WHAT’S A SMALL CITY MAYOR TO DO WHEN THINGS FALL APART? NORMATIVE LIMITS IN MODERN URBAN THEORY CINDY SIMON ROSENTHAL UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA

JILL L. TAO UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII AT MANOA

ABSTRACT

Urban theories are built upon an understanding garnered from studying larger cities and major metropolitan areas. In this article, we examine use a case study that focuses on the political and managerial challenges faced by a smaller metropolitan area under conditions of rapid growth and demographic change. The case provides a foil for the normative components of urban theory and we offer a contrast between prescription and the insights provided by the case. Too often, cities are treated as if they were nation-states. What is known about the politics of nations…can be applied to the politics of cities within them…Cities are little political systems, or miniature republics, or national politics writ small enough to be studied with ease (Peterson 1981, p. 1)

Shifts in theoretical dominance are often driven by necessity. A theory that appears to be well-suited for explaining how things work may be forced into retreat by that unassuming case of one, the case that refutes a central tenet (or two) of prevailing doctrine. In order for the case of one to exercise such power in convincing fashion, it must be well-suited for the limits established by theory. But what about theories that cover cases that are inherently heterogeneic? Theories of urban politics and governance are both explicitly drawn from and implicitly targeted towards cities of scale.

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Nonetheless, urban theories on politics and governance are meant to apply to a vast array of entities: cities, metropolitan areas, towns, special districts, and so on.

At some level, all cities share similar characteristics. They are governed by elected representatives, they have distinct geographical boundaries, they have certain powers to secure revenues and regulate land usage, and they are recognized as legal entities by the state (Zimmerman 1992, p. 164-165). While these similarities mask considerable variation, researchers have justified the development of theory from cities of scale, primarily arguing that such an approach makes sense since only large cities possess all those components that make an environment urban. But the consequences of these theoretical limits can be substantial. Those who reside outside of a large metropolis develop an arguably skewed view of what is appropriate behavior for city officials seeking answers to questions of governance. More importantly, such limits may not become apparent until “things fall apart” (Achebe 1959).

In this article, we will seek to make the case that smaller cities, which we define as those with fewer than 250,000 residents, warrant attention and prompt a re-examination of the prevailing theories that guide our expectations of city politics. We will examine the normative components of two bodies of current theory that are pertinent to city government: economic development, including growth politics, and community development, including social capital. Using these two literatures as a guide, we will demonstrate the difficulties that arise in the application of theory to inform practice when theory is premised on a case history of leviathans in city government. We will then examine a compelling case from northwest Arkansas. Here we follow the rise of pro-growth government, the pursuit of coalitions to create a sense of civic ownership and pride, and the challenge posed when race politics undermines a

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governing regime. We will conclude with some potential revisions to the tenets outlined in the two bodies of theory.

THE CASE FOR THE SMALLER CITY

The case for smaller cities as valid topics of study

within the public administration and policy literature has been made but bears review. Rubin’s and Rubin’s (1987) examination of cities of 5,000 and up who pursue pro-growth strategies, Pagano’s and Bowman’s (1995) investigation of urban development in mid-sized cities, and Svara’s (1994) call for new models of leadership in local governments each utilize the richness of the local government landscape on a smaller scale to prompt fresh ways of thinking about city governance. Most recently, Reese and Rosenfeld (2002) have looked beyond large-scale cities to outline conditions that contribute to local civic culture. The purpose of looking at smaller cities has often been to provide useful examples of innovation (Gabris et al. 2000, p. 486), reform (Feiock and Carr 2001, pp. 385-386), and adaptation in the face of change (Osborne and Gaebler 1992). But more broadly, in an era of devolution and decentralization of federal and state authority, the question of local capacity to carry out public mandates has become increasingly important (Staeheli, Kodras and Flint 1997).

A brief examination of national metropolitan trends provides recent evidence that smaller cities play a prominent role in the urban landscape. Over 80 percent of the U.S. population lives in metropolitan areas as defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and tracked by the U.S. Census Bureau. While the public may perceive most metropolitan areas to be among the largest cities in the country, almost half (132 of the 280) of the metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in 2001 were populated by fewer than 250,000 people (U.S. Census Bureau 2001, 29). Of these 132 smaller MSAs, at least 47 comprise more than one

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city thus multiplying the number of governing units of interest three- or fourfold.

Moreover, these smaller metropolitan areas are well represented among the fastest growing communities in the U.S. Between 1990 and 2000, according to the Census Bureau, four of the ten fastest growing metropolitan areas began the decade with fewer than 250,000 residents, and 43 of the 100 fastest growing MSAs (all with growth rates in excess of the national average) started in 1990 with populations of less than 250,000 (U.S. Census Bureau 2001a). The political and managerial challenges faced by smaller cities have only begun to filter into empirical studies.

In this article, we will examine a city that represents these trends in several ways. We will explore the experience of a fast-growing metropolitan area (Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, Arkansas) and in particular, city leaders in Rogers in an effort to understand how well current theoretical paradigms of urban governance and economic development fit or fall short of explaining the behavior of local leadership. Examining elite behavior in Rogers through the two perspectives of economic development and growth politics and community development or social capital, we will argue that urban governance and economic development theories need to incorporate additional insights in order to understand the challenges faced by rapidly growing smaller urban areas

The Setting

The City of Rogers is located in the northwest corner of Arkansas, part of a four-city regional metropolitan area that also includes Springdale, Fayetteville (home to the University of Arkansas), and Bentonville. After the development of Beaver Lake, a man-made reservoir created in 1965, the region developed rapidly. Between 1960 and 2000, the city’s population grew by 581.2%, while the metropolitan area population increased by 237.9%. Among cities that began 1980 with more than 10,000 residents,

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Rogers led its neighboring communities and the nation to finish second in the rate of growth over the decade.1 Between 1990 and 2000, its MSA recorded the second fastest rate of job growth and sixth fastest rate of population growth of any metropolitan statistical area nationally.

