The Sources of Governmental Influence
In a complex political system like that of the New York region, there are inevitably great differences in the ability of various governmental units to influence development. The extent to which an individual unit shapes the pattern of urban growth can be analyzed in terms of three sets of factors—its areal scope, its functional scope, and its ability to concentrate resources on specific developmental goals. The first two factors can be employed to distribute the region's governments in a matrix involving four categories, as shown in Figure 8. The third factor includes several elements used to analyze the actions and the impact of government within the limits defined by the first two factors.
Areal and Functional Scope: Toward a Classification of Governments
Areal scope refers to the extent of the region in which a governmental unit has responsibility. In the New York region, this ranges from towns encompassing less than one square mile, such as Guttenberg in New Jersey and Hewlett Neck on Long Island, through New York City and the region's larger counties, to the three states and the national government.
Functional scope concerns the number of fields of activity with which the government institution is involved. At one end of the spectrum are single-purpose units, such as highway agencies and sewerage districts; at the other end are the governments of general jurisdiction in the region—the municipalities, counties, and state and federal governments—and more specifically the mayors, governors, legislators, and other officials within these units with broad multifunctional responsibilities.
When areal and functional scope are combined, the various governments in a region can be distributed in the matrix (Figure 8). Within the first quadrant (broad functional and narrow areal scope) are found the municipal and county governments of the region, and more specifically the mayors, county executives, planning and zoning agencies, and other central organs of local government.
The second quadrant (broad functional and broad areal scope) includes

Figure 8
Governmental Units: Functional and Areal Scope (with examples)
those components of the state and national governments concerned with general policy-making and coordination. At the state level, these include the governor's office, the legislature, and the agencies concerned with general planning and urban development. In Washington, integrative institutions with a role in urban development are the President and the Executive Office, Congress, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Transportation, and the Environmental Protection Administration.
The third category (narrow functional and broad areal scope) includes the regional and subregional agencies with direct responsibility for carrying
out specific programs in highways, housing, and other areas. Many of these agencies are line departments of federal and state governments. Others are semiautonomous public authorities and special districts, such as the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the Long Island Park Commission.
In the fourth quadrant (narrow functional and areal scope) are the special districts and other agencies with responsibilities in small portions of the region, such as the numerous school districts which are limited to one or two municipalities and specialized functional agencies within individual localities.
Concentration of Resources
The third factor—the ability to concentrate resources—involves the focusing of public powers, funds, and skills in order to achieve specific developmental goals. The significance of this factor lies in the fact that urban development, especially in an industrialized, pluralistic society, results from a dynamic interplay of technological, political, economic and other forces. Consequently, government's efforts to shape development must overcome the dynamism of the other forces, and such efforts are likely to be more successful if governmental resources are focused on specific developmental areas and projects. Underlying the ability of a unit of government to concentrate resources for development purposes within its areal and functional jurisdiction are a number of elements. Particularly important are its formal independence of other governmental units, the variety and intensity of constituency demands on the unit, and five other kinds of resources available to the unit: funds; control over the use of land; leadership skills; control over subunits of the government; and planning capabilities. As the following discussion illustrates, these seven factors are interrelated, and clear boundaries around each cannot readily be drawn. The role of the various elements, especially in combination, becomes more evident in the following chapters as their relationships to the several categories of government are explored.[39]
Formal independence. Two of the factors concern political controls and pressures that are primarily external to the unit. The first is the extent to which a governmental body is formally independent of other governments in making policy, obtaining funds, and allocating funds for specific purposes. No governmental body in the United States is completely independent even in a formal sense, since all are subject to constitutional limitations and judicial oversight. But there are marked differences in the extent to which one unit or one set of officials is formally required to obtain the consent of others before acting.
