The essays assembled by Scott Cummings in Business Elites and Urban Development constitute a response to the Reagan era's emphasis on the privatization of urban services and minimization of federal and even local government involvement in private sector development. The essays consist of critical responses and case studies, all of which question the ability of the private sector to effect a transformation of cities that would benefit most residents. For the most part the writers agree that existing programs are not effective either. But they are unconvinced that business elites can ever successfully address the root causes of the urban crises which, in so many cases, they either cause or exacerbate. They agree that the private sector will continue to have an even greater impact on American cities but argue that without greater control that impact will continue to be largely negative.
In the first section the authors discuss development strategies in which municipal attractions or private enterprise itself are subsidized by the public. Whitt's analysis of the role of the performing arts in urban growth is inconclusive. Though he agrees that such undertakings add to the appeal of a city and will help facilitate the transition of downtowns into service centers, the effect will be small enough that the costs to the public should be carefully considered and, he notes, such a strategy will not, by itself, be enough to revitalize an area. Rosentraub dissects the mistaken notion that public investment in attracting sports franchises is a matter of investing in the public sector. The profitability of sports to owners and laborers is so high that such investments are strictly a matter of the public subsidizing private enterprise with only limited returns on the investment. Moore and Squires analysis of the effectiveness of Industrial Revenue Bonds (IRBs) suffers from a lack of data, as they acknowledge. But their study indicates t...