ABSTRACT
The market-active city of Charlotte is rapidly growing with a highly educated population, high incomes, high home values and rents, low poverty, fairly high minority population and growth in foreign-born residents in a rapidly growing metro area in which the city comprises two-fifths of the population. The market-passive city, Cleveland, presents a very different picture from Charlotte and Calgary. Cleveland is a declining city in a declining metro area, with high poverty, low incomes, low home values and rents, low levels of education, a high percentage of female-headed households, small percentage of married-couple households, a majority African-American population and relatively small portion of metro area. Louisville, the second market-passive city, looked a bit like Cleveland during the 1980s to 2000, but with reorganization, it provides a potential glimpse of Charlotte and Calgary. At the most basic level in community power system, the importance of business community in all aspects of input and governance in these four cities is straightforward.