Population growth has followed three significant trends: 1) the development of new retirement communities catering to middle class residents; 2) the location of large corporate headquarters (e.g. Wal-Mart and J.B. Hunt) which have attracted white collar professionals from other parts of the country; and, 3) new manufacturing, industrial and food processing plants (e.g. Tyson’s Foods, Clorox, Daisy Manufacturing, and Emerson Electric Co.) that have created demand for skilled and unskilled blue-collar workers. The tremendous job growth has resulted in a tight job market with low-skill and low-wage jobs being particularly difficult to fill.

City government is the mayor-council form of government. The mayor serves full-time as the city’s chief administrator, appointing department heads and overseeing activities of the city staff. The mayor is also a voting member of the city council. The other eight members of the council represent one of four wards (two from each). A council member must live in the ward that he or she represents but elections are “at large”; in other words, citizens across the city can vote in every ward contest. The longest serving council member is mayor pro tem. The existing wards effectively divide the city into quadrants in the northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest. As of 2001, the full-time mayor was compensated with a salary of about $60,000 a year, and council members who are considered part-time were paid about $400 a month. While the city has nonpartisan elections, it should be noted that in the 1990s northwest Arkansas had become the state’s Republican Party stronghold in part due to the influx of new residents who do not share the state’s historic ties to the Democratic Party.

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The city’s major source of funding is from the sales tax on retail trade. As a consequence, the city is always playing catch-up with the costs of development: new roads, sewers, new schools, and public safety infrastructure (i.e. police and fire equipment). Citizen demand for services, whether parks or police protection, also tends to outstrip the revenues necessary to pay for service increases.

THEORIES OF URBAN POLITICS:

THE LIMITS OF SIZE We argue that theories of urban politics neglect cities

of more modest stature and offer limited advice to practitioners. Most research and theorizing about urban growth management and economic development has looked to cities of 250,000 or more, and the focus of urban governance and regime theory, in particular, has been predicated on cases of substantial size: for example, Atlanta (Stone 1989), Chicago (Banfield and Wilson 1963), Cleveland (Swanstrom 1985), New York (Shefter 1985), Houston (Feagin 1988), and San Antonio (Abbott 1987). Some scholarship on suburban rings has explored the experiences of smaller cities (e.g. Gainesborough 2001), but scant little attention has been paid to small cities (e.g. Mayer and Greenberg 2001).

The general problems inherent in forming theories based on a limited (or inappropriate) unit of analysis have been outlined in critiques that have become benchmarks in the public administration literature: Herbert Simon’s critique of Gulick’s (1937) widely accepted “principles” (1946); Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s (1979) reevaluation of sources of managerial power when managers did not fit the male prototype; and Camilla Stivers’ (2002) restructuring of theories of legitimacy through gendered perspectives offer examples of the usefulness of challenging model assumptions. Urban politics has been criticized for failing to

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recognize changes in the nature of who resides within metropolitan borders (Clarke, Staeheli and Brunell 1997, p. 205) and the normative implications of such omissions, but the theoretical shortcomings arising from the use of large cities as the basis for general theory have been left largely unaddressed (for a notable exception, see Elazar 1986). Below, we outline the conventional wisdom in two identified bodies of urban theory.

Economic Development and the Wisdom of Growth Politics The extant literature on economic development is copious and diverse (Blakely 1989, pp. 57-71), drawing heavily on market theories of supply and demand to establish certain expectations of government behavior and performance (Eisinger 1988, pp. 1-33). Growth politics, especially as espoused by Logan and Molotch (1987, pp. 50-98), represent the application of political economy to cities as a nexus of capital, labor, and the politics of power (Harding in Judge, Stoker and Wolman 1995, pp. 35-53). Growth politics assumes that there are winners and losers in the growth game (Harding, in Judge, Stoker and Wolman 1995, pp. 41-44). Who wins is largely a function of affiliations, where size or number (pluralism), economic or political power (elite theory), structure of access to power (neoelite theory), intensity of interest (pluralism again), or coalition building (regime theory) decides the outcome (Harding in Judge, Stoker and Wolman 1995, p. 40). Peterson (1981), however, observes that there are limits to city power over neoclassical market forces, which lack loyalty to place, and that competitive barriers prevent cities from achieving the appropriate mix of elements that make them viable. Not surprisingly, perhaps, these literatures offer conflicting advice on how city officials should behave.

Two general prescriptions for behavior of local officials can be derived from the economic development and growth politics literature. From the growth politics side, the

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advice for a power-seeker might be to identify existing and potential sources of power inside the community and to create a bloc of consolidated interests that may then be utilized to optimize growth, thus ensuring the stability of a regime. To the growth politics critics, such as Peterson (1981), Logan and Molotch (1987), and Rubin and Rubin (1987), such coalition building may actually undermine the stability of a regime over time since cities may make financial concessions through foregone revenues, primarily to business interests, that offer no net benefits to the community as a whole. Caveat emptor would be the advice from the critics.

Empirical examinations of growth politics fail to address what happens when the point of equilibrium for market forces or the balance of political power resides outside the known boundaries of the city. For large cities that are considered independent ecosystems in which change occurs largely from shifts among existing powers, this question may not appear relevant. Literature on primate cities in development economics addresses this phenomenon extensively (see for example, Renaud 1981). But for small growing cities, politics are more permeable and economics dynamic; thus the impetus for and the shape of tomorrow’s change in the existing power structures may not be discerned.