Probably the greatest degree of formal independence is that permitted the President and his aides in foreign policy. Taken together, the central,
[39] For discussion of these elements and of power resources generally, see Robert A. Dahl, Who Governs? (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961), Books IV, V; Dahl, "Power," in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 12, p. 409; Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power (New York: Wiley, 1960); Wallace S. Sayre and Herbert Kaufman, Governing New York City (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1960), chapters 8–9, 13, 15, 18; Eugene Bardach, The Skill Factor in Politics (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1972), pp. 5 ff.
elective policymaking institutions at the national level (President and Congress) rank near the "independence" end of the continuum, as do their counterparts at the state level. Substantially less formal independence is given to the central policy institutions at the local level. Counties and municipalities are creations of the state government, and their activities in the urban field (as elsewhere) are restricted—often rather severely—by state constitutions and statutes, by state courts, and by the refusal of state legislators to enact particular laws requested by local officials.
Administrative departments and agencies, whether federal, state, or local, generally have no formal independence; funds obtained for their use, and the ways they can spend money or otherwise make policy, are under the control of elected officials. The normal arrangement through which funds are allocated for particular programs—the budgetary process—makes many line agencies highly vulnerable to a siphoning off of moneys which might be used for specific developmental projects. On the other hand, when funds are statutorily earmarked for a line agency, as is the case in many states with respect to road building, the agency has considerably more independence.
One other kind of government institution should be mentioned: the specialized functional unit generally referred to as a special district or public authority. This institution comes in a wide variety of sizes and types, ranging from the small-town school district with elected members and taxing power, to the mammoth port and highway authorities financed largely out of their own revenues and governed by officials appointed for fixed terms. Because of these wide variations, generalizations about the independence of districts and authorities are hazardous. Generally, they are less restricted than are regular line departments, and the authorities supported by tolls and other fees frequently have a degree of formal discretion substantially exceeding that of elected municipal officials.
Variety and intensity of constituency demands. Essentially every government unit is the object of close interest by a number of organized groups and clusters of individuals, each urging that the unit's officials use their funds and other resources to achieve goals favored by the particular constituency. The "variety" of different demands pressed upon the government may affect its ability to focus on specific developmental goals in several ways. First, the government may confront other kinds of demands. Pressures for governmental action to meet welfare, hospital, and law enforcement needs, for example, reduce the funds and leadership skills available for developmental purposes. These pressures are especially significant limitations in the older cities; they are much less important to the governments of the wealthier suburbs. Federal and state government efforts are also focused in part on welfare and other nondevelopmental needs of urban areas. Moreover, their resources are spread across a number of other substantive areas, most prominently foreign and military affairs, and agricultural and other rural concerns.
"Variety" also refers to the range of demands within developmental areas, but here the impact on governmental influence is more complex. The more narrowly focused the demands, the greater the ability of a governmental unit to affect the included area, whether parks or highways or schools. Yet the broader the range of functions with which the government is expected to deal,
the wider the impact it can have on urban development as we have defined it—unless available resources are spread too thin to provide a significant counterweight to the economic, technological and other forces operating in various program areas. Perhaps the institution that best balances these competing considerations, at least in the New York region, is the Port Authority. Concerned with several functions, and possessing considerable resources, the Port Authority has been able to focus its funds and energies largely on significant developmental projects; thus it has had a substantial impact on urban development.
So far, variety of demands has been considered in terms of the number of distinct policy areas among which a government institution must allocate scarce resources. The "variety" factor has a somewhat different effect when the policy preferences of different constituencies directly conflict. Demands for parks or improved housing, for instance, may directly conflict with pressures for new highways, if proposed as alternative uses of the same land. Where one government must decide between such directly competing ends, vigorous government action is particularly difficult.
In the older cities, the conflicting interests of a heterogeneous population make it almost impossible for the mayor and other central government officials to pursue unambiguous developmental goals. Some of the conflicts are as obvious as the land use example just noted; others are more complex. For example, efforts to alleviate the disadvantages of the ghetto dweller through educational policies that encourage integration tend to hasten the exodus of the middle class to the suburbs, thus reducing the city's tax base and increasing the tendency for the older city to become predominately the home of the nonwhite poor. The homogeneous suburbs and functional authorities which are able to disregard these spillover effects find that clear goals and consistent action to shape "their" portions of the urban scene are far more readily attainable.
The ability of a governmental unit to concentrate resources on particular developmental problems depends not only on the variety of demands but on the relative intensity of different demands as well. "Government by crisis" is a phrase frequently (and pejoratively) applied to public action; and for those governments that confront many pressures, significant action is indeed far more likely when a widely perceived emergency exists. The substantial increases in state and federal action in mass transportation and air pollution in recent years have followed this route.
