova, 11(7); [cited 2011 Apr opment in a global economy. New York (NY): The 22]. Available from: http//www.ub.es/geocrit/sn/sn- Guilford Press. 24517.htm United Nations Development Programme. 1991. Cities, Rolnik R, Klink J. 2011. Desenvolvimento econômico people and poverty: urban development co-operation e desenvolvimento urbano. Por que nossas cidades in the 1990s (UNDP strategy paper). New York continuam tão precárias? Novos Estudos CEBRAP. (NY): UNDP. 89:89–109. World Bank. 1991. Urban policy and economic devel- Sassen S. 1991. The global city: New York, London, opment: an agenda for the 1990s. Washington (DC): Tokyo. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University World Bank. Press. World Bank. 2009. World development report 2009. Scott A. 1998. Regions and the world economy. New Reshaping economic geography. Washington (DC): York (NY): Oxford University Press. IBRD. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development Taylor & Francis

Development, geography, and the metropolis – a normative appreciation of an emerging agenda

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International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development Vol. 3, No. 2, November 2011, 232–238 COMMENTARY Development, geography, and the metropolis – a normative appreciation of an emerging agenda Jeroen Klink* Center for Engineering and Applied Social Science (CECS), Federal University of ABC region, Sao Paulo, Brazil 1. The renewed investigation of space frontiers, the bulk of which was anyway being generated by city regions. Schumpeterian inspired The academic literature, so it seems, has redis- work on science, technology, and innovation also covered the economic role of city regions and led to an increasing awareness on the role of metropolitan areas in the process of national devel- metropolis in the creation of local innovation sys- opment. While Jacobs (1970) had already claimed tems (Nelson and Winter 1982), while the analysis that economic theory, be it within the Marxist, of global city regions (Sassen 1991; Hall 1995), Keynesian, or neoclassical tradition, had created strategic planning, and entrepreneurial urban man- the equivalent of a ‘fools paradise’ of a space- agement (Borja and Castells 1997) also triggered less economy, it was not until Krugman (1996) a growing debate within the planning literature launched his critique on the neoclassical narrative on the role of large metropolitan areas as cen- of perfectly competitive markets that territory was tral nerve points in an increasingly interdepen- being brought back into mainstream economics, dent world economy marked by intense flow of leading to renewed research on the significance information. of cities for national development. At the same This rediscovery of the role of cities was not time, authors related to regulation theory, such as consensual, however. For example, a political econ- Benko (1996), and industrial urbanism (Storper omy inspired view counterreacted, arguing that 1997; Scott 1998) argued that post-Fordist regimes the shift toward consensus-based strategic planning of flexible accumulation favored a more active and urban entrepreneurialism in effect reflected economic role for cities and metropolitan areas, a neoliberalization of urban and regional spaces especially when compared with the traditional fis- (Brenner and Theodore 2002), and transformed cal and monetary policies that were conducted cities into growth machines, being highly detrimen- at the national level under the Keynesian–Fordist tal to the lower income groups that also depended regime. Business economists such Porter (1990) on the city as a good place to live in (Logon and analyzed the implications of clustering for national Molotch 1987). competitiveness, while Ohmae (1996) even went At the same time, particularly from the mid- so far as to claim that nation states had become 1980s onward, as part of a broader tendency the equivalents of dinosaurs, focused on the (inef- toward decentralization and democratization, the ficient) redistributions of wealth within national Email: jeroen.klink@ufabc.edu.br ISSN 1946-3138 print/ISSN 1946-3146 online © 2011 Taylor & Francis http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19463138.2011.613289 http://www.tandfonline.com International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development 233 renewed territorial focus started to influence the 2. Spaces of investigation international policy arena. The concern with city Even considering that the previous synthesis pro- economies was of course not new, but an impor- vides an oversimplified view on the renewed debate tant driver behind the change of thinking was on the economic role of urban and metropolitan brought about by the influential World Bank policy territories, we argue that there are nevertheless a paper ‘Urban Policy and Economic Development: number of remarkable blind spots in an otherwise An Agenda for the 1990s,’ where the interde- growing literature. pendencies between macroeconomic restructuring The first of them is related to the role of and cities were made more explicit (World Bank, the state in the elaboration and implementation 1991). This publication, and similar international of territorial policies. As observed by Martin and policy-oriented research that was being gener- Sunley (1997, p. 278), to the extent that the state ated, emphasized the need for a better under- is considered at all, ‘it tends to be viewed sim- standing of the intrinsic linkages between macroe- ply as a deus ex machina, to be lowered on to conomic structural adjustment programs, urban the economic landscape to resolve this or that spe- productivity and poverty, and the urban envi- cific aspect of uneven development (typically via ronment; while cities, specifically in the Asian– ‘regional policies’).’ While Krugman’s work on African context, were the arena of an ongoing strategic trade theory and new industrial policies rural–urban transition, more strategic articulation recognized a potential role of the state in preparing between local and national governments was nec- regional economies for the global competition, it essary in order to improve the role of cities in was unclear how this could be achieved. As a mat- strategies toward poverty alleviation and economic ter of fact, much of the ‘new regional economics’ competitiveness. treated the state as exogenous, failing to recognize From the 1990s this concern also led to more it was actually embedded within broader processes operational and consolidated programs aimed at of territorial and productive restructuring. A recog- strengthening the role of cities and metropolitan nition of the endogenous nature of the state would areas within the overall development trajectory of allow to formulate more robust hypotheses on what national economies. In 2000 the Cities Alliance – Martin and Sunley labeled as the emerging qual- composed of the main development agencies itative state, characterized by dense interactions dealing with cities, such as UN-HABITAT, the among policymakers at several territorial scales World Bank, and the United Nations Development (from the global, national to the local) and other Programme, among others – pooled resources private stakeholders. Likewise, issues related to and know-how and created its so-called City city regional and metropolitan development cannot Development Strategy, which explicitly addressed be dissociated from politics in general, and pol- the potential of participatory strategic planning as itics at the national level in particular. Much of a tool in designing investment strategies for cities the effective leverage and autonomy of urban and and city regions. The Organization for Economic metropolitan areas depends on what is given by Co-operation and Development (OECD) – the national governments. policy think tank of the industrialized countries – Second, as observed by Biderman and Barberia also consolidated its so-called territorial reviews, (2010), much of the literature on local eco- a participatory diagnosis of the key features of nomic development is biased toward industrialized a metropolitan area, established by local stake- countries, which cannot be replicated mechani- holders and the OECD teams (OECD 2005). This cally to the context of developing markets and instrument nowadays complements the organiza- societies. Considering both the intense transfor- tion’s traditional macro- and micro-oriented coun- mations of the global economy and the specific try diagnoses. 234 J. Klink setting of developing countries, any linear Rostow On a more conceptual level, the assumption of inspired theory, according to which developing a ‘universal, ahistorical ‘natural’ legal definition economies would pass through similar stages as of property rights is simply a fiction’ (Fernandez were faced by industrialized countries, should be 2002). rejected. As Maricato (2010) observed, developing Third, there are not many linkages between the country cities are peculiar ensembles of the pre- analytical and normative dimensions of the emerg- modern, the modern, and the postmodern. Many ing agenda. The research that has been under- Brazilian metropolitan regions, for example, con- taken has not generated much spin-off in terms centrate significant slum areas and informal set- of the elaboration, implementation, and evaluation tlements and have not been able to completely of concrete projects, programs, and policies. This eradicate child labor and illiteracy. At the same is surprising, particularly considering the fact that time, and particularly from the 1950s onward, part of the regional and local economic develop- Brazilian city regions have developed into the main ment agenda is linked to the ongoing transfor- arena where modern (energy and resource inten- mations within the urban and regional planning sive) industrial complexes – car industry, metal- profession itself. More specifically, planning seems lurgy, petrochemical clusters, and agro-business – to have receded from its somewhat positivist and were set up as part of a broader strategy of instrumental view on reality, and broadened its tra- national import substitution. Finally, from the ditional physical outlook with an agenda on local 1990s onward, megacities like Rio de Janeiro and regional economic development planning. This and São Paulo have witnessed the emergence renewed perspective recognizes that cities and city of archipelagos of flexibly specialized, creative regions are inserted within broader socioeconomic industries, and services (finance, media, fashion, structures of class, race, and gender, which has nev- and so on). ertheless not transformed them into passive and Metropolitan areas in emerging countries also powerless containers of global economic forces. have a much larger informal sector, which gener- Particularly Healey (1997) has emphasized the ates additional complexities and contingencies for potential of strategic planning of urban areas, even the functioning of urban markets for land, labor, acknowledging the limitations of the national and and capital. Both the collection of empirical data global economy. and the building of appropriate theory that take into account the nonlinearities and interdependen- 