ABSTRACT
Urban politics in North American and, to some extent, Western European cities continues to be defined by tenacious efforts to capture footloose and highly competitive private investment to stimulate local economic development. This chapter examines the governance of partnerships as an evolving rather than static process. It argues that varying levels of coordination, collaboration, flexibility and adaptability within public-private partnerships influence their effectiveness and, therefore, their impact upon the range of social groups who inhabit areas within cities targeted for contemporary redevelopment. If public-private partnerships play a dominant role in pro-growth urban politics, a more complete understanding relies on how they operate or, or in other words, their inner workings. Clearly, partnerships do not function on the ground as clear-cut cases of either inter-sectoral sharing or collaboration or elite-dominated governance of urban development. Instead, a view of the inner workings of public-private partnerships may provide useful insights to theories of pro-growth urban politics.