Control over the use of land. Although constrained by their constituencies and by other governmental units, public officials have a number of powers and other resources that can be used to shape urban development. Among the formal powers of government, land-use control is especially important to urban development. The extent of governmental control over land and the way this control is exercised affect the physical aspects of the urban scene directly. Control over land also has significant implications for the distribution of racial groups and for other social aspects of the metropolis.
Some land in the New York region is owned by governmental agencies. The overwhelming preponderance, however, is owned privately, and government shapes the development of this land through regulatory power. This
power is exercised directly by local governments in the region, using zoning, subdivision, and building regulations. Federal and state planning standards generally are permissive guidelines for consideration (and adoption or rejection) by the municipalities, although more stringent state controls related to environmental goals in sensitive areas such as coastal zones emerged in the 1970s. Local land-use control also is subject to oversight by the courts, but prior to the 1970s judicial rulings almost always reinforced rather than diluted local self-determination in regulating land use.
Land-use control is a particularly significant tool for shaping the urban environment in those parts of the region with open land. Historically, the experience of Westchester County illustrates this particularly well. Early in this century, while much of the county was still undeveloped, political leaders in Westchester resolved that it would not become another Bronx—the densely settled borough of New York City that borders Westchester on the south. Planning and zoning policies were developed to ensure low residential densities and exclude industry from much of the county. During the past several decades, and in spite of the pressure of population expansion, these policies have been maintained, and much of northern Westchester remains a lightly developed sector of the region.
Once commercial and residential uses have replaced open space and agriculture, the economic, political and other social costs of significant governmental control over land use increase dramatically. Consequently, the strategy used by Westchester in the 1920s is available to Suffolk, Dutchess, and other outlying counties that still have substantial amounts of open space. This approach is much less useful in Nassau and other densely populated suburbs, and it is of very little significance in Newark, Jersey City, and most other older cities.
Financial resources. Financial strength is obviously important in determining the ability of any governmental unit to achieve developmental goals.[40] Yet it is also clear that this factor is closely intertwined with others considered above, especially the variety of demands impinging upon the government and the degree of formal independence of action. For money is likely to be diffused where multiple demands exist; and the ability to obtain funds through taxes may be severely limited by external controls, as state laws restricting New York City's taxing power amply demonstrate.
The problem of finance warrants separate emphasis because of a major characteristic of the region's fragmented governmental system: the tendency for local political units having the greatest per capita financial resources to be largely separate from those with the greatest financial needs. The nature of this separation between needs and resources, and its consequences, have been carefully analyzed by Robert Wood.[41] The process can be summarized as follows:
Certain kinds of urban land use yield a surplus of local tax revenue over
[40] Of course, as Dahl and others have emphasized, the extent of actual influence will depend not only on the financial (and other) resources available, but also on willingness to use the resources to affect others' behavior. See Dahl, Modern Political Analysis, pp. 37 ff.
[41] Wood, 1400 Governments, chapters 2–3. Cf. Oliver P. Williams et al., Suburban Differences and Metropolitan Policies: A Philadelphia Story (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1965).
expenditure. Industrial and commercial property, the homes of the wealthy, and more modest residences for adults without children are generally in this "surplus-revenue" category. Other property uses have the reverse impact, notably the residences of the poor and the aged, tax-exempt property, and homes for middle-income parents with young children. Typically, funds obtained from "surplus-revenue" properties are used to meet the relatively heavy needs for health, welfare, schools, and other services of these ("expenditure-generating") groups.
In general, the expenditure-generating population groups are concentrated in the older cities and in suburbs whose zoning regulations allow inexpensive housing. Some of the older cities, particularly New York City in and near its central business district, also have a strong concentration of surplus-revenue development. During the past three decades, however, the two kinds of development have tended to become increasingly segregated. Thus, businesses seek locations in towns without high expenditure-generating factors, in order to keep their taxes low. The wealthy seek a similar environment, in order to maximize privacy and social separation, and to minimize tax burdens. Local government officials maneuver to obtain these kinds of taxpayers in order to reduce tax burdens on other local land owners; but success generally accrues only to those localities that already have a relatively low level of expenditure-generating property use. Of course, the entire process is possible only because of the extensive fragmentation of municipal jurisdictions in the region. Moreover, the process is significant because of the substantial burden of locally financed governmental service in the metropolis.
