ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to provide a "state of the art" summary of what is presently known by social scientists of how spatial decentralization of economic activities, accompanied by centralization of control, affects the structure of power and dynamics of influence within localities. While attempting to avoid drawn into the vortex of ideological debate of elitism versus pluralism, we will draw upon community power structure studies for evidence. Despite an awareness of the importance of all three facets of dominance, theories of community power structure vary in the locus of their emphasis. Some theoreticians look upon ownership and control of resources as inter-group difference to be explained. Communities which host large-scale economic developments, willingly or otherwise, are recipients of capital investments controlled by absentee owners with extra-local organizational ties. By the time frustrations with the structuralists' "comparative urban studies" approach began to surface, there already were studies underway which focused more directly on the dynamics of the political processes within communities.
