Making a Place for Community

  by G. Alperovitz, T. Williamson, D. Imbroscio

 

 

Link to the Progressive Living Book Review

 

Some Representative Quotations

Mission Statement

"As we shall suggest, although there are many ways to make the economic position of communities more secure, most American communities are not sufficiently buffered against instability. Many are under increasing stress due to the three overarching forces undercutting the stability of place. Mitigating or reversing the effects of globalization, excessive internal capital mobility, and suburban sprawl requires first and foremost that we recognize that these are not forces of nature or immutable laws given by an omniscient market, but are, in large measure, a by-product of specific public actions and of specific political choices (both wise and unwise.)

"The following text is not meant to be a detailed academic report on all of these matters. Rather, it is intended as a primer on the central issues and problems associated with community economic stability, and how they might be resolved."

Samples

"Even throughout the expansion of the late 1990s, even as unemployment fell below 4 percent nationally, over 2.5 million Americans a year were laid off (including 1.1 to 1.2 million people affected by mass layoffs.)"

"Stable communities of place also have the capacity to impact the character formation of citizens. When the economic underpinnings of a community erode, social networks and institutions — such as families, schools, churches, soccer leagues, and civic organizations — are also weakened, with predictably damaging results. Growing up in a blighted, depressed neighborhood in which everyone is struggling to get by and sources of social support are scarce are very different from those learned from growing up in a stable neighborhood where institutions are strong and people have confidence in the future."

"In his seminal 1983 critique of place-disregarding economic and social policy, geographer and social theorist Gordon Clark articulates the principle of 'maintaining community integrity' — a principle akin to our call for community economic stability. Community integrity, he writes, 'involves taking jobs to people, thereby building the economy in terms of the locational preferences of residents, not firms.' Such a policy recognizes and attempts to realize in practice 'the right of individuals to choose where to live and, once a choice has been made, the requirement that governments support this choice by providing for residents' welfare wherever they live.'

"Local institutions are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they put it within the people's reach; they teach people to appreciate its peaceful employment and accustom them to make use of it."

"Creating truly stable communities will probably require much more localization of investment decision making than that afforded by large, hierarchical corporations operating multiple production facilities at different locations—and indeed the development of functional, credible local alternatives to traditional corporate structures."

"It is important to recall—and emphasize—that it is by no means clear (to say the least) that free trade brings with it all the purely economic benefits its advocates claim for it. First, the evidence is mixed in connection with growth: Many protectionist nations, like the United States for much of its history, do or have done as well or better than free trade nations. Perhaps the most impressive capitalist success story of most of the postwar era, Japan, restricted imports and openly practiced favoritism for domestic industries, as did export-oriented successful East Asian 'tigers' such as South Korea. . . .

"Second, in large countries, competition within the country can achieve many of the efficiency-enhancing effects trade produces in smaller countries. The United States is not Belgium: The vast size of the U.S. economy means that local monopolists only rarely control markets in key goods and that the United States is capable of providing for itself at reasonable cost a very high proportion of the goods and resources needed in an advanced economy.

"Third, as we have seen, the available evidence indicates that the effects of more open trade under NAFTA on job creation have been mixed, possibly even negative. Recall that existing government data show a net loss of 440,000 American jobs due to NAFTA alone between 1993 and 1998. Meanwhile in Mexico, as Sarah Anderson and John Cavanagh have reported, 'direct US investment jumped from $16.9 billion to $25.3 billion in the first four years of NAFTA . . . but real manufacturing wages have dropped 23 percent. Moreover overall employment has declined as locally owned firms are crippled by high interest rates set by the government to attract foreign investors.

"Fourth, the costs of thrown-away communities and thrown-away workers generated by unrestricted trade must also be included in any full accounting. A total of 1.58 million Americans are estimated to have lost their jobs due to NAFTA alone between 1993 and 1998. Even though 1.14 million other jobs were created as a result of the treaty, the human costs on people and their families who lost jobs must be taken into consideration even when such costs are merely 'frictional,' as in the case of those who find new jobs in a reasonable time frame. As previously noted, the Economic Policy Institute estimates that a total of 7.3 million American workers lost their jobs due to imports between 1992 and 1999.

"Fifth, trade across vast distances often imposes hidden costs, which tend to be borne by the public—for instance, through subsidies to transportation. . . .

"Sixth, the benefits to consumers that are said to flow from free trade are not always realized, particularly when large firms with a dominant position in a given market are involved. As noted in Chapter 1, a multinarional corporation that imports goods produced cheaply by an overseas subsidiary may pocket the cost savings rather than pass the savings on to consumers in the form of lower prices."


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