If the segregation of needs from financial resources severely limits the ability of some governmental units to influence development—or even, as later chapters will show, to meet minimal local needs—it also induces heavy pressures for nonlocal financial support. The state governments of the region and the national government have greater financial resources, particularly in comparison with the older cities, and local officials and their constituents increasingly have sought and obtained funds from these sources to meet educational, welfare, health, transportation, and other needs. Use of their financial resources to meet urban-oriented problems has given state and federal governments substantial leverage in shaping urban development—especially in such important functional areas as transportation and urban renewal.
Political skill. The final three elements are less tangible than money or control over land use, but are no less important. The most general of the three is the political skill of governmental leaders; the others may be partly subsumed under this factor.
By political skill we mean the ability of governmental officials to identify goals clearly, within the constraints and opportunities outlined above, and to use resources efficiently in achieving these goals. The planning and zoning strategies of Westchester officials noted above illustrate this ability, in contrast to the relative lack of foresight by public officials in most other sectors with regard to the financial, aesthetic, and other implications of urban sprawl. The tactical skills and public relations talents of the Port Authority and Robert Moses provide other examples. Political skill was also a critical
factor in the ability of local officials and private interests to block the construction of a new jetport in suburban Morris County.
Control over subordinate units. The challenge of internal control is especially relevant to the mayors of larger cities, to county executives, to governors, and to the White House. In larger governmental institutions, specialized units in highways, education, urban renewal, and other functional areas tend to define goals in terms of their own relatively narrow perspectives, to develop strong ties with their clientele, and to create functional alliances with officials at other levels of government. Frequently, these units are able to obtain semiautonomous legal status: many authorities and special districts are legally subordinate to general-government officials only to a very limited extent.
The ability of elected officials to achieve their preferred goals depends substantially on their ability to control their line departments, and frequently on their capacity to influence semi-independent authorities as well. The power to appoint and remove leaders of these agencies is an important route to control, as is the capacity to reorganize and combine executive agencies.
Planning. Many observers consider planning to be government's primary instrument in shaping urban development. However, the planning process must be examined in the context of the other resources and constraints that shape governmental action.
Urban planning may be defined as "the application of foresight to achieve certain preestablished goals in the growth and development of urban areas." It involves a "continuous process of deriving, organizing and presenting a broad and comprehensive program for urban development and renewal," which should consider both "immediate needs and those of the foreseeable future." According to professional planners, urban planning agencies—if they are to be really effective—should have broad areal and functional scope. Preferably, the planning process should embrace the entire metropolitan area and be concerned with the interrelationships among all relevant factors, rather than focusing on individual components such as transportation or recreation. In addition, the planners' activities should be influential: governmental action to shape urban development should be based on the guidelines and detailed plans set forth by the professional planner.[42] In its ideal form, urban planning is closely related to the regional governmental structure that Wood argues is necessary if there is to be "public direction of economic growth."
Judged by this ideal, there is very little effective planning in the New York region. Admittedly, a considerable amount of planning is done by municipal, county, subregional, and state general-planning units, and by the wide variety of functional agencies in the metropolis. But the political leaders of most of these units are not concerned primarily with the planners' ideal of
[42] The quotations are from F. Stuart Chapin, Jr., "Foundations of Urban Planning," in Werner A. Hirsch, ed., Urban Life and Form (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963), p. 218; and Chapin, Urban Land Use Planning, second edition (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1965), p, vi. See also T. J. Kent, The Urban General Plan (San Francisco: Chandler, 1964): Charles M. Harr and Associates, "The Promise of Metropolitan Planning," in Michael N. Danielson, ed., Metropolitan Politics, second edition (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971), pp, 374–380.
balanced, long-range development of the region. Instead, they view planning, and more specifically their own planning staffs, as one of several instruments that can be used to maximize the interests of their own municipality, county, or functional agency. In other words, their planning units are important elements in the process of concentrating resources to attract certain kinds of industry, to insure that low-income groups do not invade the community in large numbers, or to calculate the profitability of a proposed new toll bridge or tunnel.
