URBAN-DEVELOPMENT, COLLECTIVE CONSUMPTION AND THE POLITICS OF METROPOLITAN FRAGMENTATION

The territorial partition of the metropolis is a theme central to discussions of urban problems in the US. Metropolitan political fragmentation per se is far from understood, however. Theories of metropolitan political fragmentation have tended to emphasize interests in consumption to the neglect of matters of production. Moreover, the role of state managers tends to be marginalized in such theories. This paper situates an actual politics of metropolitan fragmentation in relation to the two dominant discourses of contemporary urban theory: the politics of local economic development and the politics of collective consumption. Consideration is paid to pressures for territorial organization emanating from coalitional forces that span the state-civil society boundary. These conceptual themes are examined concretely through a detailed study of post-war patterns of territorial organization in metropolitan Columbus, Ohio. While integration of the metropolitan area in terms of the provision of water and sewerage for local economic development projects has been a project of the metropolitan growth coalitions and the city of Columbus, that integration has only been possible to the extent that interests in collective consumption or, more specifically, in education, have been politically neutralized.