‘best places’: interurban competition, quality of life and ...emccann/bestplaces...

Urban Studies, Vol. 41, No. 10, 1909–1929, September 2004

‘Best Places’: Interurban Competition, Quality ofLife and Popular Media Discourse

Eugene J. McCann

[Paper first received, February 2003; in final form, November 2003]

Summary. This paper explores relationships between the politics of urban competitiveness andpopular media discourse about the ‘good life’ and ‘good places’. Specifically, it focuses on theinfluence of popular ‘best places to live’ rankings on urban policy in three US cities. It addressestwo issues: how and why similar policies are transferred from place to place; and, how‘extra-economic’ factors are mobilised in formulating local economic development policy. Itargues that the media’s role in these processes is understudied and that its normative discourseis powerful and political. This argument is influenced by and illustrative of a recent attempt tolocate the study of discursive power much more centrally in political economy approaches tourban studies.

Introduction

The politics of urban development and in-terurban competition have been the focus ofa great deal of scholarship in urban studies inrecent decades (Cochrane, 1999; Cochrane etal., 1996; Cox, 1999; Cox and Mair, 1988;Hall and Hubbard, 1998; Jonas and Wilson,1999a; Lauria, 1997; Logan and Molotch,1987; Peck, 1995; Peck and Tickell, 1995).Over time, there has been an increasing at-tention to the role discourse and representa-tion play in framing and facilitating theactivities of urban growth coalitions (Boyle,1999; Jessop, 1997; Jonas and Wilson,1999b). Examples of competing discoursesand of the discursive construction of place inthe politics of local economic developmenthave frequently been drawn from the popularmedia since local newspapers, magazinesand television are regularly used as outlets

for various perspectives on the future of aplace (for example, K. G. Ward, 2000a). Ithas also been argued that local media have astake in advocating for urban growth giventheir own ‘local dependence’ (Cox and Mair,1988). Nevertheless, the national popularmedia’s role in promoting, legitimating anddiffusing hegemonic ideas about the goodlife, good places and good local economicdevelopment policy has been relatively un-derstudied.

This paper will investigate the relationshipbetween urban policy-making and media dis-course through a study of the ‘best places’rankings produced annually by numerouspopular magazines in the US. This study willallow me to address two key concerns at theheart of the contemporary literatures on thepolitics of local economic development and

Eugene J. McCann is in the Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, BritishColumbia, Canada V5A 1S6. Fax: 604 291 5841. E-mail: [email protected]. The research upon which this paper is based wasfunded by a grant from the Ohio State University Research Foundation. The author would also like to acknowledge the hospitalityof the Department of Geography at the University of Texas, Austin. Thanks to Rini Sumartojo for her research assistance and toKevin Ward, Michael Timberlake and two anonymous reviewers for very helpful comments. The author is also grateful to thegeographers at the University of Illinois, Wittenberg University and Ohio University to whom earlier versions of the paper hadbeen presented. All arguments and conclusions are entirely the responsibility of the author.

0042-0980 Print/1360-063X On-line/04/101909–21 2004 The Editors of Urban StudiesDOI: 10.1080/0042098042000256314

EUGENE J. MCCANN1910

urban entrepreneurialism. The first concern iswith the ways in which successful economicdevelopment policies formulated in one loca-tion are promoted to and adopted by othercities. This “serial reproduction” of policies,as Harvey (1989, p.10) referred to it in theoriginal statement of the entrepreneurial citythesis, tends to foster ‘weak competition’(Cox, 1995) and a ‘crowding’ in the market-place (Jessop, 1998) that works to the detri-ment of most cities by fostering a ‘treadmill’effect in which every city feels an externalpressure to upgrade continually its policies,facilities, amenities and so on to stave offcompetition and maintain its position in thecompetitive urban hierarchy.1 Its continuedprevalence, however, makes it an importanttopic of on-going investigation that also res-onates with the wider literature on ‘policytransfer’ that has emerged in recent years(Dolowitz and Marsh, 2000; Peck andTheodore, 2001; Radaelli, 2000; Stone,2000). The second concern in the contempor-ary literature is with the use of ‘extra-econ-omic’ factors—i.e. the social, cultural andpolitical elements of urban life—in theconstruction and legitimation of interurbaneconomic competition (Jessop, 1997, 1998;Jessop and Sum, 2000). In his recent engage-ment with the entrepreneurial city thesis,Jessop (1997, p. 31) places “the entrepreneu-rial concern to create ‘new combinations’of economic and/or extra-economic factorswhich will further urban and regionalcompetitiveness” at the heart of his dis-cussion. This attention to the porousboundaries of ‘the economic’ in local econ-omic development is often less explicitlystated in other discussions of urban compe-tition and politics, but it is a significant as-pect of a great deal of contemporary writingon this topic (Jonas and Wilson, 1999b; Mc-Cann, 2002).

A study of the relationships between thepopular media’s ‘best places’ rankings andthe politics and policy of local economicdevelopment informs both of these concernsby outlining how media discourse anointscertain cities as successful and worth emulat-

ing and specifying the extra-economic as-pects of local economic development that arecurrently valorised in localities across thecountry. The current impulse towards cre-ating livable and attractive environments forcertain class fractions as a central part of awider economic development strategy pro-vides a particularly clear insight into thepolitics of developing innovative ‘new com-binations’.

Therefore, this paper will focus primarilyon the influential lists of ‘best places to live’produced by the personal finance publication,Money magazine since they are explicit intheir combination of ‘economic’ and ‘extra-economic’ criteria. The paper will begin withmore detailed discussions of contemporaryscholarship on interurban competition andissues of livability and quality of life in theUS. It will then draw on examples from threeUS cities: Lexington, Kentucky, Austin,Texas, and Columbus, Ohio. These cities arediscussed because of certain important simi-larities, differences and connections. All aresmall or mid-sized cities that have little his-tory of heavy industry and have grown rap-idly since the 1970s. They contain theprimary research universities of their respect-ive states, are either the seat of state govern-ment or are located close to it and all locateissues of livability at the heart of their econ-omic development strategies. They differ interms of their popular reputation for livabil-ity and economic development, however.Austin has consistently ranked highly as agood place to live in the past decade, whileLexington and Columbus are generally notexamples used in the national conversationon successful examples of innovative econ-omic development policy. Both have creatednew economic development strategies ex-plicitly aimed at emulating Austin’s successin creating an image as a good place to live,however. The paper concludes by arguingthat the study of the relationships betweenmedia discourse and urban politics resonateswith a more widespread attempt in urbanstudies to understand the power of discoursein the construction of urban economies.

‘BEST PLACES’ 1911

Economy and Livability in the City:Changing Definitions and ConceptualConnections

Developing social indicators intended tomeasure urban livability or quality is not thesole preserve of popular publications. It hasbeen the focus of numerous social scienceresearch exercises since the 1960s (see Pa-cione, 1982 and 1990 for reviews). The pur-pose of much of this work has been toidentify the salient aspects of city life thatinfluence social well-being. On this basis, itis hoped to “advance the goal of a humane orlivable city” (Pacione, 1990, p. 2). Thevagueness of this goal and of the term ‘qual-ity of life’ itself means that disparate re-search foci have been grouped under therubric of ‘urban livability’ at different times.Geographers and others working with arange of theoretical and methodologicalframeworks have researched a variety of as-pects of urban life and their effects on indi-viduals and groups’ quality of life:overcrowding, natural hazards and ambientenvironmental conditions, stressful events ineveryday life, urban form in relation to easeof access and orientation, security and pri-vacy, residential satisfaction and communityties, among others (Cutter, 1985; Pacione,1990). A connecting theme among most ofthis work is its applied aspect; a concern withinforming policy to promote better condi-tions of urban life for entire populations orparticular social groups.

