One more case study of the Growth Machine thesis

At the General Motors assembly plant on Broening Highway, a banner celebrates 20 years of van production. General Motors Corp. announced yesterday that the plant will close next year.(Sun photo by Jed Kirschbaum) Nov 16, 2004.

I have mentioned way too many times the thesis of Harvey Molotch's, first laid out in the paper City as a Growth Machine: Toward a Political Economy of Place, that regardless of political stripe, when it comes to push and shove, all local political elites are united in favor of an "economic development" agenda that favors "growth. "

Anyone involved in such issues as an advocate who hasn't read the Molotch paper operates blindly...

The Baltimore Sun provides yet another case study of this thesis, in the article from Thursday, "Bipartisan 'Team Maryland' worked to keep GM," about how Democrats and Republicans worked to keep some General Motors investment in the state, despite the recent closure of the Broening Highway plant, which led to the elimination of 1,100 jobs (and many more compared to the peak employment at the plant).

In some ways it's kind of pathetic how many column inches were devoted to this story (also covered in this front page article, "New GM hybrid, new shot at jobs") given that the project yields 87 jobs in total. That doesn't seem like very many to me.

Index Keywords: growth-machine