Decentralization and development

Virginia Law Review

Volumn 96, Issue 8, 2010, Pages 1837-1909

  Schragger, Richard C ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA   (United States)

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EID: 79551662920     PISSN: 00426601     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
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References (408)

1. See, e.g., Lars Feld et al., Fiscal Federausm, Decentralization and Economic Growth, in Public Economics and Public Choice 103 (Pio Baake & Rainald Borck eds., 2007) (collecting studies);
2. Barry R. Weingast, Second Generation Fiscal Federalism: The Implications of Fiscal Incentives, 65 J. Urb. Econ. 281, 281-82 (2009) [hereinafter Second Generation Fiscal Federalism];
3. Barry R. Weingast, The Economic Role of Political Institutions: Market-Preserving Federalism and Economic Development, 11 J.L. Econ. & Org. 1,1-5 (1995) [hereinafter Market-Preserving Federalism];
4. see also Jan K. Brueckner, Fiscal Federalism and Economic Growth, 90 J. Pub. Econ. 2107, 2107-08 (2006);
5. Wallace E. Oates, Fiscal Decentralization and Economic Development, 46 Nat'l Tax J. 237, 237-38 (1993).
6. See, e.g., Merilee S. Grindle, Going Local: Decentralization, Democratization, and the Promise of Good Governance 5-7 (2007);
7. Weingast, Second Generation Fiscal Federalism, supra note 1.
8. For additional sources, see Luis Eslava, Decentralization of Development and Nation-Building Today: Reconstructing Columbia from the Margins of Bogota, 2 Law & Dev. Rev. 282, 283-85 (2009).
9. See, e.g., U.N. Dev. Programme, Decentralised Governance for Development (2004);
10. U.S. Agency for Int'l Dev., Ctr. for Democracy & Governance, Decentralization and Democratic Local Governance Programming Handbook (2000).
11. The United Nations and the World Bank have been active in decentralization efforts.
12. See U.N. Human Settlements Programme [U.N.-HABITAT], International Guidelines on Decentralization and the Strengthening of Local Authorities (2007);
13. World Bank, 2004 World Development Report: Making Services Work for Poor People (2004).
14. For useful summaries of decentralization efforts, see Decentralization and Local Governance in Developing Countries: A Comparative Perspective (Pranab Bardhan & Dilip Mookherjee eds., 2006);
15. Javed Burki et al., Beyond the Center: Decentralizing the State (1999);
16. James Manor, The Political Economy of Democratic Decentralization (1999);
17. Pranab Bardhan, Decentralization of Governance and Development, 16 J. Econ. Persp. 185 (2002) ("All around the world in matters of governance, decentralization is the rage.").
18. Alexis de Tocqueville was perhaps the first to assert this connection. See 1 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (Henry Reeve trans., Schocken Books 1961) (1835).
19. See Douglass C. North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance 107-10 (1990) [hereinafter Institutions];
20. Douglass C. North, Understanding the Process of Economic Change (2005);
21. Oliver Williamson, The New Institutional Economics: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead, 38 J. Econ. Literature 595,598 (2000);
22. see also Daron Acemoglu et al., Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution, 117 Q.J. Econ. 1231,1231 (2002);
23. J. Bradford De Long & Andrei Shleifer, Princes and Merchants: Government and City Growth Before the Industrial Revolution, 36 J.L. & Econ. 671, 671-74 (1993);
24. Rafael La Porta et al., The Quality of Government, 15 J.L. Econ. & Org. 222,222 (1999).
25. For a critical examination of this literature, see Adam Przewroski et al., Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being in the World 1950-1990, at 143-44 (2000);
26. Edward Glaeser et al., Do Institutions Cause Growth?, 9 J. Econ. Growth 271 (2004).
27. The argument that law affects economic development has also been asserted in the legal origins literature, which holds that nations with a common law tradition have done better economically than nations that have inherited a civil law tradition. See, e.g., Rafael La Porta et al., Law and Finance, 106 J. Pol. Econ. 1113, 1113, 1116 (1998);
28. Paul G. Mahoney, The Common Law and Economic Growth: Hayek Might Be Right, 30 J. Legal Stud. 503, 503-04 (2001).
29. For a summary and critique of this literature, see Kenneth W. Dam, The Law-Growth Nexus: The Rule of Law and Economic Development 31-32 (2006).
30. The link has been further asserted by those who argue that formal property rights are a necessary precondition for economic development. See, e.g., Hernando De Soto, The Other Path: The Invisible Revolution in the Third World 177-79 (1989).
31. For a summary and critique of this literature, see, e.g., Michael Trebilcock & Paul-Erik Veel, Property Rights and Development: The Contingent Case for Formalization, 30 U. Pa. J. Int'l L. 397 (2008);
32. David Kennedy, Some Caution about Property Rights as a Recipe for Economic Development (Harvard Law Sch. Pub. Law & Legal Theory Working Paper Series, Paper No. 09-59, 2009).These literatures are sometimes at odds, but like the decentralization-growth thesis, they all posit a law-growth nexus.
33. See Dam, supra, at 35.
34. Dam, supra note 6, at 5.
35. Interestingly, much of the literature examining the relationship between legal institutions and growth has been produced by economists and economic historians and not by legal scholars.
36. See, e.g., North, Institutions, supra note 5. That is not to say that legal scholars have not engaged the literature, only that lawyers have come somewhat late to the table.
37. See Frank B. Cross, Law and Economic Growth, 80 Tex. L. Rev. 1737,1737 (2002) (collecting sources but noting the "relative paucity" of legal scholarship addressed to the issue);
38. Kevin Davis, Taking the Measure of Law: The Case of the Doing Business Project, 32 Law & Soc. Inquiry 1095, 1096 (2007) ("One of the remarkable ironies of contemporary legal scholarship is that some of the most ambitious and influential research on the relationship between law ... and economic outcomes ... is being produced outside the legal academy.").
39. For a recent symposium, see Law and the New Institutional Economics, 26 Wash. U. J.L. & Pol'y 1 (2008). Law and development scholars have engaged the literature, but again many of those scholars come from outside the legal academy.
40. But see, e.g., Dam, supra note 6;
41. The New Law and Economic Development: A Critical Appraisal (David M. Trubeck & Alvaro Santos eds., 2006);
42. Kevin Davis & Michael Trebilcock, The Relationship Between Law and Development: Optimists Versus Skeptics, 56 Am. J. Comp. L. 895 (2008).
43. The law and society scholarship, which is centrally concerned with the causal relationship between law and other aspects of social life, seems relatively uninterested in the claims made by institutional economists. Legal historians-even economically inclined ones-also tend not to engage these literatures.