Since the 1980s, however, a related strandof academic work on urban livability hasemerged that is more interested in urbanquality of life as an object of consumptionfor mobile residents and, relatedly, as a sell-ing point for cities. For example, Findlay etal.’s study of livability in British cities seeksto provide urban managers with a map of“where the best quality of life can be found”and a set of comparable indicators to mea-sure the performance of their city in attract-ing “a person or family on the move”(Findlay et al., 1998, p. 271). In this study,the main characteristics of high quality of lifewere low crime, pollution and cost of living

rates, racial harmony, and good health andshopping facilities. These, the authors argue,are all factors that can be changed for thebetter, given the correct urban policies. Therelationship between livability, consumptionand urban policy is maintained in the mostrecent US academic research on urban qual-ity of life. Florida’s work (Florida, 2000,2002; Florida and Gates, 2001) focuses onthe aspects of cities—amenities, environmen-tal quality and social tolerance (acceptanceof gay and lesbian communities, for in-stance)—that make them attractive to young‘knowledge workers’. By extension, Floridaargues that policy-makers must understandhow

The new economy dramatically transformsthe role of the environment and naturalamenities from a source of raw materialand a sink for waste disposal to a keycomponent of the total package required toattract talent and in doing so generateeconomic growth (Florida, 2000, p. 5).

Cities that rank highly as places with virtu-ous combinations of high technology, highamenity, and social tolerance in Florida’sanalyses include Seattle, Washington, theSan Francisco Bay area, greater Boston, andAustin, Texas—cities that also frequentlyrank highly on the popular media’s rankingsof the best places in which to live and invest.

Policy Innovation, the Media and UrbanQuality of Life

The changing definitions of quality of lifeand the changing purposes to which livabilityresearch has been put over the years empha-sise the power-laden, political nature of thisconcept. As Ley has noted

One important form of power is the abilityto define the terms of public discourse, andan eloquent example of this form of poweris the career of the term ‘urban livability’.Over its twenty years of widespread usage,the term has served a range of masters(Ley, 1990, p. 34).

The contemporary master of a great deal of


popular and academic livability research isthe influential and highly political neo-liberalvision of the city as a commodity that shouldbe branded and marketed as part of a widerprocess of interurban competition (Brennerand Theodore, 2002).

The marketing of cities with the intentionof attracting the most desirable labour forceor industry is not new, of course (Greenberg,2000; Rutheiser, 1996, ch.1; S. Ward, 1998a,1998b; Kearns and Philo, 1993). The impetusbehind the scholarly interest in contemporaryinterurban competition can largely be at-tributed to Harvey’s (1989) influential paperon the shift from managerialism to en-trepreneurialism in late capitalism. Harvey’sentrepreneurial city thesis hangs on threerelated arguments (Harvey, 1989, pp. 6–8).First, the on-going restructuring of economicand political relations at higher scales, in-cluding the national and the global, has en-tailed a fundamental change in theorganisation of public policy in the US,Britain and other parts of the industrialisedworld. Secondly, with the rise of en-trepreneurialism there has been a related shiftin which power over policy at the local levelis increasingly located in private institutionsthat control governing coalitions where stateagencies play a facilitative role. The risksassociated with development are bornelargely by the public sector at the local level,however. This location of risk distinguishesthe entrepreneurial city from previous roundsof civic boosterism. Thirdly, there is a refo-cusing away from policies primarily aimed atthe provision and maintenance of publicgoods in a clearly demarcated territory. In-stead, the initiatory or speculative impulse atthe heart of urban entrepreneurialism is ori-ented towards the construction of spectacularsites or places that are hoped will stimulatefurther investment.

Recently, Jessop (1997, 1998; Jessop andSum, 2000) has partially reformulated theentrepreneurial city thesis by replacing Har-vey’s emphasis on what institutions bear therisks associated with speculation, with adefinition of entrepreneurialism in terms ofinnovation (Jessop, 1998, footnote 9).

Entrepreneurship … involves the devisingand realisation of new ways of doingthings to generate above-averageprofits … in the course of capitalist com-petition (Jessop, 1998, p. 83).

Nonetheless, the marketing of cities as niceplaces in which to live and attempts to rise tothe top of popular best places rankings do notnecessarily entail true innovation. Rather,many have noted that the ideologies, strate-gies and geography of urban entrepreneurial-ism—from the dominant definition of citiesas primarily competitive entities to the serialreproduction of festival markets, waterfrontdevelopments, etc.—are very similar fromplace to place. Indeed, Harvey’s originalstatement of the entrepreneurial thesisidentifies this issue as one of the centralproblematics in the study of contemporaryurbanisation

There seems to be a general consensusemerging throughout the advanced capital-ist world that positive benefits are to behad by cities taking an entrepreneurialstance to economic development. What isremarkable, is that this consensus seems tohold across national boundaries and evenacross political parties and ideologies(Harvey, 1989, p. 4).

The hegemonic, normative discourse of in-terurban competition that sustains and en-courages relative ideological conformity overlarge parts of the developed world is, as Iwill illustrate, tied up with the popular me-dia’s representation of cities and the urbansystem, including the publication of bestplaces rankings. But what exactly are thelinkages between media representations andwhat cities do to enhance their competitive-ness? I suggest that there is a mutually rein-forcing relationship between the formulationof contemporary local economic develop-ment policy and the media’s production ofthese rankings.

On the one side of this relationship, therankings gain a remarkably high level ofimportance and legitimacy by being seen tobe taken seriously by politicians, public pol-


icy professionals, consultants, business lead-ers and private consultants, and local media(as I will illustrate in the following section).Therefore, they are represented by their pub-lishers as being more than mere entertain-ment or simply of interest to a few mobileindividuals, families or investors. They are,instead, presented as relatively weighty state-ments on the condition of US cities. Theother side of this relationship involves therankings’ role as a discursive frame that bothenables and legitimates entrepreneurial pol-icy initiatives.

A discursive frame, in this sense, is apersuasive, widely accepted and powerfulsimplification of the world. It selectivelyidentifies and connects certain elements ofeveryday life and place in a way that mo-bilises and legitimates a particular set ofactions or policies while setting other under-standings and agendas outside the bounds ofconsideration (Barnes and Duncan, 1992;Nash, 2000; Snow and Benford, 1992; Tar-row, 1992). ‘Best places’ rankings frame thecomplex US urban world through two relatedsimplifications: first, they define the urbansystem as a primarily competitive complexand individual cities as fundamentally andnaturally competitive entities, driven to viewith each other for first place; secondly, therankings focus the terms of policy debate bydefining cities’ success relative to high levelsof attention to middle-class livability con-cerns (for example, the apparently contradic-tory desires for high levels of amenities andlow taxation) or to providing the proverbial‘good business environment’ of low operat-ing costs and highly skilled workers. (Ofcourse, as Florida (2002) and Nevarez (2003)have shown, these two aspects are intercon-nected.)

