The politics of street regulation in Philadelphia: How collaboration creates policy alternatives

Abstract

As cities choose entrepreneurial strategies to lure the mobile corporate service sector and its professional workforce, they also present more forbidding faces to the working class and poor. Scholars and activists have pointed to the passage of public conduct laws as evidence of how modern cities signal to the poor that their downtown cores are reserved for the privileged classes. Yet, even as scholars and advocates attest to the growing “meanness” of American cities, their reports have also routinely showcased cities that develop alternatives to criminalization. This chapter presents data from a historical case study of homeless politics in Philadelphia to shed light on the complex local dynamics undergirding or challenging the modern urban phenomena of “anti-homeless” legislation. Though a pro-development paradigm has slowly transformed Philadelphia since the early 1990s, the local business community has been consistently unsuccessful in its attempts to have new public conduct legislation passed or to have existing laws stringently enforced. Urban regime theory helps explain how a network of local homeless service provider and advocacy organizations has been able to use collaborative strategies to effectively shape the politics and policies of street regulation in the city.

Citation

Landriscina, M. (2008), "The politics of street regulation in Philadelphia: How collaboration creates policy alternatives", Prechel, H. (Ed.) Politics and Public Policy (Research in Political Sociology, Vol. 17), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 175-203. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0895-9935(08)17007-3