44. But see Ron Harris, The Uses of History in Law and Economics, 4 Theoretical Inquiries L. 659 (2003);
45. Brian Z. Tamanaha, The Primacy of Society and the Failures of Law and Development (Wash. Univ. in Saint Louis Sch. of Law Faculty Research Paper Series, Paper No.10-03-02, 2010).
46. This paper is thus prefigured by three previous articles. See Richard Schragger, Cities, Economic Development, and the Free Trade Constitution, 94 Va. L. Rev. 1091 (2008) [hereinafter Cities, Economic Development];
47. Richard Schragger, Mobile Capital, Local Economic Regulation, and the Democratic City, 123 Harv. L. Rev. 482 (2009) [hereinafter Mobile Capital];
48. Richard Schragger, Rethinking the Theory and Practice of Local Economic Development, 77 U. Chi. L. Rev. 311 (2010) [hereinafter Rethinking the Theory and Practice]. Those articles engage questions at the intersection of local government law, economic development, and federalism, but they do not directly address the decentralization-growth thesis or the law and development literature.
49. For a summary of the empirical studies, which come to competing conclusions, see Feld et al., supra note 1, at 116;
50. Brueckner, supra note 1, at 2108;
51. see also Cross, supra note 8. The econometric studies of the relationship between law and growth have engendered skepticism more generally.
52. See Dam, supra note 6, at 56.
53. See Jane Jacobs, Cities and the Wealth of Nations: Principles of Economic Life 31-32 (1984) [hereinafter Cities and the Wealth of Nations];
54. Jane Jacobs, The Economy of Cities (1969);
55. Pierre-Philippe Combes et al., Economic Geography: The Integration of Regions and Nations 27 (2008) (quoting Jacobs, Cities and the Wealth of Nations, supra);
56. Edward L. Glaeser & Joshua D. Gottlieb, The Wealth of Cities: Agglomeration Economies and Spatial Equilibrium in the United States, 47 J. Econ. Literature 983,983 (2009).
57. Jacobs, Cities and the Wealth of Nations, supra note 11, at 32.
58. See Global Insight, Inc., The Role of Metro Areas in the U.S. Economy (2006);
59. World Bank, World Development Indicators Database, http://data.worldbank. org.
60. Jacobs, Cities and the Wealth of Nations, supra note 11, at 32. Economists have echoed this claim, with some arguing that we can figure out how economies work by figuring out why cities exist.
61. See, e.g., Paul Krugman, The Self-Organizing Economy 3-5 (1996);
62. Glaeser & Gottlieb, supra note 11, at 983-85;
63. Robert E. Lucas, On the Mechanics of Economic Development, 22 J. Monetary Econ. 3,37-39 (1988).
64. See Michael Storper, Why Does a City Grow? Specialization, Human Capital or Institutions, 47 Urb. Stud. 2027, 2027 (2010).
65. Conventionally, economic growth is measured by a change in per capita gross domestic product, see 2 New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics 675 (Steven N. Durlauf & Lawrence E. Blume eds., 2d ed. 2008), though GDP has been criticized for being too limited a measurement.
66. See, e.g., Amartya Sen, Development: Which Way Now?, 93 Econ. J. 745 (1983);
67. Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (1999).
68. For the purposes of this Article, I use growth and economic development interchangeably to refer generally to improvements in standards of living. And because I believe that the appropriate unit of economic development is the city or metropolitan region, I am not particularly interested in national GDP. Growth or economic development, as I use it here, generally refers to improvements in local GDP or to rising populations coupled with rising incomes.
69. See Paul Bairoch, Cities and Economic Development: From the Dawn of History to the Present 496 (1988);
70. Jacobs, Cities and the Wealth of Nations, supra note 11, at 32;
71. Lucas, supra note 14, at 38.
72. See, e.g., Adam Przeworski, The Last Instance: Are Institutions the Primary Cause of Economic Development?, 45 Archives Eur. Soc. 165,166 (2004);
73. Tamanaha, supra note 8, at 3-4.
74. See, e.g., Robert Gordon, The Role of Lawyers in Producing the Rule of Law: Some Critical Reflections, 11 Theoretical Inquiries L. 441,444-45 (2010).
75. See Glaeser & Gottlieb, supra note 11, at 983-84.
76. Mario Polèse, The Wealth and Poverty of Regions: Why Cities Matter 54-55 (2009);
77. see Krugman, supra note 14, at 14-15;
78. World Bank, 2009 World Development Report: Reshaping Economic Geography 50-52 (2009).
79. See Schragger, Rethinking the Theory and Practice, supra note 9, at 331-38;
80. Polèse, supra note 21, at 16.
81. The "crisis" in law and development scholarship has been long observed. See David Trubeck & Marc Galanter, Scholars in Self-Estrangement: Some Reflections on the Crisis in Law and Development Studies in the United States, 1974 Wis. L. Rev. 1062, 1063 (1974). For recent discussions, see Davis & Trebilcock, supra note 8, at 896-97; Tamanaha, supra note 8.
82. Cf. Storper, supra note 15, at 2028 (applying international growth economics to metropolitan growth).
83. Some scholars have expressed skepticism about the role of political decentralization in the present-day United States. See, e.g., Malcolm Feeley & Edward Rubin, Federalism: Political Identity and Tragic Compromise 2 (2008). Others have challenged the empirical claims made on decentralization's behalf.
84. See Daniel Treisman, The Architecture of Government: Rethinking Political Decentralization 5 (2007).
85. See, e.g., Schragger, Mobile Capital, supra note 9;
86. Richard Schragger, The Role of the Local in the Doctrine and Discourse of Religious Liberty, 117 Harv. L. Rev. 1810 (2004).
87. Feeley & Rubin, supra note 25, at 20-21;
88. Frank B. Cross, The Folly of Federalism, 24 Cardozo L. Rev. 1,1 (2002).
89. Treisman, supra note 25, at 23-25.
90. Feeley & Rubin, supra note 25, at 20-29.
91. Id. at 20-32;
92. see also Cross, supra note 27, at 23.
93. See Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898,905 (1997).
94. See id. at 918-22.
95. See Walter J. Nicholls, Power and Governance: Metropolitan Governance in France, 42 Urb. Stud. 783,788 (2005).
96. discuss this further in Richard Schragger, Can Strong Mayors Empower Weak Cities? On the Power of Local Executives in a Federal System, 115 Yale L.J. 2542,2561 (2006).
97. Sidney Tarrow, Between Center and Periphery: Grassroots Politicians in Italy and France 15-47 (1977).
98. See Weingast, Market-Preserving Federalism, supra note 1, at 8.
99. See id. at 4.
100. These centuries also witnessed the rise of the states. See Jon Teaford, The Rise of the States: Evolution of American State Government 5 (2002).