These discursive simplifications resonatedeeply with US urban politicians and policyprofessionals and, as a result, the rankingsplay an active role in enabling the implemen-tation of entrepreneurial policy strategies.The link between the rankings and whatthese actors do to increase their city’s com-petitiveness has at least two concrete ele-ments. First, their unequivocal nature and the

constant circulation and repetition of theirmeasurement criteria and results by nationaland local media outlets and, crucially, by theprivate consultants frequently hired by citiesto envision strategies for their future (Jessopand Sum, 2000; Olds, 1997), provide citieswith clear choices regarding policies theymight enact, the goals they set themselves,the cities they choose to emulate and com-pete with, and so on. In the more extremecases, the rankings come to be regarded as‘off the shelf’ solutions to complex economicdevelopment problems. Secondly, the rank-ings and the policy solutions they suggest areconstructed by national media with no easilyperceptible links to the individual cities theyfeature. This lends them an aura of objec-tivity (which is reinforced by their constantrepetition by a wide array of actors in thepolicy process) that can be used to legitimatethe policy choices made by policy profes-sionals in individual cities. A city’s rankingat the top of a ‘best places’ list can, then, bediscussed by local politicians as an objectiveaffirmation of the city’s high quality of life,as a mark of approval for its economic devel-opment policies and a marker of its import-ance within the US urban system.

Interurban competition is not only charac-terised by the repetition of a few dominantideas about what makes a ‘best place’, how-ever. Entrepreneurship defined as innovationentails, according to Jessop, new combina-tions of factors that will enhance urban com-petitiveness. He argues that these innovativecombinations now involve an intermixing ofeconomic and ‘extra-economic’ factorswhere the former are defined as “com-modities and fictitious commodities” and thelatter are political and social factors that are“economically relevant” but are “not mone-tised and/or do not enter directly into ex-change relations” (Jessop and Sum, 2000,p. 2290). With the greater centrality of the‘extra-economic’ come stronger links be-tween innovation and marketing (Jessop,1998, p. 84) and a related rise in the import-ance of image, representation and narrativein urban policy formulation which is re-flected in a significant literature on the topic


(Kearns and Philo, 1993; Paddison, 1993;Sadler, 1993; Short and Kim, 1998; Short etal., 1993; Waitt, 1999; K. G. Ward, 2000a,2000b). These stronger links between mar-keting and innovation involve “opening newmarkets—whether by place marketingspecific cities in new areas and/or modifyingthe spatial division of consumption throughenhancing the quality of life for residents,commuters, and visitors” and are comple-mented by policies targeted towards“refiguring or redefining the urban hierarchyand/or altering the place of a given citywithin it” (Jessop, 1998, pp. 84–85).

In many contemporary cities, these sorts ofattempts at enhancing competitiveness are,with greater or lesser success, wrapped up inattempts to improve amenities and culture, asFlorida’s (2000, 2002; Florida and Gates,2001) work has suggested. This includes,among other things,

the modernization of the infrastructuresand assets of urban regions (communica-tions, cultural institutions, higher educa-tional strengths and capacities) to attractinvestment and visitors and support exist-ing economic activities; and [the formu-lation of policies addressing] the need tolimit further suburbanisation, retain popu-lation (particularly middle-to-upper in-come families) and workplaces and createcompact livable cities (Harding, 1995,p. 27, quoted in Jessop, 1998, p. 80).

The elements of a city’s infrastructure, gov-ernance structure and culture that are necess-ary for its rise in the urban hierarchy are, Iwill suggest, worked out through policy-making processes that combine economicand extra-economic factors. These combina-tions are frequently articulated in referenceto the normative narrative of the ‘good city’presented by the national media’s best placesrankings. In this paper, I will discuss in detailhow this process works, using three interre-lated case studies.

Popular Urban Livability Rankings: TheCase of Money Magazine

An annual media event in the US is the

publication of Money magazine’s “BestPlaces to Live” ranking. Since 1987, thepopular consumer affairs and investmentperiodical has been compiling annual rank-ings of approximately 300 cities. The listsare based on an annual survey of approxi-mately 500 of its subscribers. The surveyasks the subscribers to think about what cri-teria they would use if they were choosing anew city in which to live. In this regard, theyare asked to rank approximately 40 regionalcharacteristics on a scale of 1 to 10. Themagazine takes the results of this survey andcompares them with census data for USmetropolitan areas. From this, it produces aranked list of the cities weighted in terms ofthe preferences of its subscribers. Over theyears, this process has produced an interest-ing geography in which a small number ofcities appear quite consistently in the maga-zine’s top 10 (Figure 1). This spatial distri-bution is the product of the class anddemographic characteristics of the maga-zine’s readership. In the mid 1990s, the lastyears in which the magazine published de-tails of those surveyed, the median age of thesample was around 48 and the median house-hold income was approximately $78 000.These characteristics are reflected, for in-stance, in the strong presence of the smallcity of Rochester, Minnesota, in the rankingseach year. This is largely due to the locationin the city of the Mayo Clinic, a renownedmedical facility, and to the heavy weightingMoney’s subscribers give to available, high-quality health care in their definition of agood place to live.

In 1987, subscribers seemed to desire acity with little property crime, high personalsafety and an appreciating housing market,among other factors (Money Magazine, 1987,p. 34). Accordingly, Nashua, New Hamp-shire, Norwalk, Connecticut, and Wheeling,West Virginia, were the top-rated places. Thefirst two were experiencing the effects ofeconomic expansion in certain sectors whileWheeling ranked surprisingly high in thelisting due to its low house prices and crimerates. Since then, similar criteria have shapedthe ranking (Table 1).


Table 1. Top criteria for choosing a city according to Money’s recent surveys of its subscribers

19961994 19971995

Low crime rate1 Low crime rateLow crime rate Clean water2 Clean water Clean air Clean water Clean water3 Plentiful doctorsClean air Clean airLow crime rate4 Plentiful doctors Plentiful doctorsPlentiful doctors Clean air5 Many hospitalsMany hospitals Many hospitalsMany hospitals

Good schoolsHousing appreciation6 Strong state Strong stategovernmentgovernment

Good schools7 Housing appreciationLow income taxes Low income taxes8 Low property taxes Low property taxes Low property taxes Low property taxes9 Low income taxesHousing appreciation Strong stateHousing appreciation

government10 Good schoolsAffordable medical Low income taxesStrong state

care government

Note: 1997 is the last year in which Money published a full list of the criteria. In 1998, it publishedthe top five: clean water, low crime rate, clean air, good schools and low property taxes.

Despite the rather specific nature ofMoney’s ranking criteria (and those of mostother similar publications), the cities theyidentify as the ‘best places’ are representedas universally desirable. This process of gen-eralisation takes place through other popularmedia at the national scale and, to a muchgreater extent, at the local level as well asthrough the work of translocal policy consul-tants and place marketers. Each year, localnewspapers and television stations whosecity ranks on any list, but especially themajor ones like Money’s and Fortune’s, por-tray the ranking as an important achievementrepresenting an objective affirmation of thecity’s high quality of life, its leaders’ soundeconomic development strategy and itssignificance within the hierarchy of US cities(Table 2).

