Grassroots austerity

Municipal bankruptcy from below in Vallejo, California

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4139824
AutoresMark Davidson (0000-0003-0012-4540, Clark University, autor de correspondencia), William Kutz (0000-0002-7810-6329, School of Environment, Education and Development, Arthur Lewis Building-1.024, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, England, autor de correspondencia)
Año2015
Volumen47
Número7
Páginas1440-1459
Fecha de publicación2015-07-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEnvironment and Planning A Economy and Space (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0308-518X • E-ISSN: 1472-3409
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0308518x15595756
OpenAlexW2201648118
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas24
Referencias citadas26

Austerity appears to be a globally coordinated restructuring process, where international and national governments cooperate to stymie economic crisis and socialize the costs of systemic economic failure. However, austerity is also shaped from the bottomup. This paper examines the 2008 bankruptcy of Vallejo, California. This city of under 120 000 people became the first municipal bankruptcy in the Great Recession period. We explore how it became the first to fail. In doing so, we outline the finances of a city whose entrepreneurial activities continued to flounder, making it a good candidate for austerity reforms. However, we also find the city home to a political movement long predicting a municipal default. When economic crisis hit, this movement pushed for the city to make an unprecedented test of Chapter 9 bankruptcy law. Vallejo's bankruptcy, and the related changes to Chapter 9 law, are therefore interpreted as events that were generated by systemic conditions but ultimately precipitated by decisions taken at the municipal level. We therefore call for austerity to be understood as both a top-down and bottom-up process of state restructuring

Austerity · Bankruptcy · Business · Economic policy · Economics · Economy · Financial crisis · Grassroots · Keynesian economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Recession · Restructuring · Housing Market and Economics · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Law · Urban and Rural Development Challenges