A focus on large cities as research entities makes sense since there is a certain logic in focusing on one location that has it all: labor, capital, political struggles for power, and economies of scale. But what does the literature offer to cities that do not “have it all?” From the perspective of a small-city official, what growth strategy should he or she pursue to best meet the needs of the community at large? This is a question to which we will return at the end of the paper.

Community Development and Social Capital Wisdom The literature on social capital has burgeoned over the past ten years, and research in community development has enjoyed something of a renaissance. The two literatures hold

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in common principles that promote the benefits of social interactions to build a sense of civitas, where the whole is more than the sum of its parts. The social capital perspective examines in particular those components of civic engagement that promote common understandings of societal norms. Original studies in social capital, therefore, often look at these norms by identifying those that have changed or been lost over time. For example, when Bellah et al. (1984) look for a lost set of American mores de coeur in modern society, and when Putnam (2000) examines the breakdown of civic organizations and their role in promoting social values, each highlights the mobile nature of American society. It is difficult, they argue, for Americans to develop a sense of community when they are constantly picking up stakes and moving to the next town. However, a key distinction between these two perspectives might be found in their arguments about the nature of life in smaller cities.

Inherent in the social capital literature is the sense that growth compels social disintegration, in particular, the growth of cities. Putnam (2000) puts it as follows:

Take, for instance, the case of city size…virtually all forms of altruism—volunteerism, community projects, philanthropy, directions for strangers, aid for the afflicted and so on—are demonstrably more common in small towns…Store clerks in small towns are more likely to return overpayment than their urban counterparts. People in small towns are more likely to assist a “wrong number” caller than urban dwellers. Cheating on taxes, employment forms, insurance claims, and bank loan applications are three times more likely to be condoned in cities than in small towns (p. 138).

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Putnam argues that trust, a key ingredient of civil society, is sorely lacking in places where size infringes on person-to-person contact. He notes that the liberating characteristics of larger cities include the anonymity that such size brings, where one can be out from under the watchful eyes of one’s neighbors, offering freedom from conformity and personal accountability.

Although Bellah et al. (1985) are equally concerned with impact of the aggregate loss of community sensibilities on democratic governance, they do not necessarily concur with Putnam on the causal role of size. In fact, Bellah and his cohort focus on individuals who live in either smaller communities, such as a New England town, or who are more involved within larger communities in those activities Putnam identifies as key to a healthy civil society. Bellah et al. target such individuals to see whether or not participation in community-oriented activities makes people feel more optimistic about their community. Bellah et al. argue that mobility and the lack of roots in a particular community, rather than the size of the city, contribute to feelings of isolation.

The community development literature tends to focus on institutional factors that are built into particular places and help to foster a sense of cohesion and common purpose. Polsby’s (1963, pp. 98-121) critique of the use of communities by theorists as testing grounds for stratification theory offers a starting point for the contention that local institutions can become tools for pluralistic movements. As such, community development focuses less on the motives of individual actors and more on the consensus of groups to achieve common goals. Herrick and Kindleberger (1983, pp. 21) distinguish community development from growth, which they see as a simple mechanism that allows a city to expand, where development is the enhancement of “functional capacity”, or how a city “learns” to adapt to change brought on by growth. Thus, where all cities might grow and achieve

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the benefits (and detractions) of size, how a city develops its institutions (the concern of community development) will determine its eventual character and ability to cope with change.

Reese and Rosenfeld (2002) expand this focus on institutions as vehicles for civic involvement by examining what they define as “civic culture”, an adaptation of Pierre Bordieu’s concept of habitus. In this conception, politics are endogenous factors within the cultural context of place. They define it as:

[T]he local or community sum of “attainments and learned behavior patterns” of a people. In short, the civic culture relates specifically to local rather than national political arenas; refers more specifically to the life of a community, and thus, denotes the patterns or way of life in a local community [italics in original, p. 41).

Where social capital may focus on creating values that enhance collective functions, especially those that lead to better democratic governance, community development focuses on the interaction between local institutions and the norms of the communities they serve.

So, why should all this matter to a small city mayor? Indeed, why should all this matter to any of us? The common root, ironically, of the social capital and community development literature is a focus on loss -- a loss of common values, a lack of shared sensibilities, a lack of shared resources, both economic and political -- and a need to understand why concern for neighbors wanes. Social capitalists would tell us that participation promotes thought beyond self-interest to help restore the lost sense of civic duty and belonging. Community developers would build institutions to allow communities to better draw upon resources that they have, such as strong civic ties and sense of

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place, rather than focus on what they do not have, such as jobs and capital. Therefore, a small city mayor may glean that social capital compels him or her to promote participation and that community development emphasizes creating institutions. So, what’s a small-city mayor to do?

METHODOLOGY: CASE SELECTION AND DATA

COLLECTION

The selection of Rogers, Arkansas, for this study was initially prompted by national press reports of the demise of the political career of long-time Mayor John Sampier and the depiction of a community in turmoil as a result of its fast growing Hispanic population. The proximity (both literally and figuratively) of Rogers to the situation faced many small rural communities in Oklahoma piqued our interest. Closer examination of the history of the community provoked further study because the recent national press seemed to defy the city’s earlier efforts and success at community-building. In short, we found a case much like the most storied study of implementation (Pressman and Wildavsky 1984.) Oakland, like Rogers, had all of the conditions to predict success and none of the dramatic elements to expect failure, prompting Pressman and Wildavsky to ask “Why?” They found that the best-case-scenario-gone-awry makes it possible to see how “perfectly ordinary circumstances present serious obstacles to implementation”(xx).