Money’s ranking is also noted by localstate agencies and private economic develop-ment organisations. These agencies oftenmention their position on the national rank-ing when they promote their city to potentialinvestors, residents and visitors. For exam-ple, when Money (2000, p. 150), conferred‘best city’ status on Portland, Oregon, thecity’s mayor said in a press release

We’re #1 [sic], but of course those of uswho live here have always knownthat. … I am extremely proud … [that]

Portland has finally gotten this ‘officialseal of recognition’ from one of the na-tion’s leading financial magazines (Katz,2000).

This reaction is replicated by leaders in high-ranking cities across the country. A page onthe Durham, North Carolina, website entitled“Why do business in Durham?” answers thequestion entirely through references to itshigh rankings on Money’s list and on similarrankings produced by a number of otherpopular and trade publications (City ofDurham, 2001). The city’s visitor centre, forits part, has covered two walls with framedcopies of issues of Money and othermagazines in which Durham has rankedhighly. On the other hand, a low ranking,while often studiously ignored by local me-dia and elites, can occasionally prompt pub-lic consternation and indignation. Forexample, Flint, Michigan—the city whoseeconomic decline after the closure of a Gen-eral Motors plant in the 1980s was docu-mented in Michael Moore’s film Roger andMe—ranked last out of the 300 cities inMoney’s first list (Money, 1987). Local busi-ness leaders quickly organised a protest rallyat which copies of the magazine were burnedby people holding signs proclaiming that“Money is the root of all evil” (Moore,1996). Clearly, those involved in local econ-


Table 2. Money’s best places to live, 1994–97

Rank 1994 1995 1996 1997

1 Raleigh, Durham Madison, WIGainesville, FL Nashua, NHand Chapel Hill, NC

2 Rochester, MN Rochester, MN Punta Gorda, FL Rochester, MN3 Rochester, MNProvo and Orem, UT Monmouth and OceanJacksonville, FL

Counties, NJSeattle, WA4 Punta Gorda, FLSalt Lake City and Fort Lauderdale, FL

Ogden, UTPortsmouth, NH5 Ann Arbor, MISan Jose, CA Ocala, FL

6 Stamford and Fort Myers, FLFort Lauderdale, FL Manchester, NHNorwalk, CT

7 Gainesville, FL Salem, NH Gainesville, FL Madison, WI8 San Jose, CASeattle, WA Austin, TXRaleigh, Durham and

Chapel Hill, NCSeattle, WA9 Sioux Falls, SD Las Vegas, NV Jacksonville, FL

Fort Walton Beach, FL10 Albuquerque, NM Naples, FL Lakeland, FL

Note: 1997 is the last year in which Money published straightforward top 10 rankings. Since then, ithas identified best places by region and by city size (1998–2000) and by quality of neighbourhoods(2002). In 2001, it devoted its best places feature to a profile of New York.

omic development have come to take the bestplaces rankings produced by the popular me-dia seriously (Pacione, 2001, p. 381). Forsome, they simply provide another weapon ina larger place marketing strategy while forothers, as I will discuss in the followingsections, their criteria and the places theyanoint as exemplary provide a framework forthe development of new policy.

The Media’s Best Places Criteria FramingUrban Policy

Central to the entrepreneurial city thesis isthe argument that urban entrepreneurialism isaccompanied and facilitated by a shift to-wards governance in which, among otherthings, the array of policy alternatives forlocal economic development has grown toinclude both more direct forms of private-sector involvement and the opportunity for awider variety of decision-making processes(see K. G. Ward, 2000c; Hubbard et al., 2002for reviews). Through this shift, certain insti-tutions of the state gain power and legiti-macy, others lose out, while groups such asbusiness coalitions and community activist

organisations frequently gain certain powersto create and implement policy. Lexington,Kentucky, underwent significant changes ingovernance in the 1990s, particularly withregard to how and by whom decisions aboutthe future social and economic developmentof the city should be made.

In 1994, for instance, Lexington’s Cham-ber of Commerce in collaboration with aprivate consultant and the financial and pol-itical support of the city government initiateda planning process, called New Century Lex-ington (McCann, 2001; New Century Lex-ington, 1995a, 1995b). Central to the NewCentury process was the use of collaborative‘visioning’, a decision-making techniquecharacterised by a rhetoric of openness,which is welcoming to direct input of ideasof all interested parties and by a focus onevoking inspirational visions of the futurerather than on outlining the concrete policiesneeded to foster change (McCann, 2001).The aim of the new planning process was todevelop a set of goals for how the city shoulddevelop, economically, socially and environ-mentally, in the subsequent decades. Thiswas to act as a framework for the creation of


Figure 1. Cities regularly appearing in Money’s top 10, 1987–2002. Note: Since 1987, Money’srankings have featured Rochester, Minnesota, eight times—more than any other city. Austin, Texas,San Francisco, California, and Seattle, Washington, have appeared seven times; Madison, Wisconsin,six times; Minneapolis–St Paul, Minnesota, five times; and Boston, Massachusetts, Gainesville, Florida,Nashau, New Hampshire, and Raleigh–Durham–Chapel Hill, North Carolina, have each appeared fourtimes. The 2001 edition is not included in these figures since the magazine decided to forego its normalsurvey in favour of a feature on New York in the wake of the 11 September attack. It is worth notingthat Money did briefly laud six other cities in 2001. As the authors put it, “inspired by New York, wewent looking for other cities that feature a strong sense of community—as well as low crime, niceweather, low property taxes and excellent education”. These cities were Ann Arbor, Michigan, Austin,

Texas, Missoula, Montana, Portland, Oregon, Providence, Rhode Island, and Sarasota, Florida.

future policies in areas as diverse as land useplanning, economic development and publiceducation. Elected officials’ willingness toaccept this privately led process and topledge to put its recommendations at thecentre of future policy processes illustratesthe taken-for-granted nature of direct private-sector input into policy in the contemporaryUS. In the context of the present argument,two aspects of the New Century process areparticularly relevant: the question of how tocreate the best future for the city was under-stood to revolve around competition with

other places in which standard economic in-centives were coupled with the perceivedneed to offer potential investors ‘extra-econ-omic’ incentives, particularly high levels ofamenity and quality of life; the structure ofthe decision-making process circumscribedthe range of visions of the city’s potentialfuture that could be discussed by focusing oncertain predetermined criteria and goals.Money magazine’s rankings figured promi-nently in both these aspects of the process.

The consultant began the first planningmeeting—attended by business and political


leaders, local activists and other residents—by providing a focus for discussion. He ar-gued that, in order to be successful in thefuture, Lexington needed to identify its com-petitors, which he defined as a group of 50similar small and mid-sized Southern andMidwestern cities, and be aware of its rela-tive standing among this group. He empha-sised his point by distributing a number ofphotocopied business reports, crime reports,magazine articles and spreadsheets to theparticipants, all of which ranked cities interms of particular attributes or made argu-ments about why a specific aspect of a placewas crucial to its general prosperity. In therankings, the consultant highlighted Lexing-ton’s position in various categories (30th inmanufacturing, 21st in services, 5th in edu-cation level, 40th in murders and so on). Heused these to identify the categories in whichthe city could do better and the cities listedon the rankings that could be viewed astargets and as examples of how to developeffective policy (author’s field notes, 26April, 1995).

