ABSTRACT
The entrepreneurial phase of local government has coincided with the limitation and the decrease in central government funding to local government and the restriction of the amounts that local governments are able to generate through local taxation. This has been on top of the severe deindustrialisation of many urban economies. The result has been a severe drop in the funding available to local government (Goodwin 1992). This situation has forced local authorities to adopt a much more entrepreneurial role, generating revenue through functions which were traditionally the preserve of the private sector. These functions have included speculative property development, place promotion and subsidy of private development. Many agree that this increased involvement of the public sector in initiating economic development represents a major shift in the nature of local government. Local authorities have formed an increasing number of alliances with outside interests to further their aims of local economic development. These other interests, predominantly from the private sector, have also found advantage in these alliances. This might include preferential treatment from local authorities, for example. The relationships between local authorities and other interests within their urban area have generated a great deal of literature from urban geography, political science and sociology. This has led to a number of theories that have sought to explain the nature of urban politics in terms of who governs cities, who has access to power, and who is excluded from power? The section that follows will consider two of the most
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