There are exceptions, of course. Some of the county, intercounty, and state planning agencies, as well as the New York City agency, are often able to operate with greater independence from immediate political pressures. Staffed by well-trained planners, these units draw up extensive plans that meet professional planning standards, and hold the promise of reshaping development in their segments of the region. But the actual power to act upon the proposals of the Westchester County planning agency, the New York City Planning Commission, or the New Jersey Division of Planning resides elsewhere in the governmental system. Almost invariably, the multiplicity of interests that must be reconciled to the plan soon strips it of consistency and long-range effect. A former executive director of the Nassau County Planning Commission laments:
Achievement is not always the prime characteristic of a planner. Normally he must attune himself to the role of advocate . . . and content himself with whatever impact his advocacy might produce. If he is lucky, his recommendations will be discussed in committees and finally—after substantial modifications—acted upon. More often than not, however, the planner's labors of love become stymied by the numerous layers of bureaucracy which irrevocably stand between him and a sense of accomplishment. Occasionally, he may be frontally assaulted by vociferous opponents carrying "Save Our Homes" placards.[43]
Like many metropolitan areas, New York also has an official planning agency—the Tri-State Regional Planning Commission which dates from the early 1960s—that has carried out a number of studies of transportation, recreation, and general development on a regionwide basis. Although its membership includes the executives of state and federal transport and development agencies, the commission's studies have had relatively little influence on the numerous specific programs and projects carried out by the dozens of separate municipal and functional organizations in the region.
In summary, most planning in the New York region is far from the ideal. The planning staffs that are likely to have an impact on the region's development are those that are responsive to political forces as they are structured in the fragmented metropolis. In this role, the urban planner becomes an important instrument to assist the elected official, as he seeks ways to protect the interests of his own limited constituency.
[43] Charles E. Stonier, "Planning in the Maturing Suburb," Traffic Quarterly 14 (April 1965), p. 285. On the political environment of urban planning, see Alan Altshuler, The City Planning Process (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1965); Francine Rabinowitz, City Politics and Planning (New York: Atherton Press, 1969); and Edward C. Banfield and James Q. Wilson, City Politics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963), Chapter 14.
Targets of Analysis
Our more detailed exploration of government's role in shaping the New York region's development occupies eight of the nine chapters that follow. To set the stage for this analysis, we explore in Chapter Two the general pattern of development in the older cities and suburbs of the metropolis. Then we focus on the interplay of government and suburban development in Chapters Three and Four, examining in detail local housing and land-use policies and the efforts of local interests to influence regional, state, and federal transportation agencies.
Government actors of regional scope are the subject of the next three chapters. In Chapter Five we examine in some detail the obstacles which stand in the way of "regional government" or even of modest regionwide cooperation, as well as the disparate resources and opportunities available to broader coordinating agencies like Tri-State and to narrower functional enterprises like the Port Authority. Transportation programs are central both in their influence on development patterns and in their need for a regional perspective, and we devote Chapters Six and Seven to the efforts of federal, state, and other regional actors in highway development and mass transportation.
Perhaps the governments facing the most complicated and difficult challenges are those which attempt to influence development in the older cities of the region. In Chapters Eight and Nine we turn to the many governmental actors that function in this complex arena, first examining their capabilities and strategies in New York City, Newark, and other older cities, and then in Chapter Nine looking more closely at urban renewal.
Finally, Chapter Ten pulls together the main threads of our analysis, with some attention to the implications of the rise of environmentalism and other values for the capacity of government to shape future urban development. We end where we began, emphasizing the importance of concentrating resources in shaping governmental influence on urban development.