While framing discussion in terms of com-petition, the New Century consultant alsodistributed a list of the top criteria Moneymagazine used in compiling its 1992, 1993and 1994 best places rankings. These, heargued, were key elements that made a cityattractive to potential investors and that madeit a good place to live for the existing popu-lation and for newcomers. The choice ofMoney’s criteria is particularly interestingsince this publication explicitly defines its‘best places’ in terms of their quality of life,including not only their potential for newinvestors but also their ‘extra-economic’, so-cial and cultural, characteristics. In thissense, the Chamber of Commerce’s projectto revision Lexington was, from the outset,intent on developing new combinations ofeconomic and ‘extra-economic’ factors to in-crease the city’s competitiveness (Jessop,1997, 1998). It was a self-conscious attemptto improve on the city’s traditional methodsof attracting industry—which, since the1950s, had primarily involved assemblingland packages and offering tax incentives—

by also deploying Lexington’s picturesquesurrounding landscape and Southern ‘smalltown ambience’ as another marketing tool.Furthermore, the wide scope of the processentailed the capacities of various agenciesand institutions dealing with economic and‘extra-economic’ factors to be combined in anovel and productive way.

These new combinations necessitated anew form of decision-making in which adisparate group of ‘stakeholders’ were askedto be involved in planning the vision from itsinitial stages. As the first visioning meetingwent on, participants were asked to identifywhich criteria they, as a group, consideredmost important for the city’s future. Thehigh-ranking criteria were discussed in moredetail with the intention of gaining consensuson relevant policy goals. For instance,“Become one of the top five places of similarpopulation size in the US in terms of earn-ings per job by 2015” was adopted as a goal(author’s field notes, 26 April, 1995). In turn,these goals became the topics of discussionof the subsequent visioning meetings heldunder the auspices of New Century Lexing-ton and were central to the final ‘vision’statement produced by the group (McCann,2001). This vision was to be turned over to asmall group of ‘strategic planners’ in theChamber of Commerce who were chargedwith making specific policy recommenda-tions to the city government and local plan-ners.

The vision was touted as the outcome ofan inclusive process in which all views of thecity’s potential future were consideredequally and where consensus-based decision-making created unity of purpose upon whichnew policies could be built. On the otherhand, the vision can be read as a directreflection of the terms of the debate set at thefirst planning meeting. The consultant’s in-troductory presentation constituted a discur-sive framing of Lexington’s currenteconomic and social character, its potentialfuture and its position in the US urban hier-archy. This framing defined a playing-field inwhich the interurban politics of place compe-tition was represented as an indisputable fact.


Money’s criteria, along with the other data,set the conditions of possibility for the devel-opment of a vision of the future of the city.

Local Economic Development Strategyand the Ambivalence of Being a ‘BestPlace’

The case of Lexington is one example ofhow the best places rankings and criteriahave an affect on how urban policy is formu-lated. It is a particularly clear case due to theexplicit reference to Money’s criteria and theuse of those criteria in setting the limits fordiscussion. The role of the popular media inthe serial reproduction of entrepreneurialpolicies and landscapes can be traced further,however. The tendency of popular rankingexercises continually to identify the samelimited number of cities as best places—tolive, to invest, to start a new business, etc.—means that certain places become widelyknown as exemplars or ‘success stories’. Inturn, the majority of cities who regularlyappear in the mediocre middle of the variousrankings identify the anointed few as placesto be competed with through imitation. This,in turn, creates a treadmill in which pressureis put back on innovative cities to upgradecontinually their quality of life in order tomaintain their competitive advantage and toavoid the downward trajectory upon which‘losing’ cities can find themselves moving.As Harvey puts it, interurban competitionoperates as an “ ‘external coercive power’over individual cities to bring them closerinto line with the discipline and logic ofcapitalist development” (Harvey, 1989,p. 10). Thus, cities

have no option, given the coercive laws ofcompetition, except to keep ahead of thegame, thus engendering leap-frogging in-novations in life-styles, cultural forms,products, and service mixes, even institu-tional and political forms, if they are tosurvive. The result is a stimulating if oftendestructive maelstrom of urban-based cul-tural, political, production and consump-tion innovations (Harvey, 1989, p. 12).

Given this context, the rankings not onlyprovide a league table in which cities can seetheir position relative to their competitorsand as a result of which they can set newgoals to do better. The rankings also act as aroad map for urban political and businessleaders intent on gathering information onbest practices of economic development. Forinstance, each year a group of Lexington’scity officials and representatives of theChamber of Commerce hit the road on afact-finding trip to a different city. Given thediscussion in the previous section, it is nosurprise that Austin, Texas, and Madison,Wisconsin, another perennial favourite ofMoney, were both destinations for this groupin the 1990s (Bean, 1992; Baniak, 1997).Indeed, Austin hosts numerous similar dele-gations each year, all intent on learning theformula for the city’s success and transfer-ring it back to their own city. In this section,I will discuss Austin’s economic develop-ment model in more detail before turning toits relationship to other cities, using Colum-bus, Ohio, as an example of a place with anexplicit strategy aimed at rising higher in thevarious best place rankings by emulatingAustin.

Narrating Austin’s Economic Development:National Media and Local Professionals’ Ac-counts

Money has placed Austin on its top 10 list 8times since 1991. Recently, the city has alsofeatured highly on a range of other rankings.Fortune magazine ranked Austin among itstop 10 cities for business 6 times in the1990s, for instance. The consensus viewamong these publications is that Austin hasachieved both high levels of livability andeconomic growth, making it a model combi-nation of an ideal hometown and an econ-omic boomtown. As Money put it in 1999

Austin has always been graced by its loca-tion—nestled in the Texas Hill Country, ithas too much rolling terrain, too much inthe way of grass and wildflowers, to bemistaken for the flat and dusty Texas of


the imagination. Built around government(the state capitol dome looms over down-town) and education (the state university isthe city’s largest employer and culturalforce), it’s both artsy and smart. …

[In the late 1980s, the] city succeeded inwooing start-up shops and creating a re-markably hospitable business climate. Ayoung UT [University of Texas] studentnamed Michael Dell built a computercompany in town that now employs19,800 and has seen its stock price some52,000 per cent since its 1988 IPO [initialpublic offering of stock] …

But Austin wouldn’t make MONEY’sBest Places list if it were just a tech boom-town. … [It also] boasts symphonies, artmuseums, film festivals, good restaurantsand good football as well as some of thebest live music in the country. For thoselooking for safe, clean water, it has thattoo. So in one sense you could say thatthey’re lucky in Austin (Money, 1999,p. 134).

This account can be, and frequently is, chal-lenged on at least two counts. First, as I havealready suggested, Money’s rankings andthose of the other major publications, such asFortune, reflect the upper-middle-class char-acteristics of their subscribers and a gener-ally pro-business and development stance.Their narratives tend, as a result, to paint arosy view of the ‘best places’ while generallyignoring the potential negative consequencesof economic development on cities and thecontinued poverty and inequality that existbehind a successful place marketing image.While these concerns are very important, thesecond challenge to the standard media nar-rative of Austin’s success comes from thelocal business community and is more di-rectly relevant to my purpose at this point inthe paper. Money’s description of Austin’seconomic success marks the late 1980s as aturning-point after which the pleasantgovernment and college town blossomed intoa high-technology centre. While this is awidely held understanding of the city’s econ-

omic development, especially in the nationalmedia and among those working in the city’stechnology sector, those in the city’s busi-ness community who were engaged in econ-omic development planning prior to the mid1980s present a different narrative of thecity’s success. They are particularly con-cerned with the way the popular understand-ing of Austin’s economic development failsto acknowledge the decades of strategic plan-ning and entrepreneurship that set the stagefor the 1990s technology boom. This strategyis based on what was, at the time, a relativelynew and innovative combination of whatJessop would refer to as economic and ‘ex-tra-economic’ factors. Specifically, it en-tailed the development of strong linkagesbetween key actors and institutions in keyeconomic, political and social sectors whilealso constructing a vision in which cultureand a clean environment would be used asresources to attract clean industry.

