Collaborative Governance for Urban Revitalization

Michael J. Rich and Robert P. Stoker confront the puzzle of why the outcomes achieved by the original Empowerment Zones varied so widely.

Michael J. Rich is Associate Professor of Political Science and Environmental Studies and Executive Director of the Center for Community Partnerships at Emory University. He is the author of Federal Policymaking and the Poor. Robert P. Stoker is Associate Professor of Political Science, Public Policy, and Public Administration at the George Washington University. He is the author of Reluctant Partners: Implementing Federal Policy and coauthor of When Work is Not Enough: State and Federal Policies to Support Needy Workers.

An important work for those who care about creating communities that promote opportunity for all residents.... This book is a powerful reminder that we need more policy experiments and more scholarship.

David P. Karas:

[Collaborative Governance]is a valuable resource, a course-ready publication, for scholars and students interested in the fields of urban studies, public policy and local government—as well as those who study urban revitalisation and community economic development.

Jennifer S. Vey, Metropolitan Policy Program, Brookings Institution, coeditor of Retooling for Growth:

Michael J. Rich and Robert P. Stoker provide a nuanced discussion of the large variance in performance across the Empowerment Zones, making a powerful case for how good governance is critical to producing good outcomes. Collaborative Governance for Urban Revitalization offers policymakers, researchers, nonprofit organizations, and others in the urban development field insight into what makes policies and programs successful, how they can fail, and what this means for their design and implementation.

Todd Swanstrom, Des Lee Professor of Community Collaboration and Public Policy Administration, University of Missouri—St. Louis:

Collaborative Governance for Urban Revitalization is an outstanding piece of scholarship. Michael Rich and Robert Stoker's knowledge of the work of foundations, including how their comprehensive community initiatives have influenced federal policy, is unparalleled. The connections the authors make to international development initiatives and their focus on effective governance are especially valuable. In truth, we have weak governance processes in many American metros. It is one thing to propose big policy ideas; it is something else to implement them. Many areas do not have the institutional capacity to absorb funds even if the funds were available. As the authors note, we need to focus on capacity or governance first. This book is a must-read for those who want to see such capacity developed in American cities.