States can embrace degrowth policy – Detroit proves
Schindler ’16 Seth Schindler is Senior Lecturer in Urban Development and Transformation in the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester. His research is focused on large-scale urban and regional transformation initiatives that integrate cities into transnational urban systems. “Detroit after bankruptcy: A case of degrowth machine politics,” Urban Studies 2016, Vol. 53(4) 818–836, http://ipe.hr/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/8.schindler2016.pdf, (WA)
officials and elites in Detroit have embraced some aspects of degrowth; stabilising the economy has been prioritised over economic growth, and more importantly, there is a realisation that the city’s long-term future depends on improving the quality of life of city residents. Thus, rather than attempting to foster short-term economic growth with the hopes that a trickle-down effect will make life less unbearable for the city’s poorest residents, improving the quality of life in the short-term is now seen as the key to making the city prosperous over the course of the next five decades. I call this degrowth machine politics because it is geared towards managing the city’s further decline and reimagining its future. Unlike its growth-oriented counterpart, degrowth lacks out-of-the-box solutions offered by cosmopolitan consultants, and as a result policy makers are forced to manage continued degrowth in Detroit in innovative ways.