The first action, according to this narra-tive, occurred in 1957 with a University ofTexas report recommending that the city at-tempt to recruit ‘light’ or ‘clean’ industrythat would complement research and technol-ogy initiatives at the university without pol-luting the city’s environment. This formedthe basis for strategic efforts over the next 25years to develop light manufacturing andtechnology as the third element of the city’seconomy, along with higher education andgovernment (Engelking, 1996; Gosdin, 2000;interviews with economic development lead-ers, October and November 2000). This strat-egy proved successful in creating a branchplant manufacturing economy in the city,anchored by corporations like IBM and Mo-torola. The process of attracting these com-panies also solidified a partnership betweenstate government, local business interests andthe university which, in 1983, competed suc-cessfully with 57 other US cities to attractthe city’s first major research and develop-ment corporation (Engelking, 1996; Gibsonand Rogers, 1994).

This success strengthened the tripartitepartnership driving the city’s economic de-velopment. It also indicated that, as the city


became more than a branch plant economy,new strategies needed to be formulated inorder to shape future development. A newstrategic economic plan was commissionedin the mid 1980s. The plan’s title, Creatingan opportunity economy: enhancing qualityof life in a changing economy (SRI Inter-national Policy Center, 1985), indicated acontinuation of an economic developmentstrategy that linked development and livabil-ity. This linkage is underscored in the plan’sintroduction

If … Austin is to link economic develop-ment with high quality of life, steps needto be taken now to maintain a diverse butbalanced economy, to improve educationand training for all Austinites, to upgradethe community’s physical and environ-mental infrastructure, and to preserve andadd to Austin’s social, cultural, and rec-reational amenities (SRI International Pub-lic Policy Center, 1985, p. v).

The ‘opportunity economy’ model continuesto frame economic development policy in thecity. It entails a continued attention to main-taining existing socially embedded, or ‘extra-economic’, factors that shape the city’seconomic development while also encourag-ing on-going efforts to further innovate inthis context. It also involves a continuingattention to the issues of urban amenity,quality of life and culture as resources in andfor economic development. This means that,“in local public policy deliberations, qualityof life is a constant consideration, and whatconstitutes quality of life is a constant subjectof debate” (Engelking, 1996, p. 39; ICFKaiser, 1998).

Austin’s Ambivalent Relationship to BestPlaces Rankings

Despite the differences in emphasis, Money’sdescription of Austin as a good place to livemight be read as an affirmation of longstand-ing economic development policy. The me-dia’s tendency to attribute the city’seconomic success largely to the arrival of afew entrepreneurs in the 1990s and its quality

of life to natural endowments rather thanpurposeful strategy seems, however, to havecreated a certain degree of ambivalenceamong business leaders towards the bestplaces rankings. For one senior member ofthe Chamber of Commerce

Our economic prosperity is very closelylinked with quality of life, so as one doeswell, so does the other. So, I think beingrecognised as one of the best places toinvest and live is reinforcing. It is encour-aging, and we all take, you know, prideand are glad that we’re recognised (inter-view with senior economic developmentleader, 2000).

In this regard, the Chamber maintains a web-page dedicated to tracking the city’s positionon various best places rankings (GreaterAustin Chamber of Commerce, 1999) whilecity government agencies maintain two oth-ers (e-Austin, 2001; City of Austin, 2001).Another member of the Chamber’s seniorstaff was at pains to point out that the citydoes not court such attention, however.

In fact, we’ve never ever been focused onhow do we make ourselves number one inFortune magazine or Forbes or Moneymagazine. … But what’s happened is themedia has come to Austin and is asking,“What’s Austin’s secret recipe for suc-cess?”. And so we’re having a chance toshare it with the media and, of course, themedia writes more about it. That createsmore buzz about Austin, which in turnsends more companies … (interview withsenior economic development leader,2000).

Austin’s ambivalence stems from the viewthat its economic development priorities—ones that emphasised clean air and water asearly as the 1950s and that have continued tostress the interconnections between the econ-omic and the ‘extra-economic’—pre-datedand influenced the contemporary consensuson local economic development that isreflected in the pages of Money and otherpublications. This is not to suggest that theattention Austin has received from the na-


tional media in recent years has had no affecton economic development strategy. Rather,business leaders have become increasinglydiscerning when deciding which types ofinvestment to attract

For companies that just contact us—the6–800 inquires [annually]—we have ascreening criteria and we don’t just wantanybody now because it’s putting morepressure on the infrastructure, so we’lllook at their median wage rate—we don’tneed to attract companies that are going topay minimum wage. We want to see howsocially responsible they are. Will theycontribute to solving problems with airquality and water and transport, things ofthat nature? And then we figure out whichones we really want to help and we en-courage those (interview with senior econ-omic development leader, 2000).

Of course, this is a problem most urbangrowth coalitions would be glad to have.While Austin discourages the advances ofinterested companies that it finds inappropri-ate, the cities ranked in the middle and bot-tom of the popular rankings look to Austin asa model of how to attract investment andresidents. The city has become a favouritecase study in policy circles (for example,Miller, 1999) and has become a prime desti-nation for fact-finding trips organised bygrowth coalitions from around the US andbeyond, such as the one taken by the groupfrom Lexington (Bean, 1992).

Idea(l) Transfer: Learning from the Suc-cessful, Chasing the Media Spotlight andthe Problems of Implementation

The ways in which individual cities becomewidely known as success stories in economicdevelopment are numerous. As I have al-ready argued, the role of the popular mediain this process should not be underestimated.The rankings produced by mainstream publi-cations like Money and Fortune construct ahegemonic narrative of what criteria arenecessary to rise up the urban hierarchy. Thisnarrative both draws upon and affirms the

policies pursued by a small number of cities.Furthermore, it “consolidate[s] a limited butwidely accepted set of diagnoses and pre-scriptions for the economic and politicaldifficulties [cities face]” (Jessop, 1997, p. 30)by encouraging the majority of cities to learnfrom and reproduce the policy formulae ofthe annointed few.

This process of imitation is often seen onthe urban landscape. Harvey, for instance,notes that contemporary cities’ competitivestance

may even force repetitive and serial repro-duction of ‘world trade centers’ or of newcultural and entertainment centers, of wa-terfront development, of postmodern shop-ping malls, and the like (Harvey, 1989,p. 10).

There is also a tendency for cities to transferand reproduce policies from places knownfor good practices in governance and econ-omic development. A desirable outcome ofthis transfer would be a careful modificationof policy to match the place-specific charac-teristics of the new location and, as a result,the creation of ‘strong’ or sustainable com-petitive advantage (Cox, 1995; Jessop,1998). It is likely, however, that the ‘weak’and unsustainable serial reproduction of cer-tain landscape elements from city to cityunder urban entrepreneurialism will be paral-lelled by the emergence of decontextualised‘copy-cat’ policies that fail to achieve theirlong-term economic development goals. Inthis context, contemporary urban growthcoalitions find themselves challenged withbalancing their need to learn from best prac-tices while avoiding uncritically copyingother cities’ policies.