3. Perspectives cies between the formal and the informal urban lives have provided challenges for academia and Where does all of this leave us in terms of building policymakers alike. A well-known simplification an agenda for the economic planning and manage- is related to informal land markets. In much of ment of metropolitan areas? We argue that there the mainstream literature, the regularization and are two broad thematic areas where more interdis- formalization of freehold title deeds in informal ciplinary theoretical and empirical work should be settlements are portrayed as a direct link to poverty undertaken. alleviation and community entrepreneurship, par- The first is related to the paradox of metropoli- ticularly through business permits and access to tan governance. Metropolitan areas have been fac- credit. Nevertheless, more in-depth research has ing intense processes of technological and produc- pointed out the disappointing results of large- tive restructuring, without being able to count on scale titling programs in countries such as Peru solid institutional frameworks that guide the man- in terms of triggering access to credit (Pieterse agement, organization, and finance of their devel- 2008, p. 49). In many Latin American countries opment trajectory. Reinventing city, regional, and micro-credit programs and informal arrangements metropolitan governance cannot repeat the ‘one provide access to credit without a freehold title. size fits all,’ which was the prevailing approach International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development 235 in the 1960s–1970s. Instead, building collaborative have stressed the importance of enhancing our institutional arrangements in city regions will be understanding of the social economy. In countries an open-ended and customized process and will such as Brazil, social movements, frequently sup- emerge as a result of social learning among public ported by local governments, have been active in and private stakeholders around the planning and what has become known as solidarity economics, management of urban areas. The relational com- characterized by the proliferation of socioe- plexity and contingency of urban areas will require conomic and institutional innovation organized approaches that go beyond social and institutional around micro-credit and savings groups, incuba- engineering. Moreover, the multi-scalar process tors for cooperatives and local agendas for the 5,6 will oblige us to take a fresh look at the important so-called decent work, among other examples. linkages, and the politics, that surround national, The latter initiative also gained additional impe- regional, and metropolitan development strategies. tus with the launching of federal minimum income For example, in the Brazilian scenario, recent programs, conditioned to the continued enrollment research has generated a hypothesis that, partic- of children in basic education (the so-called Bolsa ularly from the 1990s onward, classic redistribu- Familia program). Cities such as Osasco (Greater tional regional development policies have lost posi- São Paulo) and Belo Horizonte have designed tion in relation to approaches that are aimed at clus- their local programs on solidarity economics in ters and local production and innovation systems order to trigger employment and income gener- (Costa 2007). While traditional regional agencies ation for the more vulnerable families, so as to such as the Superintendency for the Development reduce their continued dependency on federal min- of the Northeast and the Superintendency for the imum income programs. A growing number of Development of the Amazonia have been marginal- cities have undertaken efforts to link their slum ized, approximately 1000 local production sys- upgrading to complementary social, economic, tems have been stimulated by national, state, and and cultural programs, aimed at delivering citi- local governments, frequently with the support of zenship to the traditionally excluded segments of universities and training institutes. The initiatives society. often lack coordination and are not linked with However promising these initiatives may be, the national framework for regional development very little in-depth empirical research on the that was established in 2004. Likewise, and still impact of solidarity economics programs and simi- in relation to the Brazilian case, authors such as lar strategies aimed at the creation of a social econ- Leitão (2009) argued that the promulgation of the omy at city level have been undertaken. And even National Growth Acceleration Plan in 2007 (the in Brazilian cities with decades of experience with so-called PAC), a multi-billion federal investment participatory slum upgrading, there is a surprising package on transportation and logistics, energy, lack of evidence based on an adequate assessment and urban infrastructure, by and large bypassed the of both the costs and the benefits, and of the effec- redistributive directives of this national framework tiveness of linking these programs with broader for regional development in favor of the creation of urban development strategies aimed at inserting the internationally competitive, resource-intensive city favelas into the urban and metropolitan develop- regions. ment patterns. A second thematic area where more work This is also one of the intriguing issues that needs to be done is on the relation between have come up after 8 years of federal pro-poor economic growth and poverty alleviation at city and pro-growth policies under the Lula admin- and metropolitan levels, and the potential role istration in the