Against Innovation
Massey Cities Summit Session: Innovation in Cities around the world
Richard Schragger
What is the relationship between cities and innovation? The words are commonly paired, though in two somewhat different ways. The first pairing suggests an economic relationship. Relatively dense urban environments are said to promote the sharing of information and ideas necessary for invention and investment. These innovations, in turn, lead to economic growth.
The second pairing describes a political relationship. Cities are often celebrated as locations for policy experimentation, their leaders lauded for or encouraged to engage in novel political, economic, or social reforms. The prospect of local experimentation is, on this account, a central reason for devolving power to cities.
The first pairing sometimes suggests the second—the city’s economic generativity implies that it will also be a fruitful site for policymaking. But there is no necessary relationship between the two.
Indeed, I have generally endorsed the view that cities are drivers of economic innovation but I have been less impressed with the claim that cities are or should be in the vanguard when it comes to policymaking. Not that I am opposed to policy innovation; indeed, just the opposite. I welcome the “Fearless Cities” of the Barcelona en Comú experiment and other efforts by urban reformers to restructure local economies, tackle climate change, enhance democratic participation, and pursue the other myriad goals of good governance. But mostly I favor giving cities the power and capacity to provide basic municipal services—health care, public safety, transportation, housing, parks, clean water, electric power, sewer systems, and education. Currently, there are significant barriers to cities doing so effectively, at least in the U.S. And the emphasis on innovation, especially in its “smart cities” or tech-heavy iterations tends to distract from the fact that for many U.S. cities, simply clothing, feeding, and keeping their citizens safe can be a heavy lift.
The emphasis on innovation also suggests that if cities were just creative enough, they could solve their problems and maybe even the world’s. I have two objections to this kind of reasoning. First, the rhetoric of innovation tends to treat the city as a product that can be improved if we just apply ourselves—or better yet, if enough clever planners and policymakers apply themselves. Second, that rhetoric tends to assume that the economic health of a city is amenable to policy—policies that are often “entrepreneurial,” market-enhancing, or driven by a development impulse. Municipal “innovation” has no real analog at the federal level; we don’t often talk about “innovative nations” in the same way that we talk about innovative cities, and certainly not when we talk in the U.S. about federal government policymaking. Maybe that is because we see cities through a competitive lens—as capable of attracting or repelling resident-consumers through their policy decisions.
I am skeptical of the ability for policy to dramatically change the economic fortunes of cities because I do not think we actually know enough about why, when, and how cities rise or fall. There are some macro-economic factors at work, to be sure. And there are also some local factors. But at mid-twentieth century, no one predicted the precipitous decline of Detroit, one of the largest and most economically vibrant cities in the U.S. at the time. And no one anticipated the urban resurgence of the last few decades, as many (though not all) formerly industrial cities have found their footing again after close to seventy-five years of declining populations.
I am less skeptical of the exercise of municipal power to enhance social welfare, however. I have argued elsewhere at length that cities can engage in more social welfare spending and regulation of cross-border industries than traditional models of fiscal federalism predict. The municipal minimum wage has been, to my mind, a success. Other policy efforts are also notable and range from experiments in a universal basic income to plastic bag bans to LGBTQ anti-discrimination laws.
There is no lack of innovation in cities; the real problem is finding states in the U.S. that will permit local efforts. The preemption pandemic has been made manifest by the real pandemic: state leaders have regularly overridden municipal health and safety, masking, and distancing requirements. But cities had been under attack prior to COVID; hostile state legislatures had already adopted preemptive laws across a whole range of policy areas.
The most recent example comes out of Georgia, where the legislature is considering a law that would prevent cities from reducing municipal police budgets. Following the BLM protests last summer, some cities have sought to shift monies from police departments to anti-poverty or other anti-crime efforts. But highly partisan state legislatures, like the one in Georgia, are prepared to insinuate themselves into the local budgeting process, forcing local communities to spend what the legislature deems appropriate on public safety—a potent example of both preemption and unfunded mandates.
The U.S. does not lack for innovative cities, but it does lack for powerful ones. At a minimum, cities should be able to control their own budgets. The National League of Cities has proposed a model home rule provision for the twenty-first century. It provides more protection for municipal autonomy than currently exists in most state constitutions. Those reforms are badly needed. No matter how innovative a city is, it cannot act if the legislature blocks it. And, in the U.S., blocking innovative cities has become routine.