Columbus, Ohio, is a city currently grap-pling with this dilemma as it attempts to planits future economic development and, relat-edly, to enhance its image at the nationallevel in order to compete for corporate in-vestment. For years, there has been an on-go-ing discussion in the city over how best todistinguish Columbus from the state’s othermajor cities, Cleveland and Cincinnati. Thisis despite the fact that the local economy has


grown in recent decades whereas the rest ofOhio has suffered the sorts of economic de-cline commonly associated with the US‘Rustbelt’. In a recent article on how toimprove the city, Columbus Monthly maga-zine argued that Columbus needed to “get abetter attitude” and “market a national im-age” (Paprocki, 2001, pp. 36–37). In supportof this argument, a local advertising execu-tive argued, “We’re endlessly apologizingfor not being a place with a pedigree. Let’sbe confident in who we are—a city on therise”. A city council member struck a similarnote saying

How do we escape from being branded asa frumpy, vanilla, no-town town? …We’re America’s best kept secret. Let’sget a core group of high-profile, forward-thinking Columbus people to lobby for usto the rest of the world (Paprocki, 2001,p. 37).

A concern with Columbus’ image and itsability to be economically competitive per-meates local business and political institu-tions. A year before the Columbus Monthlyarticle was published, for instance, theMayor’s office and the Chamber of Com-merce organised the city’s first ‘leadershiptrip’, a fact-finding visit to Austin. Despitethe similarities between Austin and Colum-bus in terms of economic history and rela-tionship to education and state government,Columbus has not experienced the same part-nership model of urban governance that de-veloped in Austin from the 1950s onwardsnor has it experienced the recent economicboom that has fundamentally reshapedAustin. Furthermore, Columbus does not finditself in the upper echelon of many bestplaces rankings and, whereas Austin limitsthe number of companies seeking to locatethere, many in Columbus’ business com-munity worry that the relative invisibility ofthe city means that it is losing out on corpo-rate investment. Austin was chosen as a des-tination for the leadership trip because ofthese similarities and crucial differences.

The agenda for the three-day trip includeda number of meetings with representatives of

Austin’s tripartite leadership coalition—government at the city and state levels, thebusiness community and the university.These were intended to provide the visitorswith an understanding of the roles played byeach in the city’s economic development andof the interactions between the partnershipmembers. Other meetings focused on keyaspects of the city’s economy, such as thehigh technology sector, and the policies inplace to sustain its development, such asworkforce development and venture capitalprogrammes (Greater Columbus Chamber ofCommerce, 2000a). While the lessonslearned from such a trip will vary somewhatfrom one participant to another, a seniorexecutive in one of Columbus’ private econ-omic development institutions identified twoareas in which the city could learn fromAustin: coalition building for economic de-velopment and the creation of a consistentand attractive image.

Reflecting on the visit, this executive ar-gued that “a community needs to have aconsensus-driven strategy for the fu-ture … [involving] the critical mass of keyleadership … Austin did that. Austin createdwithin the community a very defined objec-tive [to attract clean, high technology andlight manufacturing industry]”. On the otherhand, he argued, Columbus, “continues tomake a mistake [since all of its] plans areeither owned by an individual or an organis-ation. And because they are owned, therewas never any broad-based ownership builtfor these ideas”. For him, the visit to Austinnot only highlighted the lack of a consensusamong Columbus’ business and politicalelites on economic development but alsopointed out a parallel and problematic lack ofclarity in the city’s branding activities

You have a community here of 1.6 millionpeople without the foggiest notion ofwhere they’re going. Literally. … There isno image development. There is no mar-keting mentality in this community atall. … You have to be creating brand dis-tinction based on what you are buildingto. … It’s got to be consistent, consistent


and differentiating enough to … start tobecome the brand of the community (inter-view with senior economic developmentleader, 2001).

The outcome of the Columbus delegation’svisit to Austin is a new regional economicdevelopment strategy for greater Columbusthat is explicitly “modelled after the strategythat drove much of Austin’s success” and toovercome the lack of vision and consensusthat senior economic development leadershave recently identified as a major stumblingblock for the city (Greater Columbus Cham-ber of Commerce, 2000, 2001). The newstrategy focuses on strengthening the“socially constructed, socially regularisedand socially embedded [i.e. ‘extra-econ-omic’] factors” that Jessop and Sum (2000,p. 2311) argue are crucial to many contem-porary economic development strategies. Thefirst step in this new process is the creation ofthree ‘strike forces’ intended to take immedi-ate action on key issues of concern: venturecapital, place marketing and outreach to cor-porations. The “Marketing Columbus” strikeforce was specifically charged with“develop[ing] a strategy to ensure thatColumbus is at the top” of Money’s and othersimilar lists. Participants in a follow-upmeeting after their return from Austin wereinformed that the

Chamber has already completed an initialanalysis of “Best City” Rankings that canbe used to jump start this effort. Thisanalysis can be used to drive our strate-gies—whether they are visits to the edi-torial boards or their consultants, hostingthose groups in Columbus and other mar-keting activities (Greater ColumbusChamber of Commerce, 2000b, p. 2).

Asked how important it was for the city toraise its standing in popular best places rank-ings, a senior economic development pro-fessional argued strongly that it wasimportant for a competitive city.

If you are very competitively oriented,then those kind of things become incredi-bly important. And I will tell you that

some are more scientifically determinedthan others. But you have to be out there.You have to have a presence. You have tohave a willingness to work at it and under-stand that you are competing. That’s whyimage starts to take on a very importantrole. … And if you want to be moving upon the ladder on these lists, you better beout there talking about yourself, you betterbe out there with a message about whoyou are and what you stand for and howthat is a sustainable, competitive advan-tage over other cities who are doing thesame. … [I]f you don’t have that … youget left behind (interview with senioreconomic development leader, 2001).

Clearly, the trip to Austin had an invigorat-ing effect on many of those who participated.The delegation was presented with a well-re-hearsed narrative of Austin’s economic de-velopment that crystallised existingdiscomfort with the fragmented nature ofgovernance in the Columbus while present-ing the alternative of a coherent partnershipbetween government, the private sector andthe university. The presentations in Austinalso challenged Columbus to create astronger and more coherent brand for itself inorder to attract investment. Austin’s successin this regard and its prominence on nationalbest places rankings has encouraged Colum-bus to see these rankings as a critical focus offuture marketing efforts and to make raisingthe city’s standing on the lists a key compo-nent of its new regional strategy.

This renewed vigour notwithstanding, in-terviews with Austin’s economic develop-ment leaders around the time of theColumbus delegation’s visit suggested thatfor them, the recipe for competitiveness wasnot easily transferred. As one long-timemember of the coalition that shaped the de-velopment of Austin’s technology sector putit,

Once a month we’ll get a big contingentfrom different states and communities.And … the ones that I think can succeedare the ones that are close to really suc-cessful universities. So I think Columbus


has a good shot at it because Ohio State isa very good school. But there seems to beneed to have a combination of a gooduniversity and a nice place to live. And inthe last 30 years or so, a nice place to livehas included a lot of sunshine. … So, Ithink it’s difficult for the great universitiesin the Midwest, but it’s not imposs-ible. … You can’t do anything about theclimate, so they need to … plan on recruit-ing a lot of people who grew up in theMidwest, who think this is a wonderfulplace to live, and not expect a lot ofCalifornians. … Every economic develop-ment issue cannot mimic Austin (interviewwith senior economic development leader,2000).

