Making a comeback: the politics of economic development in Pittsburgh, Sheffield and Tempere.

Abstract

Over the past three decades, old manufacturing centres in Europe and North America have undergone drastic changes. As traditional manufacturing jobs have shifted to Third-World countries, many previously affluent Western cities have found themselves trapped in a vicious circle of decline. Campaigns that were mounted in the 1970s and early 1980s to regenerate their troubled economies were often fraught with difficulties. Firstly, instead of formulating completely new strategies that would have been appropriate in the new situation, local authorities tended to build on the old policies. Secondly, when novel approaches to the problems were finally explored, it was often realised that local authorities were poorly organised for the purpose and that their staff lacked the necessary skills and experience. Thirdly, adapting to the new situation was slow, since severe economic difficulties had destabilised the existing forms of urban governance in industrial cities. In other words, economic pressures had shaken not only urban policies but also the ways in which these policies had been constructed and legitimated. New urban politics began to take shape in the course of the 1980s. City governors and representatives, whose main priority in the 1960s and 1970s had been to provide welfare to the local community, became convinced of the need for more outward-orientated policies. The only way to revive the flagging economic fortunes of old industrial cities, so it was often argued, was by pursuing strategies designed to encourage investment and stimulate business. Through this type of strategies old manufacturing centres would be able to gain the competitive edge, and cities that were unwilling to seize the opportunity would have no-one but themselves to blame for their economic stagnation and decline." Cities like Glasgow, Detroit, Marseilles and Milan that were particularly hard hit by the global recessions of the 1970s and 1980s were the first major players in the new entrepreneurial