101. See Treisman, supra note 25, at 21;
102. see generally Feld et al., supra note 1, at 116 (discussing the studies).
103. See Mikhail Filippov et al., Designing Federalism: A Theory of Self-Sustainable Federal Institutions, at ix, 16 (2004);
104. see also Jonathan Rodden & Susan RoseAckerman, Does Federalism Preserve Markets?, 83 Va. L. Rev. 1521,1524-25 (1997).
105. Moreover, according to market-preserving federalists, the United States no longer meets their definition of an operative federal state, and has not since the New Deal.
106. Rodden & Rose-Ackerman, supra note 39, at 1554;
107. see Weingast, Market-Preserving Federalism, supra note 1, at 26-27.
108. Filippov et al., supra note 39, at 9 (observing that there is an absence of consensus on what constitutes a federal system);
109. Shama Gamkhar & Jill Vickers, Comparing Federations: Lessons from Comparing Canada and the United States, 40 Publius 351, 352 (2010) (discussing difficulty in defining federalism).
110. See generally Comparing Local Governance: Trends and Developments (Bas Denters & Lawrence E. Rose eds., 2005).
111. Weingast, Market-Preserving Federalism, supra note 1, at 5.
112. For a critique, see Rodden & Rose-Ackerman, supra note 39, at 1523.
113. Weingast, Market-Preserving Federalism, supra note 1, at 4.
114. See Charles Tiebout, A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures, 64 J. Pol. Econ. 416, 419 (1956).
115. Cf. Feld et al., supra note 1, at 103-11 (discussing efficiency and innovation), 115 (discussing predation).
116. See Feeley & Rubin, supra note 25, at 20-29;
117. Treisman, supra note 25, at 11-12, 14.
118. Weingast, Second Generation Fiscal Federalism, supra note 1, at 281.
119. Id. at 282.
120. But cf. Ronald Gilson & Curtis J. Milhaupt, Economically Benevolent Dictators: Lessons for Developing Democracies 1 (Columbia Law & Econ. Working Paper, Paper No. 371,2010) (describing centralized, authoritarian regimes that do not engage in predation).
121. See Rodden & Rose-Ackerman, supra note 39, at 1532-34.
122. China seems to be an example of this. See Gilson & Milhaupt, supra note 49, at 7.
123. See Daryl Levinson, Making Government Pay: Markets, Politics, and the Allocation of Constitutional Costs, 67 U. Chi. L. Rev. 345, 347 (2000).
124. See id. at 355-56.
125. Cf. Oliver Blanchard & Andrei Shleifer, Federalism With and Without Political Centralization: China Versus Russia, 48 IMF Staff Papers 171,172 (2001) (observing that decentralization to local governments in Russia led to the capture of local governments by existing firms).
126. Roderick Hills, Federalism and Public Choice 10 (N.Y. Univ. Sch. of Law, Pub. Law & Legal Theory Research Paper Series, Working Paper, Paper No. 09-07,2009).
127. Cf. Harvey Molotch, The City as a Growth Machine: Toward a Political Economy of Place, 82 Am. J. Soc. 309, 320-21 (1972).
128. For a discussion, see Schragger, Rethinking, supra note 9, at 332.
129. The problem is partly conceptual. Constraining predation and inducing economic growth are two different things. Once one puts aside predatory government officials, there must be some mechanism that drives economic growth. For that, marketpreserving federalists turn to the "market"-a system by which prices are set (by some appropriate criteria). The market is presumed to operate effectively as long as government ensures (presumably through the laws of property and contract) that debts, investments, and profits will be honored, enforced, and protected from confiscation. But here is where some circularity creeps in, for the problem of confiscation looks a lot like the problem of predation. For market-preserving federalists, economic growth is achieved if governments respect markets-but markets are a black box, and the myriad legal tools that construct markets are put to the side, separated from the predation that must be constrained once markets get going. This separation is artificial, however: limiting confiscation and constraining predation are one and the same. Thus, one would be forgiven for thinking that the market-preserving federalist's prescription for economic growth is "create markets and let them run"-which is simply laissez-faire economics under a fancier name. Oddly, despite the invocation of "market-enhancing public goods," there seems to be relatively little role for affirmative government intervention, let alone a specification of what those interventions might look like. Particularly absent are the myriad investments in human capital that might generate economic returns-like public education.
130. Cf. Daryl Levinson, Parchment and Politics: The Positive Puzzle of Constitutional Commitment 20 (Mar. 24, 2010) (unpublished manuscript, available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1577749) (asking similar question).
131. This is the story that Weingast tells about China. Weingast, Market-Preserving Federalism, supra note 1, at 22.
132. Rodden & Rose-Ackerman, supra note 39, at 1523.
133. For a definition of "selfenforcing," see Filippov et al., supra note 39, at 15.
134. Such factors include political parties, the popularity of a particular president, or civic culture.
135. Rodden and Rose-Ackerman believe that the effort is doomed. See Rodden & Rose-Ackerman, supra note 39, at 1565 ("As it stands, MPF only restates and elaborates on the fundamental political dilemma at the heart of Weingast's work without providing an adequate solution.").
136. See Tiebout, supra note 44, at 418.
137. See Treisman, supra note 25, at 12.
138. This is a common critique of Tiebout. See, e.g., Richard Schragger, Consuming Government, 101 Mich. L. Rev. 1824, 1831-33 (2003);
139. Hills, supra note 55, at 10-11.
140. See Oates, supra note 1, at 237-40.
141. See Treisman, supra note 25, at 53-55.
142. See Oates, supra note 1, at 237,240-41.
143. Tiebout wrote about local economic growth, but in the context of the debate between economic base theory and import substitution. See Charles M. Tiebout, The Urban Economic Base Reconsidered, 32 Land Econ. 95, 95, 98-99 (1956);
144. Charles M. Tiebout, Exports and Regional Economic Growth, 64 J. Pol. Econ. 160,160 (1956).
145. See Brueckner, supra note 1, at 2107-08.
146. See id. at 2107-09.
147. 285 U.S. 262,310-11 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting).
148. See Susan Rose-Ackerman, Risk Taking and Reelection: Does Federalism Promote Innovation?, 9 J. Legal Stud. 593,593-94 (1980);
149. see also Brian Galle & Joseph Leahy, Laboratories of Democracy? Policy Innovation in Decentralized Governments, 58 Emory L.J. 1333,1333,1337 (2009).
150. In a decentralized system in which local officials reap the benefits of development, local officials are inclined to either subsidize local businesses or treat them more favorably than out-of-jurisdiction businesses. They are also inclined to "steal" business from other jurisdictions, since they are only interested in the location of development and not in development per se. The central government would need to enforce fairly serious limitations on the kinds of innovative policies that local governments could adopt.