Like Oakland, we argue that Rogers provides an opportunity for insight. Current theory would predict that Rogers seemed destined for success in managing growth and change. With a stable governing coalition, a strong community consensus about growth, and yeoman efforts to build social capital, Rogers entered the decade of the 1990s with the requisite assets for a bright future. Today there are clouds on the horizon. We decided to ask “Why?”

Research began with a Lexis-Nexis search of national

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news media and regional newspapers. From that initial search, more focused searches used the names of key community leaders and accessed smaller local media archives. In all, 172 articles were gathered and reviewed. In addition, the case draws upon in-depth interviews of 30 to 90 minutes each with the key community actors. The interview subjects were selected on the basis of their prominence in news reports and by their official positions in the community. In all, 15 interviews were conducted. Confidentiality was guaranteed in all interviews in order to encourage openness and frankness. Lastly, we examined planning materials from the City of Rogers and the Rogers-Lowell Area Chamber of Commerce, congressional testimony, and other public documents. In short, Rogers offered access to several different sources of information not normally available to researchers interested in the political landscape of a smaller city.

THE CASE: WHEN THINGS CHANGE

The community of Rogers, Arkansas, offers a rich

case study from which to examine the pursuit of economic development strategies and the evolution of community leadership over the past 20 years. The major themes of this city’s story involve: 1) the realization of a strong community leadership consensus and cohesiveness during a period of dramatic and rapid growth; 2) the introduction of political forces that plant the seeds of dissension and division; and 3) the struggle to regain community cohesiveness after political divisiveness.

Building a Community Consensus

On the cusp of its major growth spurt in 1981, the city elected John Sampier, a lifelong resident, to be mayor. During much of his 17-year tenure as mayor, Sampier presided over a stable council membership, the majority of

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whom also served ten years or more during the city’s unprecedented two decade period of growth. Except for his initial election and his defeat, only once (1986) during his tenure did the mayor draw a challenger. The former high school biology teacher and training officer for the ambulance service and fire department came to office at the same time as another key player in the city’s leadership cohort. Raymond Burns, a former funeral home director and also a native of Rogers, joined the Rogers-Lowell Area Chamber of Commerce as economic development director in 1980, and three years later took on the combined post of Chamber CEO and head of the Industrial Development Corporation, a public-private partnership under contract with the city to promote economic growth.

The chamber has official duties in identifying, recruiting, and integrating new businesses into the city, and also provides the impetus for developing community leadership. The chamber articulates its mission: “To be the voice of business, to promote responsible economic growth, and to address community challenges in the Rogers-Lowell area.”2 A quick review of the chamber’s officers and members reveals the organization’s diversity: more than a fourth of the members are not businesses but rather come from educational institutions, government entities, non-profit organizations, charitable or social service agencies, or clubs and churches. The chamber includes not only the largest regional employers (e.g. Wal-Mart, Tyson’s, and J.B. Hunt Transport Inc. ) and city-based companies (e.g. Daisy Manufacturing Co., Inc. and Emerson Electric Co.) but also many small local businesses from Hillbilly Corner Crafts to El Sombrero’s restaurant to Junk Yard Dog auto parts.3

The chamber and Mayor Sampier were among the first to notice the changing demographics of Rogers. In the early 1990s, the city witnessed an influx of Hispanic workers who helped to fill many of the region’s low-paid unskilled jobs such as those offered by Tyson’s Foods poultry processing

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plants. As a result, Rogers led the U.S. in the rate of growth in its Hispanic population, which jumped from approximately 1% of the city’s residents in 1990 to more than 20% by 2002. For a city with an exclusively white population only a few years prior, Rogers was undergoing a visible change of face. In 1993, the Multicultural Forum -- a group of business, community, and religious leaders -- was formed to encourage tolerant interracial attitudes in the community. Then, 1994 marked the initiation of various efforts to incorporate new Hispanic residents into city life.4 Through the city recreation department, Sampier organized an adult soccer league comprising mostly Latino players. At its 1994 community leadership retreat, the Chamber identified as one of its priorities: “integration of the Hispanic community ... in all neighborhoods, locations and areas.” The Rogers Public Schools hired a charismatic former rap deejay, Al Lopez, to serve as a special student relations counselor working with students on issues of cultural understanding. Sampier also added Lopez to the city payroll as a part-time special consultant and community liaison doing outreach and mediating disputes. Named to co-chair a Governor’s Task Force on Hispanic Relations, Sampier also championed innovative ways for the state to assist local governments, particularly calling attention to the need for more qualified English as a Second Language (ESL) instructors in the public schools.

The business community also responded with the installation of bilingual ATMs, a loan education program to assist first-time Hispanic homeowners, chamber recruitment of Latino-owned businesses, salary bonuses to executives learning Spanish, and corporate grants to fund a new Multicultural Center which opened in 1995 offering adult language programs. The chamber recognized that “our ability to keep Rogers a desirable place to live and work” could only be accomplished by avoiding segregation of Hispanics into barrios that would breed crime and prevent community

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building.5 City and business leaders also partnered to inaugurate a Cinco de Mayo event and international festival and promote the community’s diversity as a tourist asset.

