A great example of the Growth Machine in action: Stephen Ross in Palm Beach County, Florida

Stephen Ross is a rich guy.  He was a founder of Related Companies, a development firm active in many markets, including NYC's Hudson Yards, although the company started by feeding at the government teat, in affordable housing.  He owns the Miami Dolphins.  He's friends with Trump. He went to the University of Michigan, and made a big donation to the business school, which is renamed in his honor.

The two theories I subscribe to on explaining how localities work politically and economically are Growth Machine and Urban Regime Theories.

Urban Regime Theory: governments and NGOs are about the long term and agenda setting.  While I am a huge proponent of the Growth Machine theory in understanding why cities make the decisions they do,:

[Abstract] A city and, more generally, any locality, is conceived as the areal expression of the interests of some land-based elite. Such an elite is seen to profit through the increasing intensification of the land use of the area in which its members hold a common interest. An elite competes with other land-based elites in an effort to have growth-inducing resources invested within its own area as opposed to that of another. Governmental authority, at the local and nonlocal levels, is utilized to assist in achieving this growth at the expense of competing localities. Conditions of community life are largely a consequence of the social, economic, and political forces embodied in this growth machine. The relevance of growth to the interests of various social groups is examined in this context, particularly with reference to the issue of unemployment. Recent social trends in opposition to growth are described and their potential consequences evaluated.

UR theory is best at explaining how action is done in a city or organization.  It's the flip side of Social Psychology of Organizations.

An urban regime can be preliminarily defined as the informal arrangements through which a locality is governed (Stone 1989). Because governance is about sustained efforts, it is important to think in agenda terms rather than about stand-alone issues. By agenda I mean the set of challenges which policy makers accord priority. A concern with agendas takes us away from focusing on short-term controversies and instead directs attention to continuing efforts and the level of weight they carry in the political life of a community. Rather than treating issues as if they are disconnected, a governance perspective calls for considering how any given issue fits into a flow of decisions and actions. This approach enlarges the scope of what is being analyzed, looking at the forest not a particular tree here or there. [emphasis added, in this paragraph and below] ...

By looking closely at the policy role of business leaders and how their position in the civic structure of a community enabled that role, he identified connections between Atlanta's governing coalition and the resources it brought to bear, and on to the scheme of cooperation that made this informal system work. In his own way, Hunter had identified the key elements in an urban regime – governing coalition, agenda, resources, and mode of cooperation. These elements could be brought into the next debate about analyzing local politics, a debate about structural determinism. 

In normal circumstances, Ross wouldn't be a local political actor, because of his global financial interests.  In a way, Ross isn't a good example of the "locally-focused" Growth Machine because his firm operates globally.  But I guess we can say he operates at two scales, if many of his peers do not: nationally-internationally, and locally.

But there's a good article in the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, "Stephen Ross’ unfinished business: Delivering more growth to Palm Beach County," outlining his real estate focused agenda for community improvement there.

As a resident of Palm Beach County, he wants to see it thrive.  His concepts include a satellite campus of Vanderbilt's Business School focused on innovation and technology ("Beyond ‘Wall Street South’: Will Vanderbilt University deliver the next big thing to Palm Beach County?," S-S), not unlike Bloomberg's initiative to create a technology focused campus in New York City, which ended up as Cornell Tech.  He's recruited a private school to an equestrian focused community in the county.  And he has a grab bag of more typical development proposals.

WRT Vanderbilt:

After months of back-channeling and private discussions with local private and public sector figures, Vanderbilt University is close to signing contracts with the county and city to build a $520 million project that would bring a second campus of the Owen School of Management to West Palm Beach, one of the nation’s leading graduate business schools. It was ranked No. 25 in a 2023-24 national survey of 75 schools conducted by Bloomberg Businessweek. The university boasts an endowment that approaches $10 billion, making it one of the nation’s richest universities. According to a university website, 1,127 alumni reside in Palm Beach County and in northern Broward County. .

Across the board, economic development officials, politicians and developers view the deal as a “once in a lifetime opportunity” to buttress the city and county’s gravitas as “Wall Street South,” a long-standing recruiting campaign orchestrated by the Palm Beach County Business Development Board. Over the years, it has helped draw a flock of money management and other financial firms to the area from the Northeast and elsewhere both before and after the COVID-19 pandemic

... Although the idea has drawn sweeping support from commissioners at both the city and country levels, a lingering question loomed above the narrative of positive upside possibilities in the ensuing years: Will it have an expansionary or dilutive effect on local schools such as the state-funded Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, or even the private Nova Southeastern University in Davie. Business schools and innovation centers operate at both institutions

I wouldn't call it a plan for action at the scale of "Transformational Projects Action Planning," as there is maybe only one true anchor project, that of the Vanderbilt Business School.

Still, that someone of his stature and portfolio is investing locally is interesting, especially as he pursues anchor projects that are more typical of bigger central cities like Miami, rather than secondary regional cities like Palm Beach or Fort Lauderdale.

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Meanwhile, in DC, former Mayor Anthony Williams has re-upped his presidency of the Federal City Council--the "coordinating body" of the Growth Machine in DC--for the next five years ("Tony Williams to remain at helm of Federal City Council for five more years," Washington Business Journal).