Cities Beyond Reach?
Inequality and Representation in Fragmented Societies
(book manuscript in progress)
The knowledge economy of the 21st century brought prosperity but also a set of inequalities that pose enormous challenges for rich democracies. Growing rifts between rich and poor people and between thriving metropolitan regions and so-called left-behind areas reflect different dimensions of proximity and distance: a growing spatial distance in access to good jobs and economic opportunities; a growing social distance in people's sense of social value and belonging; and a growing political distance in political efficacy and representation. But both the extent and form of these inequalities vary considerably across countries. This book examines the role that political institutions and electoral politics play in explaining the fragmentation of economies and societies — and why politics has often failed to mitigate these inequalities.
I argue that many states have relinquished their unifying energy and reorganized their national growth models, shifting away from policies that ensure territorial equality and social cohesion toward policies that promote regional competitiveness and urban-centric growth. The third industrial revolution not only changed the types of jobs, away from a Fordist manufacturing economy to a service-sector knowledge economy. It also created a new territorial order and economic hierarchy: it empowers cities and their high-skilled professionals economically and, in some cases, politically; it undermines the spatial integration of firms and places; and, as a result, it concentrates economic gains in space.
The declining reach of class-integrative institutions such as the industrial relations system and the welfare state empowers the political system to address distributive conflicts. However, while the geography of economic activity has changed, the geography of political representation has remained largely unchanged. This creates two governing dilemmas: how to solve the conflict between regional competitiveness and territorial equality; and how to solve competing demands of voters and business interests when the structures of economic activity and political representation are misaligned.
The interaction of electoral rules and political decentralization constrains politicians' ability to mitigate the inequality-inducing tendencies of the structural shift from Fordism to the knowledge economy. Two paths can lead to growing spatial, social, and political inequalities: a bottom-up path under decentralized systems with limited fiscal resource sharing, as places can hoard economic opportunity while national politicians have little leeway to redistribute to peripheral regions. And a top-down path under centralized systems with plurality electoral rules. In this case, national politicians have electoral incentives to redistribute toward the median voter outside the urban cores, but no economic incentive to do so if it threatens the viability of dominant sectors in the economy. By contrast, centralized systems with PR rule mitigate spatial inequalities because governing coalitions consist of parties with roots in central and peripheral regions.
The spatial misalignment of economic activity and political representation creates "boundary problems," which arise when the boundaries delineating people affected by a policy choice do not align with the boundaries defining the body of people making such a policy decision. In a world where jobs, education, and social opportunities are concentrated in cities and metro areas, access and the "right" to cities matter greatly. Growing spatial inequalities and a lack of access to urban areas, either through affordable housing or adequate public transportation, have several negative socio-political consequences. Spatial, social, and political inequalities can undermine people’s political efficacy and representation, erode people's sense of social value, and fuel social discontent and electoral polarization.