Many of the initiatives achieved not only local support but also national recognition. Sampier was honored by the National Council of La Raza for his leadership. Cuban-born bank officer, Roland Goicoechea, helped to create First National Bank’s (the city’s largest bank) home ownership program targeting workshops to new immigrant residents and using loan criteria that allow two-worker immigrant households to qualify for home mortgages. As a result, home ownership among Hispanics in Rogers is 50% (above the national average of 45%), without a single loan default. The loan program and efforts by developers to build affordable subdivisions attractive to both Anglos and Latinos have led to housing patterns that disperse new Hispanic residents throughout the city, not to a single barrio or neighborhood. The Fannie Mae Foundation cited the program as a model for other cities, while Goicoechea credited the city for its “aggressive outreach program” to the new immigrants.6

A few rough spots were encountered as Rogers’ city leaders attempted to deal with growth and change. As in any rapidly growing community, crime increased, traffic snarled, and schools were hard-pressed to accommodate the influx of new families requiring the construction of new schools. With limited resources, the city struggled to meet infrastructure needs, but rather than use the lack of tax dollars to foment discontent, city leaders worked to develop some creative partnerships such as a jointly financed and run recreation center for the school district and the city. As one longtime council member noted:

If we could have generated resources to deal with growth, we could have done some things better. Funding for anything has been hard to come by and only recently have we been able

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to convince Little Rock to pay attention. For a while there, we were adding a new elementary school almost every year. But John [Sampier] got with the chamber and the university to get projections and a plan for the future. He was very proactive in finding ways to cope with the growth. Some of the rough spots had distinct racial overtones.

Lopez initially encountered racial slurs and epithets spray-painted on school walls and had to break up fights between the “Dixie Boys” who sported Confederate flags and groups of Hispanic youth. Confrontations occurred between local police and new immigrants. In some neighborhoods, different social mores prompted cultural misunderstandings: Anglos complained when their Latino neighbors drank beer on the front porch (the county is legally dry) or slaughtered goats in their yards for a traditional celebration when a girl reaches the age of 17. In response, Sampier called upon Lopez, Goicoechea, and the chamber to mediate differences of opinion and practice through informal face-to-face meetings in neighborhoods. The high school created a multicultural club and ESL classes. Lopez translated the weekly news on a Saturday morning Spanish language radio program and encouraged listeners to get more involved in civic affairs, to learn the norms of the community, and to crack down on criminal activity that might fuel negative stereotypes about Latinos.

The governing philosophy put into action by Rogers’ city leaders emphasized building strong interpersonal relationships and community commitment to overcome the stresses of growth and change. Whether in neighborhood meetings smoothing over misunderstandings between Anglo and Hispanic residents or in Sampier’s living room where law enforcement officials and Hispanic community representatives worked through cultural miscues, the belief

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was that communication and tolerance would overcome unfamiliarity and difference. Support for this strategy echoed in parts of the community:

I believed in Sampier’s leadership style. His philosophy was my philosophy: You hire good people and then get out of the way. When problems arise, you sit down face-to-face and work things out. (Council member) Rogers had a strong proactive mayor, the banks were behind us, the Chamber had retreats to explore how to help Hispanics, the schools created ESL programs. When there were problems with the police, we would sit down and duke it out with the police chief and change things. Sampier was the catalyst, the uniter. (Hispanic activist) The chamber was working quietly in the background to bring people together. Three or four times a month we bring 10 or 12 folks in and just talk. Too formal is not as good. We’ve been able to advance cultural understanding, and we preach “If you disagree, don’t be disagreeable.” That’s what’s best for the community and 99 percent of the time people agree. (Business leader) Through the leadership of Sampier, a supportive city

council and the broad-based involvement of the chamber, the city embraced and pursued a vision of diversified economic development and a spirit of volunteerism and community building. The partnership of community and business interests collaborated to pass bond issues to fund crucial infrastructure needs. Among the most significant was a $38 million bond issue in 1996 to be paid for through a penny temporary sales tax increase for street improvements, a new

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fire station, police equipment and other projects. The partnership also combined forces to create a socially and geographically integrated community where demographic differences (previously unknown to the homogeneous community) were not a source of division. To a large extent, the community was successful. As one observer wrote, “...it is a clue that cross-cultural friction even among hormone charged teenagers can be reduced with a modicum of effort and good will.”7

Cracks in the Consensus

While most of the misunderstandings were resolved, the seeds of dissensus did begin to sprout in 1997 when a relative newcomer to the community alleged Sampier was colluding with Tyson’s Foods to recruit and welcome illegal immigrants. Dan Morris moved to Rogers in 1989 to escape the urban problems -- traffic, congestion, crime, and poor schools -- of Albuquerque. In Morris’s view, later recounted in testimony before the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims, “the Poultry Barons, the Chamber of Commerce and other employers of cheap, immigrant labor” were fueling a flood of illegal immigrants who were responsible for “increasing crime, increasing taxes, and seriously compromising the quality of our children’s public school education.”8 Summing up the sentiment voiced by Morris and others, one commentator noted “What rankles them is their perception that city leaders are kowtowing to the new immigrants at the behest of the rich businessmen who run the poultry plants and want cheap labor.”9 In response to Morris’s criticisms, Sampier stated his support for community changes brought by new Latino residents and bluntly responded, “If ‘unhappy longtime residents’ or any others are discontented for un-Christian, racist attitudes and choose to leave for such reasons, then I believe my city will be better off for their departure.”10

Angered by the mayor’s response, Morris formed an

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organization known as Americans for an Immigration Moratorium (AIM) which held monthly meetings that quickly drew regular attendance of upwards of 150. What gave AIM focus and purpose, however, was Sampier’s mayoral reelection in 1998. For only the second time in 17 years, Sampier drew an opponent, Steve Womack, a lieutenant colonel in the Army National Guard and a local stockbroker who had served two stints (1983-84 and 1997-98) on the city council. With a commitment to public service and a sense that Rogers city government could be better managed, Womack jumped into the race.

The contest had several elements favorable to Womack. First, AIM clearly mobilized a small but vocal faction which was unhappy with Sampier’s leadership and the city’s changing demographics. Second, many new residents did not know the longtime mayor, and anti-incumbent sentiments had already demonstrated their salience in Arkansas, which had term-limited its state legislators in 1992. Many newcomers to Rogers felt less affinity to the local leadership, which appeared to be all natives of the community and even long-time high school friends. Because no particular issues had mobilized the newcomers to city politics, a certain complacency may have settled over the Rogers’ “powers that be.” Womack was able to attack this complacency as a form of insider arrogance. Third, for those who were long-time residents, Sampier’s recent divorce from a well-known school teacher did not sit well with this socially conservative community.