151. See Ronald J. Gilson & Curtis J. Milhaupt, Economically Benevolent Dictators: Lessons for Developing Democracies 59-62 (March 4, 2010) (unpublished manuscript, available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1564925) (internal quotations and citation omitted).
152. Sebastian Heilmann, Policy Experimentation in China's Economic Rise, 43 Stud. Comp. Int'l. Dev. 1, 11 (2008) (noting that giving provinces and local governments some administrative autonomy has not "eliminated the weight of hierarchy and ad hoc central interference in China's political economy").
153. Treisman, supra note 25, at 93.
154. Barry R. Weingast et. al., Regional Decentralization and Fiscal Incentives, Federalism, Chinese-Style, 89 J. Pub. Econ. 1719,1719 (2005).
155. Heilmann, supra note 77, at 21.
156. Id.
157. Certainly, the form of administrative decentralization that China has embraced might better align local officials' governance incentives with economic growth-as long as that is what the center desires. But in China, much of that alignment is accomplished by the fact that local officials get to take profits from local state-owned enterprises and the selling of local public services. The truly private sector itself is still quite limited; in such an economic system, the idea of market preserving federalism as a mechanism to prevent government officials from crowding out the private sector is incoherent. In China, the state has its hands in everything-the only question is how to get specific state actors to act as investors (with long-term horizons) rather than as predators (with short-term horizons). Political decentralization is not necessarily responsive to that problem and might be contrary to it. See Oliver Blanchard & Andrei Shleifer, Federalism With and Without Political Centralization: China Versus Russia, 48 IMF Staff Papers 171, 176 (2001) (arguing that Chinese development depends "very much on political centralization" in the form of the Communist Party).
158. Heilmann, supra note 77, at 21. Inter-local competition has also produced significant examples of waste. As Daniel Treisman points out, China experienced a boom in airport construction in the 1980s and 1990s as local governments competed for investment. Almost ninety percent of those airports lose money.
159. See Treisman, supra note 25, at 97.
160. Tocqueville, supra note 4, at 291-97.
161. See Weingast, Market-Preserving Federalism, supra note 1, at 8-9;
162. John Joseph Wallis & Barry R. Weingast, Equilibrium Impotence: Why the States and not the American National Government Financed Economic Development in the Antebellum Era 23-26 (NBER, Working Paper, No. 11397, June 2005).
163. See Jacobs, Cities and the Wealth of Nations, supra note 11, at 31-32;
164. Krugman, supra note 14, at 9,22-30;
165. Polèse, supra note 21, at 16.
166. An "institution" has been defined as a "relatively enduring collection of rules and organized practices, embedded in structures of meaning and resources that are relatively invariant in the face of turnover of individuals and relatively resilient to the idiosyncratic preferences and expectations of individuals and changing external circumstances." James G. March & Johan P. Olsen, Elaborating the "New Institutionalism," in The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions 3, 3 (R.A.W. Rhodes, Sarah A. Binder & Bert A. Rockman eds., Oxford University Press 2006).
167. North distinguishes institutions from organizations. Institutions are rules and constraints on behavior; organizations are groups of individuals acting in concert. See Douglass C. North, The New Institutional Economics and Development 5-6 (1993 Working Paper) (unpublished manuscript, on file with author).
168. For a discussion, see Oliver E. Williamson, The New Institutional Economics: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead, 38 J. Econ. Literature 595,595-96 (2000);
169. see also Peter A. Hall & Rosemary C.R. Taylor, Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms, 44 Pol. Stud. 936, 936-37 (1996).
170. As I have noted, U.S. federalism, especially in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is often held up as an example of a credible commitment mechanism, though I think there are ample questions as to whether that is the case. See Levinson, supra note 59, at 20-21.
171. Cf. Jessica Trounstine, Political Monopolies in American Cities: The Rise and Fall of Bosses and Reformers 1-14 (The University of Chicago Press 2008).
172. I think federalism has always been contested as well but do not argue that here. See Levinson, supra note 59, at 10-11,22.
173. David Barron, Reclaiming Home Rule, 116 Harv. L. Rev. 2257,2286 (2003).
174. See Gerald Frug, The City as a Legal Concept, 93 Harv. L. Rev. 1057, 1095-99 (1980).
175. See id.; Hendrick Hartog, Public Property and Private Power 1-5 (The University of North Carolina Press 1983).
176. Hartog, supra note 93, at 1-7.
177. 207 U.S. 161,178 (1907).
178. Id. at 178-79.
179. See 1 John F. Dillon, Commentaries on the Law of Municipal Corporations 448-51 (5th ed. 1911).
180. Id. at 449-50.
181. See Richard Briffault & Laurie Reynolds, State and Local Government Law 639-48 (7th ed. 2009);
182. see generally Richard McCormick, The Discovery that Business Corrupts Politics: A Reappraisal of the Origins of Progressivism, 86 Am. Hist. Rev. 247 (1981).
183. Briffault & Reynolds, supra note 99, at 640;
184. Jon C. Teaford, The Unheralded Triumph: City Government in America, 1870-1900, at 283-84 (1984).
185. Frug, supra note 92, at 1110.
186. Barron, supra note 91.
187. Id. at 2286-88.
188. l04 Teaford, supra note 100, at 103-04.
189. See id.
190. See U.S. Advisory Comm'n on Intergovernmental Relations, State Laws Governing Local Government Structure and Administration (1993);
191. Jesse Richardson et al., Is Home Rule the Answer? Clarifying the Influence of Dillon's Rule on Growth Management (Brookings Inst. Ctr. on Urban & Metro. Pol'y, Discussion Paper, Jan. 2003), available at http://www.brookings.edu/-/media/Files/rc/reports/2003/01metro politanpolicy-jesse%20j%20%20richardson%20%20jr/dillonsrule.pdf.
192. See Teaford, supra note 100, at 103-04.
193. Id. at 1,308.
194. Rebecca Menes, Limiting the Reach of the Grabbing Hand: Graft and Growth in American Cities, 1880-1930, in Corruption and Reform: Lessons from America's Economic History 69 (Edward L. Glaeser & Claudia D. Goldin eds., 2006). There is a growing literature on the relationship between decentralization and corruption. Some argue that decentralized regimes are less corrupt that unitary ones. Others claim the reverse.
195. See Daniel Treisman, The Causes of Corruption: A Cross-National Study, 76 J. Pub. Econ. 399,440-41 (2002) (arguing that federal governments are more corrupt).