Throughout, we have selected materials that illustrate the interplay between government and development, rather than attempting comprehensive treatment of land-use control, housing, highways, airport development, mass transportation, or urban renewal. Frequently, we examine issues for bounded periods of time, often in the context of particular cases and places. Some of our cases are indeed quite bounded, as in the treatment of the Port Authority bus terminal in Chapter Six or the competition to entice the New York Stock Exchange to leave Manhattan in Chapter Eight. Other cases take in longer spans of time and a wider range of actors, but still without comprehensive coverage and often without bringing each strand of activity up to date through the 1970s. Thus, in Chapter Six we concentrate on highway development from the 1920s to the 1960s, the era in which the highway coalition secured the resources to build the major bridges and roads that now shape the region. In Chapter Seven we frame much of the analysis of recent mass transit programs in terms of New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority, with less attention to efforts in New Jersey. And we devote the bulk of our examination of urban renewal in Chapter Nine to redevelopment efforts in Newark.
Our selective approach necessarily means that we omit or treat briefly many issues, problems, and programs. For example, while urban renewal is
examined in some detail, little attention is given to the model cities program, or to the community development block grant and urban development action grant programs that have provided funds for urban redevelopment in recent years. All of these programs are important and could have provided interesting case materials. All tend to illustrate points regarding government efforts in older cities similar to those illuminated by urban renewal and other programs that we do examine.
Our principal concern is with government—but not with all governments in the region in all of their activities. Instead, we focus on governmental agencies that seek to affect the region's development pattern. Thus, we do not treat government in the comprehensive fashion of Sayre and Kaufman's classic examination of New York City.[44] Nor do we organize the volume along traditional government lines, with chapters on local, regional, state, and federal governments. Instead, each of these kinds of government is examined in the context of various development issues. In Chapter Three, for example, we focus on local governments in suburbia because they are the prime public agents regulating land use and housing, but we also treat the role of the three state governments in shaping local government activities in the region's farflung suburbs. While Chapter Four also deals with suburbia, much of the analysis concerns public agencies that plan and build major transportation facilities affecting development in the suburbs. By the same token, the discussion of the older cities in Chapters Eight and Nine explores the capabilities of a wide range of governmental actors—the general governments of older cities, functional agencies at various levels of government, and a host of state and federal participants in the politics of development in the region.
Our substantial emphasis on local and regional units may surprise those who see the state and particularly the federal role in urban development as crucial. As we indicate frequently in the pages that follow, state and federal actors play important parts in whatever happens or does not happen with respect to development in the New York region. Many state agencies are directly involved in the New York region. Moreover, all local and regional units are the creatures of state government, deriving their legal powers and financial resources from the state. Federal money is clearly a prime engine of urban development—fueling highway and mass transportation, subsidized housing, urban revitalization, water and sewer projects, and a variety of other public activities. And there is no question that federal policies which promoted home ownership, residential segregation, and highway development helped stimulate the rapid outward growth of metropolitan areas.
Recognizing the importance of the states and the federal government, however, does not provide satisfactory answers to the basic questions this study poses concerning the relative importance of governmental influences in the urban development process, and the nature of the factors that explain the varying capabilities of governmental units to affect urban patterns. Neither the federal government nor the states are monolithic entities confronting the urban landscape in a cohesive and coherent fashion. Instead, many different state and federal agencies, policies, and programs have impacts on the location of activities and facilities in urban areas. None operates in isolation from
[44] Sayre and Kaufman. Governing New York City .
other governmental units. State programs are shaped by local governments and interests, by regional agencies such as the Port Authority, and by the sensitivity of governors and state legislators to the views of organized interests and local constituents. Federal programs are subject to the same constraints, and depend even more heavily on other units for implementation. Federal highway dollars are turned into actual routes by state officials; money for the various federal urban programs is spent by city and state agencies. Intervention from the state capitals and Washington follows no simple and predictable patterns, because neither the states nor the federal government has a coherent set of urban development policies, because agency goals and programs are in conflict, and because local pressures differ from case to case.
Our plan is to examine the wide range of governmental units that seek to influence development in the nation's largest urban area—from small suburban governments to large city, regional, state, and federal agencies. We look carefully at local and regional actors because the decentralized system of government in the United States continues to provide the grass roots with the power to make or veto important decisions on urban development. In a complex decentralized political system like that of the New York region, there are many avenues to influence, and in the following pages we explore a number of these roads in the belief that they will lead to a better understanding of the interplay between political institutions and the other forces which shape our urban society.