Womack mounted a campaign to take advantage of these opportunities. He campaigned door-to-door aggressively and energetically, while Sampier took a more passive posture, deciding to stand on his record and to bet on the endorsement of prominent business and civic leaders. Womack featured his wife and family in campaign brochures. He also argued for new leadership emphasizing anti-establishment themes and turning out the “good ol’ boys”

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network. As Womack described it, his campaign appealed to the whole “student body” while Sampier’s backers looked like the “cheerleaders” – a very prominent, though relatively limited who’s who of local leaders. On the issue of Hispanic relations, Womack listed immigration first in his campaign literature but he attempted to distinguish between “zero tolerance” toward illegal immigrants and a welcome to legal newcomers willing to “speak the language” and conform to community norms. While distancing himself from more nativist elements, Womack benefited from AIM’s activism, which gave traction to the campaign, and from the call-in radio shows on local stations (including his father’s) where anti-Hispanic sentiments were voiced.11 At the end of the vote tally, Womack won the mayor’s race with 56 percent of the vote.

Governing When Things Fall Apart

Most in the community’s leadership wanted to leave the ugliness of the campaign behind and get out of the national media spotlight which had magnified the divisive race issues. Initially, Womack’s relations with the city council were also filled with distrust. He had criticized the incumbents for being part of Sampier’s network of “cronies” and had been loosely identified with other council challengers. When the council incumbents were all returned to office in the election, which Womack won, council-mayoral relations were strained. By all accounts, however, working relations did mend over the first year or so of the Womack administration. As one council member commented:

Most of the council was happy with the former mayor and many actively campaigned for him. For a while after the heated race, it was a difficult situation for the new mayor and initially he felt the council and the old

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city staff were against him. That was simply not the case. We were for the efforts of the old mayor but not against the new mayor.

From Womack’s perspective, the fears of the city staff and returning council members were unfounded.

It took a while but people figured out that I wasn’t going to fire the whole staff. I wasn’t going to cut the budget… I wasn’t going to yank the appropriation from the Chamber of Commerce… I did introduce a new [management] style emphasizing a need to be open and bringing a fresh user friendly touch to the city… and eventually people learned the sky didn’t fall in. Perhaps not surprisingly, the mayoral transition

featured key personnel changes and a shift from the interpersonal mediation of problems to more structured managerial governance. After criticizing Lopez’ unorthodox city job arrangement during the campaign, Womack offered him a full-time position in the code enforcement division where many of the issues related to new Hispanic residents ended up, but Lopez refused and resigned from the city staff. A week later, Womack announced the creation of a full-time community outreach office and suggested that Lopez had been unwilling to “function as part of the team.”12 Opinions about the new center varied from positive (i.e. an affirmation of past community outreach efforts) to neutral (i.e. a new organizational entity with potential) to negative (i.e. “an ethnic welcome wagon”).13

The new administration also saw the departure of the longtime police and fire chiefs, both of whom were thought to have left due to differences in leadership style and philosophy. During the campaign, Womack had to correct a

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reported pledge that he would have the city’s police department enforce federal immigration law, and he acknowledged that local law enforcement had no legal role in this arena. Nonetheless he allowed two Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) agents to office temporarily in the Rogers police department and ride along on traffic patrols with local cops. Hispanic residents cried foul and alleged racial profiling, and one INS officer admitted that “They [local police] thought ‘We’re gonna go out and round ‘em up for you.’”14 In 2001, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) filed a class action suit against the city, Womack and the new police chief and offered evidence of racially targeted traffic stops.

In the fall of 2000, Womack was called up for active military duty and deployed to Egypt. To govern in his absence, Womack appointed a four-person management committee headed by the new police chief, and the senior member of the city council stepped in as mayor pro tem. At the time, no one questioned the arrangements, but the mayor’s absence stretched into a 14-month stint without a chief executive. The temporary leadership solution was met with mixed reviews. City alderman Greg Hines noted:

I believe he thought he had the city covered, but it's apparent through calls from constituents and employees that it has caused some stress to the city. I've heard from my constituency, and it's my personal belief, that the city of Rogers has had a full-time mayor for many years and there's a reason for that. For us to think the city can operate for almost a year without a full-time mayor as smoothly as the citizens of Rogers expect and deserve is somewhat of an oversight.15

Womack and his supporters say the interim period has gone

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smoothly and attribute most of the criticism to former political allies of Sampier or potential aspirants to the mayor’s job. It should be noted however that the MALDEF suit was filed during the interim period, and problems associated with discipline, personnel, and budgets continued to plague the public safety operations of the city.

To many in Rogers, the change in city leadership involved more of a transformation of style rather than substance. Given the city’s already tight labor market and dependence on sales tax revenues, Womack placed greater emphasis on attracting new retail outlets to the city rather than luring new job-creating businesses or manufacturers. The city has hardly abandoned its pro-growth posture. Womack also never really backtracked on the city’s commitment to promoting cultural understanding, much to the chagrin of some of the AIM adherents.16 Some argue he has increased efforts through the new outreach office.

Perhaps not surprising for a career military man, Womack eschewed the highly personal engagement strategy of his predecessor in favor of formalizing organizational structures and more closely supervising operations. To Womack, such personal relationships smacked of a kind of behind-the-scenes cronyism and “class of ‘65” mentality, which he had campaigned against. Rather he promoted a management style of discipline, fiscal responsibility and structure but with an emphasis on transparency and customer service.