196. For a summary of the studies, see Treisman, supra note 25, at 254-55.
197. Menes, supra note 109, at 64-66.
198. Id. at 64.
199. See William Cronon, Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West 42-43 (1992).
200. Ira Rosenwaike, Population History of New York City (1972);
201. U.S. Census Bureau, Population of the 100 Largest Cities and Other Urban Places in the United States: 1790 to 1990, (Population Division Working Paper, Paper No. 27,1998), available at http://www.census.gov/population/www/ documentation/twps0027/twps0027. html.
202. See Gerald E. Frug, Beyond Regional Government, 115 Harv. L. Rev. 1763, 1766-67 (2002) ("All the major cities of the period-Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Cleveland, Denver-grew by incorporating their suburbs. And the growth was substantial: these cities became four to sixty-five times larger.")
203. (citing Roderick Duncan McKenzie, The Metropolitan Community (1933), among others).
204. Teaford, supra note 100, at 111.
205. Id.
206. For a discussion, see Gerald Frug, City Making: Building Communities Without Building Walls 50 (1999).
207. See id. Local governments are also constrained by the "private law exception." They have never had the authority to adopt laws pertaining to contract, property, or other "private law" subjects. The fact that this wide swath of law-making is relatively centralized seems to cut against the decentralization-growth thesis. One might think that the power to define property and contract is the ultimate instrument of predation because public officials can simply change the definition of property.
208. See, e.g., Lucas v. S.C. Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003 (1992) (holding that the state does not have unlimited power to change the definition of nuisance). Decentralizing this power would be consistent with the predatory-center thesis. However, a different division of labor has prevailed over time with little change. Indeed, the center seems to have taken a significant role in protecting property rights from state or local confiscation.
209. See id.;
210. Trs. of Dartmouth Coll. v. Woodward, 17 U.S. 518 (1819) (holding that the New Hampshire legislature could not rescind the Dartmouth College charter).
211. See Frug, supra note 117, at 50.
212. See Briffault & Reynolds, supra note 99, at 639-48.
213. See id.
214. See id. at 790, 872-77 (noting "the many legal techniques state and local governments have developed to avoid those limitations").
215. See id. at 672-703 (discussing Proposition 13 and tax and expenditure limitations).
216. Id.
217. William Fischel had offered a competing explanation. See William Fischel, The Home voter Hypothesis chs. 5-6 (2001) (arguing that school finance equalization led to Proposition 13).
218. For my take on this debate, see generally Schragger, supra note 66, at 1842-47.
219. See Joan C. Williams, The Constitutional Vulnerability of American Local Government: The Politics of City Status in American Law, 1986 Wis. L. Rev. 83 (1986).
220. See generally Richard Briffault, Our Localism: Part I-The Structure of Local Government Law, 90 Colum. L. Rev. 1 (1990);
221. Richard Briffault, Our Localism: Part II-Localism and Legal Theory, 90 Colum. L. Rev. 346 (1990).
222. See Schragger, supra note 33, at 2558-61.
223. It is worth noting that suburbanization did not occur against the backdrop of national non-intervention. The massive federal subsidization of highways and home mortgages and the nationalization of land use law were leading causes of the form of spatial economic development that has dominated the United States in the last seventy-five years and for the movement of wealth out of cities into suburbs.
224. Regionalists have long urged cities and suburbs to work together to advance regional economic competitiveness. For arguments that cities and suburbs will do better economically if they cooperate, see Richard Voith, Do Suburbs Need Cities?, 38 J. Reg. Sci. 445 (2002) and
225. Andrew Haughwout & Robert Inman, How Should Suburbs Help Their Central Cities? Growth- and Welfare-Enhancing Intrametropolitan Fiscal Distributions, 39 Annals of the Am. Acad, of Pol. Sci. 626 (2009).
226. Weingast, Market-Preserving Federalism, supra note 1, at 4.
227. See Hongbein Cai & Daniel Treisman, Does Competition for Capital Discipline Governments? Decentralization, Globalization, and Public Policy, 95 Am. Econ. Rev. 817 (2005).
228. Whether these are preconditions for development or are a product of development is a significant question which I do not want to entirely elide. For my purposes, however, I am prepared to assume that some preconditions for growth can be asserted. The debates over the determinants of economic prosperity are long-running and have produced a huge literature. For a short summary,
229. see Glaeser et al., supra note 5;
230. De Long & Shleifer, supra note 5, at 671-72.
231. The scholarship on the determinants of economic growth often distinguishes between "institutions" and "policies." When theorists speak of democracy versus absolutism, federalism, property rights, constitutionally limited government or the like, they are speaking about "institutions." When theorists speak about macro-economic policy, trade liberalization, national investment decisions or the like, they are talking about "policies." A country with a dictator has "bad" institutions. On some accounts, therefore, we should expect growth to suffer. On the other hand, a dictator might be able to pursue "good" policies. If policy matters more than institutions, than we should see growth advance.
232. Compare Glaeser et al., supra note 5, at 271 (arguing that human capital investments cause growth, not institutions, and that dictators can pursue good policies), with
233. De Long & Shleifer, supra note 5 (arguing that limited government promotes growth and presenting evidence of preindustrial city growth tending to show that absolutist regimes retard growth but constitutionally constrained ones promote it). I am somewhat skeptical of the distinction between policy and institutions; it tends to break down especially when one is taking about relative decentralization, as I have argued in Part II.
234. See also Levinson, supra note 59, at 21.
235. But see De Long & Shleifer, supra note 5. At the national level, there are ongoing debates about whether democracy is a precondition for economic development or a consequence of development.
236. See Adam Przewroski et al., Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being in the World, 1950-1990, at 88 (2000).
237. Menes, supra note 109, at 64-67.
238. Id. at 90. Between 1930 and 2000, those cities' populations shrank by thirty-nine percent, forty-nine percent, and forty-seven percent, respectively.
239. Id.
240. Douglas Rae, City: Urbanism and Its End at x-xii, xviii (2003).
241. See, e.g., William Easterly, The Elusive Quest for Growth 21-140 (2001) (describing the many growth policies that have failed);
242. What Works in Development? Thinking Big and Thinking Small 1 (Jessica Cohen & William Easterly eds., 2009) ("[T]here is no consensus on 'what works' for growth and development."). Indeed, there is a respected literature that argues that economic development over the course of world history is mostly a product of environmental factors, not man-made ones.
243. See, e.g., Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies 25 (1997);
244. Jeffrey Sachs, Tropical Underdevelopment 1 (Nat'l Bureau of Econ. Research, Working Paper No. 8119, 2001);
245. see also Robert Kaplan, For Greece's Economy, Geography Was Destiny, N.Y. Times, Apr. 24, 2010.