For their part, local economic developmentprofessionals in Columbus are aware of thepotential pitfalls of relying too closely on apolicy model imported from elsewhere. Theyalso express awareness of the downsides ofAustin’s economic expansion—not least thecongestion and environmental stress—thathave accompanied the city’s rapid growth.Nonetheless, those involved in the trip toTexas continue to pursue the goal of creatinga more coherent combination of economicand extra-economic factors in a policy modelthat melds a diverse array of powerful inter-ests, similar to that developed in Austin. Atthe same time, these groups continue to takethe criteria of the media’s best places rank-ings seriously and they remain attuned onthese rankings as an important focus of mar-keting exercises in order to make Columbusa permanent fixture on the top of Money’sand other lists. The success of this effort isyet to be determined but, from Austin’s per-spective at least, it is far from certain.

Conclusion: The Popular Media and theDiscursive Construction/Limitation ofPossible Urban Futures

The purpose of this paper has been to explorethe linkages among local economic develop-ment strategies in US cities, the processesthrough which these strategies are valorised

and transferred from place to place and thebest places rankings produced by the popularmedia since the 1980s. The paper speaks totwo continuing concerns in the literature oninterurban competition and urban en-trepreneurialism: the question of how andwhy similar policies are reproduced or trans-ferred from place to place even as citiesattempt to distinguish themselves from eachother; and, the issue of how ‘extra-economic’factors are mobilised in the discursive con-struction, legitimation and dissemination ofideas about good local economic develop-ment policy. The paper argues that the role ofthe national popular media in these processeshas been understudied. I suggest that themedia’s normative discourse on what makesa place good for life and investment ispowerful and political in the way that it aidsin the production of contemporary localeconomic development policy. This argu-ment, then, is influenced by and illustrativeof a larger and relatively recent attempt tolocate the study of discursive power muchmore centrally in political economy ap-proaches to urban studies (Jonas and Wilson,1999b; McCann, 2002; Urban Studies,1999).

This perspective has been clearly arguedby Jonas and Wilson (1999b) in their dis-cussion of the politics of urban growth. Forthem, urban growth coalitions are equallyengaged in creating the material conditionsfor growth and in legitimating their practicesthrough carefully constructed discursivestrategies intended to convince people “ofthe importance of growth to their well-being”(Jonas and Wilson, 1999b, p. 8). These pol-itical interventions are largely directed at apopular audience in order to have most effectand to generate maximum support for urbanentrepreneurial policies and growth-orientedagendas. This discursive strategy is high-lighted by Jessop (1997) whose work on theentrepreneurial city thesis has taken seriouslythe role of narrative and discourse in theproduction of the economy and economicspace. For him, a key characteristic of theurban entrepreneurialism is the “discursiveconstruction [of the economy] as a distinc-


tive object (of analysis, regulation, gover-nance, conquest, and/or other practices)”(Jessop, 1997, p. 29). Once this economicspace has been discursively defined in thisway, it can become a key element in thedevelopment of what Cox and Mair (1988)referred to as a ‘localist ideology’ whichundergirds feelings of commonality and posi-tivity towards growth coalition agendas bothwithin the locality itself and also amongfriendly agents and institutions working atother scales (Jessop and Sum, 2000).

It is in this context that popular best placesrankings become salient to the activities oflocal business and political elites. This mediadiscourse clearly demarcates one city fromanother in its ranking process, defines eachplace as essentially and naturally competitiveby placing them on a ‘league table’ andsimultaneously draws upon and reinforces ahighly problematic view of cities as sociallyand economically homogeneous by makingstatements like “you could say that they’relucky in Austin” (Money, 1999, p. 134). Therankings also draw upon and reinforce whatmight be understood as ‘mainstream’ ideasof what constitutes the good life or well-be-ing and therefore provide a firm foundationfor growth discourse. As Jonas and Wilsonput it, growth coalitions’ political actions

seek to strike a responsive chord in main-stream thought. … Thus, power becomeswielded not through contextless articula-tions that foist power and a new way ofseeing on an unsuspecting mainstream butthrough cultivating prevailing beliefs andvalues (Jonas and Wilson, 1999b, p. 9;emphasis added).

Media narratives of the good life and goodplaces resonate with, concretise and validateprevailing beliefs about how economic de-velopment policy should be conducted inmany cities. Therefore, they can, in certaincases, have significant impacts on the politicsof interurban competition.

The national media’s discursive framing ofinterurban politics is related to its influenceon the character of intraurban politics. Asbest places rankings have grown in influence

in the past 15 years, it has had an increasingability to frame policy-making discussions inmany US cities. In some cases, local elitesfirst refer directly to common ‘best places’criteria—such as low tax rates and the im-portance of sports facilities—and subse-quently prioritise these elements in theirvisions of the future of the place. Therefore,the contemporary local economic goal in theUS is to manufacture a city that is simul-taneously an ideal hometown and an econ-omic boomtown as imagined in the glossypages of popular magazines like Money. Thisgoal entails the restrictive framing of whichvisions of the future are acceptable in policy-making discussions.

For example, in the case of Lexington, thedevelopment of a vision of the future alongthe lines of Money’s criteria and in accord-ance with standard discourses of urban com-petitiveness almost predetermined a finalplan that was in line with growth coalitionaspirations. The terms of the discussion setby the rankings and statistics produced by theconsultant made it very difficult to proposealternative futures. Coupled with this was anunproblematised acceptance of the criteriadeveloped by Money. This meant that therewas no room to question the definition of,means to achieve or consequences of ‘lowtaxes’, for instance. After all, the types ofcriteria used by Money and other publica-tions in ranking cities as good places to livetend to be hard to argue with, at least whentaken at face value. ‘Safe streets’, ‘vibranteconomy’ and ‘high quality of education forour children’ might, in the US context, betermed ‘motherhood and apple pie’ issues. Itis hard to suggest that they are not goodthings, but the very fact that that they seemself-evidently desirable for any policy pro-cess often makes it very difficult to questionthe means by which these ends will beachieved.

The danger for urban growth coalitions inbelieving the hype of the rankings and tailor-ing policy towards their criteria is that noroom will be left in the policy discussion foralternative visions or for stories that do notfit the narrative of prosperity. Cities en-


sconced at the top of the rankings may bemore aware of this danger than those pre-occupied with the chase to raise their pos-ition in Money’s next list. For these reasons,the relationships between the popular me-dia’s narrative representations of place andthe practices of urban governance, policy-making and politics are worthy of continuedstudy. These rankings and the reaction totheir publication should be seen as more thanentertainment. Their development and use inthe policy process can be analysed in thecontext of the neo-liberal shift towards aview of cities as fundamentally competitiveentities and consumption spaces. The crucialquestion, then, for any policy-making pro-cess intent on developing a good place to livein reference to these rankings is, “a goodplace for whom?”.

Note

1. I am indebted to an anonymous reviewer foremphasising this aspect of interurban compe-tition.

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