Also, perhaps as a reflection of the length of his tenure and interrupted service in office, Womack has been far less active at the state-level in promoting policies that might help the city cope with growth and demographic change. Moreover, the basic consensus in support of quality economic growth and strong community relations has not disappeared in Rogers, although the divisiveness of race politics in the 1998 election cannot be erased, and subsequent reminders, such as the MALDEF suit, linger. Several community leaders

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worry openly about the future: [Racial division] is the biggest threat to continued growth and prosperity. There is the risk of a small self-serving faction potentially driving a wedge between whites and Hispanics in the future. (Business leader) AIM pretty much disappeared after the election and Mayor Womack acknowledged the need to make this work when he established his outreach office. But they [the mayor and his administration] are not doing as much as possible. There’s not as much outreach and the attitude of city departments is more passive and reactive. You also have civil rights organizations involved who are adopting more adversarial approaches and they are not going to back off. (Hispanic activist)

Discussion: Two Roads to Smallsville Each of the literatures examined thus far prescribes in some way a certain set of expectations for city behavior. Each has its own set of views on how city officials behave and perhaps more importantly, should behave, when confronted with problems of governance. For practitioners, the predictive insights of theory presumably provide lessons on pitfalls to avoid and strategies to pursue. But how well do each of these views hold up when proffered against the backdrop of a smaller city?

The economic development and growth politics literature would not appear to fit the Rogers experience very well. At first glance, Rogers would seem to have all the elements of a stable urban regime. But DiGaetano (1997) notes that such regimes have the possibility of preemptive

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power based on enduring cooperation that can “both dominate agenda setting and exclude challengers from that process” (p. 848). That is certainly not the case in Rogers where challenges to the consensus pro-growth and social integration agenda fueled campaign rhetoric (though not necessarily subsequent policy), and an effective challenger emerged.

Little in terms of urban politics theory and regime theory would have predicted the political demise of Sampier, a key player in and leader of the city’s governing coalition. While the old mayor was unseated by his rival, the new administration does not appear to represent a regime change. No new political alignments and coalitions have assumed power. Womack has not repudiated the objectives and direction of the city’s growth policy nor shifted the balance of Rogers politics. We are left to ponder whether Rogers fits the model of an urban regime and why the types of power and modes of interaction fail to conform to regime-like expectations.

Perhaps the answer lies elsewhere. What the urban politics theories neglect are the factors that matter most in this case: Womack’s election was not so much about realignments of political and economic power but about the nature of retail local politics where personality, character, and individual effort count for a lot. In small cities, savvy political leaders may be able to mobilize individual voters who might be considered “inattentive publics” (Arnold 1990, pp. 65-84) without the need for groups or coalitions seeking to unseat a political regime.

While the Rogers experience does not fulfill growth politics expectations, it also does not live up to the prognostications of growth politics critics. While pursuing aggressive new growth, the city did limit its risk to exploitation by business interests and did not give away financial incentives or future tax revenues in the competition for new firms. If anything, local businesses were willing participants in sharing the increased tax burden to finance

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needed infrastructure. The only risks evident in its chosen economic development strategy were a result of social rather than economic transformation.

What this case makes clear is that the economic development and growth politics literatures fail to acknowledge that small cities are not like large cities. Not only do they lack the obvious economies of scale, they also lack labor and capital. When a large city develops economically, labor and capital may incrementally shift, increase or be reallocated; but when a smaller city grows the infusion of new labor and capital can fundamentally transform social structures. The transformation of Rogers leadership was not due to miscalculation of revenue risks, but rather the failure to anticipate how the influx of new residents (labor) and new business (capital) would alter the city’s demography. The political struggles, which followed the infusion of new labor and capital, did not reflect new realignments of regime coalitions but were the stuff of intimate small town politics.

In the social capital and community development literature, Rogers seems to provide an apt example of how to proceed in maintaining those core values and community cohesiveness so necessary to democratic governance. However, despite the best efforts of city leaders to engage the members of the ever-widening community in a common vision, Rogers still had to deal with political rent-seekers who sought to exploit racial divisions for personal gain. Social capital theories examine the societal consequences when collective values and experiences are lost, but they fail to acknowledge the reality that even in small communities, individuals can behave badly. Such theories offer limited guidance to small cities where the acts of a few can threaten the social fabric of a community. The question of scale is key to understanding the relative impact that individuals may have on collective efforts. For a small city, the influence of changing a few key components can be considerable.

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The lessons from Rogers for community development and social capital theory are twofold. First, Peterson (1995) argues that redistributive policies, which often involve questions of race, class and ethnicity, can only be resolved at higher levels of government. However, Rogers provides evidence that social capital can be developed in communities that lack homogeneity and can be mobilized toward common goals, even those with redistributive effects. Second, social capital and community development focus on values held in common that help to provide a sense of civic responsibility, values that prompt behavior that is not simply self-serving. Rogers offers a far more complex view of what constitutes civic responsibility and self-serving behavior, and contradicts the notion that selfless behavior is always well-intentioned. The majority of voters rejected the incumbent who brought prosperity and jobs, two things thought to be essential for city survival, and chose a candidate who represented a less certain future. In many ways, such a vote would appear irrational from a utility-maximizing perspective, and voters might very well have found themselves worse off economically. One could argue that they were making decisions on the basis of their understanding of community norms, rather than economic norms. They generated cohesion and a shared vision, but it was not necessarily a vision to which social capitalists might aspire.