246. Michael Storper & Michael Manville, Behaviour, Preferences, and Cities: Urban Theory and Urban Resurgence, 43 Urb. Stud. 1247,1247 (2006);
247. see Edward Glaeser & Joshua Gottlieb, Urban Resurgence and the Consumer City, 43 Urb. Stud. 1275, 1275 (2006);
248. cf. Ingrid Gould Ellen & Katherine O'Regan, Reversal of Fortunes? Lower-income Urban Neighborhoods in the US in the 1990s, 45 Urb. Stud. 845, 866 (2008) (finding strong evidence that "an urban resurgence of sorts did take place in the 1990s and that it extended to the lowest income neighborhoods" but that higher income neighborhoods did not experience it).
249. Storper & Manville, supra note 140, at 1247-48.
250. I have made this argument elsewhere, albeit for different purposes. See Schragger, Rethinking the Theory and Practice, supra note 9, at 312.
251. At best, student achievement during the 1990s shows mixed results. See A Decade of Urban School Reform: Persistence and Progress in the Boston Public Schools 133-34 (S. Paul Reville & Celine Coggins eds., 2007);
252. G. Alfred Hess, Jr., Understanding Achievement (and Other) Changes under Chicago School Reform, 21 Educ. Eval. & Pol. Analysis 67,79-80 (1999);
253. Diane Ravitch & Joseph P. Viteritti, Introduction, in City Schools: Lessons from New York 1, 3-5 (Diane Ravitch & Joseph P. Viteritti eds., 2000). As for New York City, the data arguably shows some gains starting in 2002.
254. See generally Nat'l Assessment of Educ. Progress, 2007 Trial Urban District Assessment: New York City Highlights (2007), available at http://schools. nyc.gov/daa/reports/2007-NAEP-TUDA-Results.pdf (visited Oct. 27, 2009) (detailing the standardized test results of fourth and eighth graders in New York City and comparing the results to 2002-2003 levels).
255. But see Diane Ravitch, Mayor Bloomberg's Crib Sheet, N.Y. Times, Apr. 10,2009, at A23 (arguing that any gains in the New York City schools have been overstated);
256. Sharon Otterman & Robert Gebeloff, Triumph Fades on Racial Gap in City Schools, N.Y. Times, Aug. 15, 2010. Citysuburban gaps across all major cities-including sunbelt cities-are still dramatic.
257. See Sam Dillon, Large Urban-Suburban Gap Seen in Graduation Rates, N.Y. Times, Apr. 22, 2009, at A14.
258. For a summary of Las Vegas's progress, see Roberta Furger, Full House: The Las Vegas Building Boom Has Stretched the Creativity and Resources of the FastestGrowing School District in the Nation, Edutopia, Sept./Oct. 2004, at 31;
259. cf. Dillon, supra note 143, at A14.
260. Steven D. Levitt, Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s: Four Factors that Explain the Decline and Six that Do Not, 18 J. Econ. Persps. 163, 163-64 (2004);
261. Philip Cook, Crime in the City, in Making Cities Work: Prospects and Policies for Urban America 297, 297, 301 (Robert Inman ed., 2009) [hereinafter Making Cities Work] (noting that "[n]o expert predicted [the decline in crime] and it remains something of a mystery" and that the decline of the 1990s made any policy intervention "look good").
262. For a summary of the literature, see Vanessa Barker, Explaining the Great American Crime Decline: A Review of Blumstein and Wallman, Goldberger and Rosenfeld, and Zimring, 35 Law & Soc. Inquiry 489, 490-92 (Spring 2010) (observing that "researchers have had a difficult time explaining the [crime] decline . . . there is no consensus, no single most important cause").
263. For evidence of resurgence in European cities, see Ivan Turok & Vlad Mykhnenko, Resurgent European Cities?, 1 Urb. Res. & Prac. 54, 58 (2008).
264. For crime statistics showing a slight uptick in crime in Europe in the mid-1990s, see Martin Killias & Marcelo F. Aebi, Crime Trends in Europe from 1990 to 1996: How Europe Illustrates the Limits of the American Experience, 8 Eur. J. on Crim. Pol'y & Res. 43, 54-55 (2000).
265. See Ingrid Gould Ellen & Katherine O'Regan, Crime and Urban Flight Revisited: The Effect of the 1990s Drop in Crime on Cities, 68 J. Urb. Econ. 247,257 (2010) (finding that the decline in crime in the United States during the 1990s had little positive effect on overall city growth and that while the crime decline did abate some amount of urban flight, it did not reverse it).
266. Storper & Manville, supra note 140, at 1247.
267. See id.
268. For a case study of Philadelphia, see Guian Mckee, The Problem of Jobs: Liberalism, Race, and Deindustrialization in Philadelphia (2008).
269. See Glaeser & Gottlieb, supra note 140, at 1275.
270. See, e.g., Making Cities Work, supra note 145, at 17.
271. N.Y. Bldg. Cong. & N.Y. Bldg. Found., Rising Construction New York's Costs: Issues and Solutions 1-2 (2008) (reporting that nonresidential construction costs in New York City average sixty percent more than in Dallas, fifty percent more than in Atlanta, and that total construction costs for high-rise office towers can exceed $400 per square foot ("psf ') in New York, compared to $180 psf in Chicago). New York's overall tax burden places it in the top fourth of big cities.
272. See Gov't of D.C., Tax Rates and Tax Burdens in the District of Columbia-A Nationwide Comparison 14 (2008). New York City residents pay the highest income tax rate in the country.
273. See Posting of Josh Barro to Tax Policy Blog, Tax Foundation, NYC Income Taxes Going from Ridiculous to Ridiculouser, http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/ show/24013.html (Dec. 5,2008).
274. One commentator observes that New York City's Department of Investigation- the chief corruption investigator for the city-arrested half the city's building inspectors, half its plumbing inspectors, and a substantial number of elevator inspectors in the 1990s. Larissa MacFarquhar, Busted, New Yorker, Feb. 1, 2010, at 57.
275. See generally Paul Peterson, City Limits 167 (1981).
276. For further discussion of this point, see Schragger, Rethinking the Theory and Practice, supra note 9.
277. See Saskia Sassen, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo (1991).
278. For a discussion of these studies, see Feld et al., supra note 1, at 115-26 (noting one study of state or local decentralization found no effect on U.S. GDP but another study did find a relationship).
279. Two studies that found some relationship are: Dean Stansel, Local Decentralization and Local Economic Growth: A Cross-Sectional Examination of US Metropolitan Areas, 57 J. Urb. Econ. 55, 56 (2005);
280. Nobuo Akai & Masayo Sakata, Fiscal Decentralization Contributes to Economic Growth: Evidence from State-Level Cross-Section Data for the United States, 52 J. Urb. Econ. 93, 94 (2002). Both studies note that their findings contradict prior studies' empirical results.
