ABSTRACT

Professor Harvey Molotchs' research suggests that tax rates in cities where growth machines' success, stayed about the same as before. He argues growth machines consist of business leaders, civic boosters, property owners and investors in local-oriented financial institutions. The key ideological prop for growth machine, especially in terms of sustaining support from working-class majority, is the claim that growth makes job opportunities. Molotchs speculates that the political and economic essence of virtually any given locality, in the present American context, is growth. Localities grow in population because of the fecundity of the existing population. They compete with one another to gain the preconditions of growth. United States cities were created and sustained largely through this process. It continues to be significant dynamic of contemporary local political economy and is critical to the allocation of public resources and ordering of local issue agendas. Thus, because the city is a growth machine, it draws a special sort of person into its politics.