period 2003–2010. This adminis- of cities versus senior levels of government in tration, particularly from 2006 onward, explicitly these thematic areas. Authors such as Amin (2006) developed a strategic urban development agenda, 236 J. Klink which, among others, was reflected in institutional bound to fail. Without adhering to an overly roman- strengthening (the creation of a new ministry tic vision on the role of survival strategies of for cities, the institutionalization of participa- the poor, recent urban mobilization in cities and tion through community councils), a substantial metropolitan areas give us reason to believe that increase in the volume of financial resources for there is scope for alternative spaces of represen- slum upgrading, and a framework legislation that tation (Randolph 2007), which are driven by daily enabled cities more leverage over speculative real spatial practices of communities. In that sense, estate markets through the so-called statute of the and referring to the specific South African con- cities. Nevertheless, socioeconomic and environ- text, Pieterse (2008, p. 104) discusses the so-called mental disparities at city regional, metropolitan, insurgent urbanism, whereby a ‘ “quiet encroach- and interregional levels have shown to be remark- ment” describes the silent, protracted pervasive ably persistent. Work undertaken in the context of advancement of ordinary people on those who are the Brazilian State of the Cities Report provides propertied and powerful in a quest for survival and intriguing evidence on the complexities of the rela- improvement of their lives.’ It seems indeed that tionship between economic growth, urban poverty, we have only just begun to explore the contours of and improvement in the living conditions of the an interdisciplinary research agenda on local and urban poor in the country’s 5506 municipalities regional economic development in cities. (Rolnik and Klink 2011). To illustrate, in the eco- nomically more dynamic cities (defined in terms Notes of the growth in gross domestic product (GDP) 1. Important work on the city and metropolitan per capita during 2002–2006), average wages per economies, both in the industrialized and in the worker have lagged substantially behind the growth developing countries, had been undertaken in the of GDP per capita, while urban living conditions 1950s and 1960s. I am grateful to Nigel Harris for (as defined in terms of a series of indicators on this point. 2. A range of policy-oriented research along these lines basic sanitation and urban infrastructure, and over- emerged in the beginning of the 1990s. For example, crowding of the dwelling unit) have improved Peterson et al. (1991), United Nations Development over time, but continue to show a statistically Programme (1991), and Harris (1992). For more significant dispersal, with a relatively high pro- recent work see World Bank (2009). portion of dynamic/high-income cities represent- 3. I am grateful to Nigel Harris for making this point. 4. See, for example, de Soto’s work in ‘The Mystery of ing very low urban living conditions. Likewise, Capital.’ the more dynamic economic sectors (producer 5. The International Labor Organization has elabo- services, logistics, durable consumer, and capital rated the decent work concept. According to Egger goods) remain concentrated in the southeastern and Sengenberger (2001, p. 1), decent work implies regions of the national space economy, with a ‘access to employment in conditions of freedom, the recognition of basic rights at work which guar- moderate spread out to the south and part of the antee the absence of discrimination or harassment Midwest. Apparently, without structural change in at work, an income enabling one to satisfy basic the way urban and regional space is produced in economic, social and family needs and responsibil- Brazil, the transformative impact of the favorable ities, an adequate level of social protection for the policy environment of the last 8 years appears to worker and family members, and the exercise of voice and participation at work, directly or indirectly remain rather limited. through self-chosen representative organizations.’ This is neither to deny the scope for local Several Brazilian cities are active in the collective ‘agency,’ nor to claim that, considering the broader construction of a local agenda for decent work. structuring conditions in the economy and soci- 6. Also see the special issue of labor in urban areas of ety, city strategies aimed at poverty alleviation, HABITAT International of June 2008 (volume 32, issue 2). social inclusion, and economic development are International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development 237 7. One of the exceptions was a 2008 study on inclusive from: http://ilomirror.library.cornell.edu/public/eng local economic development strategies in Brazil, lish/region/ampro/cinterfor/tcm/docref/doc3/index. South Africa, and the Philippines, commissioned htm by the Cities Alliance and the International Labor Fernandez E. 2002. The influence of De Soto’s “The Organization in the context of a mutual effort to Mystery of Capital”. Land Lines. 14(1):5–8. establish closer links between the earlier mentioned Hall P. 1995. Cidades do amanhã. São Paulo (Brazil): city development strategies and the Decent Work Perspectiva. Agenda. In the Brazilian case study for Osasco, Harris N, editor. 1992. 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International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development – Taylor & Francis

Published: Nov 1, 2011

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