281. Cf. Richard Deitz & Jaison R. Abel, Have Amenities Become Relatively More Important Than Firm Productivity Advantages in Metropolitan Areas? (Fed. Reserve Bank of N.Y. Staff Report No. 344, Sept. 2008) available at http://www.newyorkfed.org/research/staff-reports/sr344.pdf. (observing that it is difficult for any region to change its relative amenity position over a decade).
282. Richard Florida et al., Global Metropolis: The Role of Cities and Metropolitan Areas in the Global Economy 6 (Martin Prop. Inst. Working Paper Series, Mar. 2009), available at http://www.creativeclass.com/rfcgdb/articles/ Global%20 metropolis.pdf.
283. See Mario Polèse, The Wealth and Poverty of Regions: Why Cities Matter 16 (2009).
284. See id.;
285. Krugman, supra note 14, at 3;
286. see also Masahisa Fujita et al., The Spatial Economy: Cities, Regions and International Trade 2 (1999);
287. Masahisa Fujita & Paul Krugman, The New Economic Geography: Past, Present and the Future, 83 Papers Reg. Sci. 139,140 (2004).
288. David Schleicher is the first local government scholar to address this work directly. See David Schleicher, The City as a Law and Economic Subject, U. Ill. L. Rev. (forthcoming);
289. see also Schragger, Cities, Economic Development, supra note 9, at 1100-06,1156 (discussing Jacobs and economic geography);
290. Schragger, Mobile Capital, supra note 9, at 494-95 (discussing economic geography);
291. Schragger, Rethinking the Theory and Practice, supra note 9, at 312.
292. Combes et al., supra note 11, at 365.
293. See id.;
294. Polèse, supra note 21, at 2-3;
295. World Bank, Reshaping Economic Geography, supra note 21, at 8.
296. Krugman, supra note 14, at 22-30.
297. Id.
298. Id. at 26-27.
299. Id.
300. Id.
301. Id. at 39-43;
302. see also Xavier Gabaix, Zipf's Law for Cities: An Explanation, 114 Q.J. Econ. 739 (1999).
303. Krugman, supra note 14, at 39-43.
304. See Combes et al., supra note 11, at 130;
305. Polèse, supra note 21, at 74-75;
306. World Bank, supra note 21, at 81.
307. Krugman, Self-Organizing Economy, supra note 14, at 22-30.
308. Combes et al., supra note 11, at 130;
309. World Bank, supra note 21, at 82-83.
310. Combes et al., supra note 11, at 14-15.
311. Krugman, supra note 14, at 35-37.
312. Paul Krugman, History Versus Expectations, 106 Q.J. Econ. 651, 654 (1991).
313. See Krugman, supra note 14, at 43-46.
314. Cf. Christian L. Redfearn, Persistence in Urban Form: The Long-Run Durability of Employment Centers in Metropolitan Areas, 39 Regional Sci. & Urb. Econ. 224, 224-25 (2009) (proposing that early fixed investments in an urban area partially explain the persistence of urban hierarchies);
315. see generally Donald R. Davis & David E. Weinstein, Bones, Bombs and Break Points: The Geography of Economic Activity, 92 Am. Econ. Rev. 1269, 1269-70 (2002) (describing increasing returns theories, which consider the effects of path dependence on the distribution of city sizes).
316. See World Bank, supra note 21, at 10-11;
317. see also Combes et al., supra note 11, at 157-59.
318. See Storper, supra note 15, at 2037-40, 2045.
319. Ronald Gilson has argued that differences in state competition law, which have led to a more fluid employment market in California than in Massachusetts, might explain why Silicon Valley has prospered more than Route 128 in Boston. Ronald J. Gilson, The Legal Infrastructure of High Technology Industrial Districts: Silicon Valley, Route 128, and Covenants Not to Compete, 74 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 575,577-78 (1999) (arguing that a more fluid employment market produces more start-up ventures).
320. This difficulty is noted by Glaeser & Gottlieb, supra note 11, at 1014-15 (observing that because small initial advantages can result in large outcomes, a "small push" could create big benefits, but that it is very difficult-if not impossible-to figure out what that small push should be).
321. See, e.g., Dam, supra note 6, at 38-39 (observing, in a critique of the legal origins literature, that France's economic growth outpaced Britain's over the period from 1820 to 1998).
322. See id. at 56 (quoting In Search of Prosperity: Analytic Narratives on Economic Growth 9-10 (Dani Rodrik ed., 2003)) ("Econometric results can be found to support any and all... categories of arguments. However, very little of this econometric work survives close scrutiny ... or is able to sway the priors of anyone with strong convictions in other directions.").
323. See Davis & Weinstein, supra note 179.
324. See World Bank, supra note 21, at 5-6 ("[E]conomic growth is seldom balanced. Efforts to spread it prematurely will jeopardize progress.").
325. See id.;
326. see also Schleicher, supra note 162, at 47-48.
327. See World Bank, supra note 21, at 5-6.
328. See id. at 25 ("[S]patially targeted interventions should be used least and last.").
329. See id. at 5-6.
330. Id. at 25.
331. See id.
332. See Cai & Treisman, supra note 132, at 818.
333. World Bank, supra note 21, at 147 ("Movements of capital and labor are driven by the benefits of agglomeration."); see also Schleicher, supra note 162, at 43.
334. See Schleicher, supra note 162, at 3-5 (summarizing this literature). Schleicher suggests additional reasons for why Tieboutian sorting may be inconsistent with growth. If growth depends on agglomeration effects, Tieboutian sorting may result in suboptimal densities, thus undermining those effects.
335. See Jacobs, Cities and the Wealth of Nations, supra note 11, at 41-42, 232.
336. How they do so is described in Jacobs, The Economy of Cities, supra note 11, at 49-51.
337. Schleicher, supra note 162, provides a good summary.
338. See World Bank, supra note 21, at 167-68 (observing that migration in search of "basic schooling and health care... is economically inefficient").
339. See Schleicher, supra note 162, at 43. Schleicher makes the strongest argument along these lines, asserting that Tieboutian sorting is inconsistent with external agglomeration economies. See id. I would not go that far, as I am not convinced that external economies work at a significant enough distance.
340. World Bank, supra note 21, at 167-68.
341. See id.;
342. see also Schleicher, supra note 162, at 1.
343. World Bank, supra note 21, at 231.
344. Id. at 6, 230-59.
345. Id. at 231.
346. Id. The defensiveness might be explained by the fact that the World Bank has and continues to promote decentralization in developing economies. The 2009 World Development Report undercuts those recommendations.
