ABSTRACT

Minneapolis/St. Paul, Toronto/Ottawa/Montreal, and Portland have all placed heavy emphasis on regional growth management, service provision, and/or finance as ways to solve the problems of low-income urban neighborhoods, although there are variations among the cities studied. For example, in Portland the focus is on providing regional growth management and citywide financial support: Portland has made heavy infrastructure investments in the poorest areas while strictly controlling suburban growth. In Minneapolis/St. Paul, many innovative strategies have been employed, but perhaps the most heavily emphasized is regional finance. The Canadian cities have a strong tradition of regional governance, which supports not only regional growth management strategies that help preserve the economic value of inner city property, but also regional finance and service provision. Perhaps because of the regional approach taken to neighborhood revitalization, the story of these cities’ efforts focuses much less on specific neighborhoods than is the case in any other city covered in this book. For example, Goetz, Lam, & Heitlinger (1996) point out that in Minneapolis policies have emphasized mixing incomes and the dispersal of public housing, so subsidized housing is scattered through much of the city.