Finally, this case reminds us that both theoretical perspectives under-appreciate politics of race and place. In her study of suburban cities, Janet Gainesborough (2001) confronts the problem of differentiation: suburbs, once thought to be fairly homogeneous, were not found to be so in the studies of the 1970s and 1980s. She provides a convincing case for the existence of suburban politics, and concludes that “[i]n the American context, the strong relationship between residence, race, and class ensures on the one hand that government policies that deal explicitly with race and class will have a “place” dimension—and on the

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other hand that policies that deal explicitly with location will have a race and class dimension” (Gainesborough 2001, p. 117). Thus to ignore the intersection of these components may lead to theoretical blindsiding.

CONCLUSIONS

What finally is a small city mayor to do? This exploration of theory and praxis in a small city setting suggests certain paradoxes worthy of attention. First, we hasten to note, small city leaders can do everything right and still get it wrong. As scholars of public administration and urban governance, we think that Rogers (in both its past and present incarnations) is a city whose leaders have done many of the right things with respect to building civic life and pursuing economic development. Nonetheless, political careers rose and fell in larger part due to the highly personal nature of small city politics. Second, the experience in Rogers, Arkansas, reminds us that individuals matter. To be sure, Mayor Steve Womack proved skillful as a political entrepreneur, able to read and mobilize the community’s new residents, a latent and often inattentive public. In small-scale communities, no coalition or regime can match the investment of “shoe leather” and personal contact to mobilize citizens who are not aligned with a particular set of governing interests. Third, the Rogers case points out that increasing community networks and incorporating more citizens into civic life can be more complicated than simply adding more participation and stirring. Scholars and practitioners alike have been enthralled with the exhortations of the social capital literature, but that literature says little about who should get involved and how best to channel participation into existing or new institutions. Practitioners would be well advised to think proactively and deeply about strategies of civic participation. What, too, can scholars of urban politics learn from

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this case? Our primary admonition is to be sensitive to the nuances of context. Nothing in our analysis suggests that theories of urban governance and social capital are fundamentally wrong. We simply advocate greater sensitivity of scholars to the particular circumstances which distinguish small cities from their larger sisters. Our theoretical contributions should acknowledge the limitations of level of analysis. In Achebe’s (1959) account of the rise and fall of a tribal leader in Nigeria, he chronicles the eventual disintegration of the tribe itself in the metaphor of its leader’s inability to cope with the influx of European colonization. As he chronicles how “things fall apart”, Achebe documents the clash of values and customs between the white settlers and the Ibo people. It is not the tribal leader’s misunderstanding of the newcomers that cause trouble, however; it is his misreading of his own people and their motives that eventually proves his own undoing. The case of Rogers does not end as grimly as Achebe’s tale; things have not fallen apart completely. But Rogers does share overtones of great plans gone awry in the face of human nature. It also offers unique insights into the shortcomings of literature premised on the experiences of large cities. The general lessons to be gleaned from this examination may be that authors should take special care when testing theories in different settings to examine the normative dimensions such theories may hold. More importantly, as Reese and Rosenfeld (2002) argue, there is much to be said for cities of smaller size as subjects of study for the nexus between individual and collective behavior. However, in contrast to their assertion that local institutions serve as mediators between civic culture and policy outcomes, we would argue that local institutions are outcomes of civic culture, especially in cities like Rogers, where the local identity has been challenged.

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NOTES

1. “A Robust Economy and Plentiful Job Opportunities Brought Many to Rogers,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 3 February 1991. 2”Northwest Arkansas Vision: Our Vision,” unpublished report of the Rogers-Lowell Chamber of Commerce, April 2002. 3. Rogers-Lowell Chamber of Commerce. http://www.rogerslowell.com/index.asp. April 2002. 4. Arian Campo-Flores, “A Town’s Two Faces,” Newsweek, 4 June 2001, 34-35; “Spanish Speakers Get ATM,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 16 February 1994, 1B; Michael Whiteley, “Mexicans Seek Help Visiting Home,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 30 October 1994, 1B; Mike Rodman, “Help Hispanic Pupils Now, Mayor Urges,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 24 December 1994; Fannie Mae Foundation, “The Sustained Excellence Awards Program,” http://www.fanniemaefoundation.org/grants/awards.shtm, 15 April 2002.

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5 Lois Romano, “Hispanic Population Rises in Arkansas,” Washington Post, 26 March 1998; Jeff Niese, “Millennium: Challenges from the early 1990s, ” The Morning News, 13 December 1999, A1. 6 Tom Bearden, “Immigrant Influx,” The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, 16 February 1998. 7. Michael Leahy, “You can’t order people to start liking each other,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 26 March 1997, 14a. 8. Dan Morris, “Testimony before the Subcommittee on Immigration & Claims, 10 June 1999, http://www.house.gov/judiciary/morro611.htm. 9. Bearden, 1998. 10 Romano, 1998. 11 Dick Kirschten, “A Melting Pot Chills in Arkansas,” National Journal, 14 November 1998; “Hispanic Newcomers Face backlash in Arkansas City, New Orleans Times-Picayune, 29 March 1998, B4; Michael Haddigan, “Immigration Backlash,” Arkansas Times, 17 March 2000, 1. 12 Chad Hayworth, “Center would help Hispanics,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 28 July 1999. 13 Haddigan, 2000. 14. Rowett, “Rogers mayoral hopeful,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 26 September 1998, B1; Joseph Berra, “Racial profiling NW Arkansas studied,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 21 October 2000, B9; John Brummett, “Police and Hispanic Challenges,” Donrey News Little Rock Bureau, 26 July 2001; Kirstan Conley, “Rogers: Suit claims police profile Hispanics,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 24 March 2001; Campo-Flores, 2001. 15. Kirstan Conley, “Filling the gap Despite rough spots, the city's business goes on in absence of its soldier-mayor “ Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 24 March 2002, p. B1. 16. Haddigan, 2000.