347. For the original formulation, see John F. Kain, Housing Segregation, Negro Employment, and Metropolitan Decentralization, 82 Q.J. Econ. 175,179-80 (1968).
348. See, e.g., Richard Briffault, The Local Government Boundary Problem in Metropolitan Areas, 48 Stan. L. Rev. 1115,1136-37 (1996).
349. See, e.g., David Rusk, Cities Without Suburbs 101, 103-04 (3d ed. 2003);
350. Briffault, supra note 208, at 1122. For a general treatment, see Reflections on Regionalism (Bruce Katz ed., 2000);
351. cf. Frug, supra note 114, at 1766 (proposing "a new kind of metropolitan organization ... that is based on ideas derived from, while modifying, the structure of the European Union").
352. See, e.g., Briffault, supra note 208, at 1120-21;
353. Laurie Reynolds, Intergovernmental Cooperation, Metropolitan Equity, and the New Regionalism, 78 Wash. L. Rev. 93, 93-94 (2003).
354. See Schleicher, supra note 162, at 7-8 (observing the anti-agglomerative bias in local government law).
355. Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities 156-59 (1961).
356. The reason is external or agglomeration economies, as I have already noted. See generally Edward L. Glaeser et al., Growth in Cities, 100 J. Pol. Econ. 1126,1126-27, 1129 (1992);
357. Robert E. Lucas, Jr., On the Mechanics of Economic Development, 22 J. Monetary Econ. 3, 38-39 (1988) ("What can people be paying Manhattan or downtown Chicago rents for, if not for being near other people?");
358. Jacobs, Cities and the Wealth of Nations, supra note 11, at 39;
359. Krugman, supra note 14, at 33;
360. World Bank, supra note 21, at 127-29 (summarizing forms of externalities);
361. Schleicher, supra note 162, at 12
362. (citing Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics 267-77 (8th ed. 1938)).
363. See Edwin S. Mills, Sprawl and Jurisdictional Fragmentation, BrookingsWharton Papers on Urban Affairs 231, 252-54 (2006);
364. Frug, supra note 114, at 177072.
365. Jacobs, The Economy of Cities, supra note 11, at 70-79;
366. see also Edward L. Glaeser et al., Urban Economics and Entrepreneurship, 67 J. Urb. Econ. 1, 4 (2010);
367. Schleicher, supra note 162, at 25-26.
368. See Jacobs, The Economy of Cities, supra note 11, at 65-66, 74;
369. see also Gilson, supra note 182, at 578-79 (arguing that a more fluid employment market produces more start-up ventures);
370. Edward L. Glaeser et al., Clusters of Entrepreneurship, 67 J. Urb. Econ. 150,150 (2010) (finding that employment growth is strongly predicted by smaller average establishment size).
371. See Cai & Treisman, supra note 132, at 817.
372. See David J. Barron, The Community Economic Development Movement: A Metropolitan Perspective, 56 Stan. L. Rev. 701,724 (2003).
373. Sheryll D. Cashin, Middle-Class Black Suburbs and the State of Integration: A Post-Integrationist Vision for Metropolitan American, 86 Cornell L. Rev. 729, 730, 755-58 (2001).
374. Id. at 755-58.
375. See Schragger, Mobile Capital, supra note 9, at 485.
376. See id.
377. See, e.g., Sam Bass Warner, Jr., The Private City: Philadelphia in Three Periods of Its Growth 79-80, 206-09 (1st ed. 1968);
378. see also John R. Logan & Harvey L. Molotch, Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place 151-52 (1987).
379. See Stephen Elkin, City and Regime in the American Republic 42 (1987).
380. Przeworski, supra note 118, at 185.
381. See Kennedy, supra note 6, at 1.
382. 545 U.S. 469,469,472-75 (2005).
383. 547 U.S. 332,332,337-38 (2006).
384. 550 U.S. 330,330 (2007).
385. Kennedy, supra note 6, at 19.
386. Id.
387. Forcible annexation was the general rule in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. See, e.g., Hunter v. City of Pittsburgh, 207 U.S. 161, 161-64 (1907).
388. See, e.g., Holt Civic Club v. City of Tuscaloosa, 439 U.S. 60, 60 (1978);
389. The Merchants' Ass'n of N.Y., An Inquiry into the Conditions Relating to the Water-Supply of the City of New York 508-09 (1900) (citing statutes related to the extra-territorial use of eminent domain by New York City).
390. Cf. Rodden & Rose-Ackerman, supra note 39, at 1540 (discussing India and the political entrepreneurship that likely followed decentralization efforts and that created a new political equilibrium).
391. Cf. Schragger, Mobile Capital, supra note 9, at 533 (seeking to explain why cities are able to redistribute contrary to neoclassical economic theory).
392. Tamanaha, supra note 8, at 13
393. (quoting Thomas Carothers, The Rule-of-Law Revival, in Promoting the Rule of Law Abroad: In Search of Knowledge 3,11 (Thomas Carothers ed., 2006)).
394. Tamanaha, supra note 8, at 14
395. (quoting Laure-Hélène Piron, Time to Learn, Time to Act in Africa, in Promoting the Rule of Law Abroad, supra note 236, at 275,
396. Gordon, supra note 19, at 445.
397. Treisman, supra note 25, at 6.
398. See Jacobs, supra note 212, at 213-14;
399. World Bank, supra note 21, at 141.
400. Schragger, Rethinking the Theory and Practice, supra note 9, at 317;
401. Schleicher, supra note 162, at 60.
402. World Bank, supra note 21, at 141-42.
403. See id. at 84-87. One well-known development theorist puts it this way: "[I]t is not clear that the best way to get growth is to do growth policy of any form. Perhaps making growth happen is ultimately beyond our control.... Perhaps we will never learn where it will start or what will make it continue. The best we can do in that world is to hold the fort until that initial spark arrives: make sure there is not too much human misery, maintain the social equilibrium, and try to make sure that there is enough human capital around to take advantage of the spark when it arrives."
404. Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee, Big Answers for Big Questions: The Presumption of Growth Policy, in What Works in Development?, supra note 139, at 207, 219-20.
405. See Dam, supra note 6, at 5.
406. Cf. Treisman, supra note 25, at 6 (concluding that the work's analysis should at least "cast doubt on widely shared assumptions" about decentralization).
407. The Curse of Bigness: Miscellaneous Papers of Louis D. Brandeis 109-10,122-23 (Osmond K. Fraenkel ed., 1934);
408. see generally Richard C. Schragger, The Anti-Chain Store Movement, Localist Ideology, and the Remnants of the Progressive Constitution, 1920-1940,90 Iowa L. Rev. 1011 (2005).