ECONOMIC-DEVELOPMENT DECISION-MAKING IN A FRAGMENTED POLITY - CONVENTION CENTER EXPANSION IN KANSAS-CITY

Amid recent discussions of the shaping of economic development policie s by urban governing regimes, little has been said about how these pol icies are made in cities which lack an effective governing coalition. This paper examines the planning of a major convention center expansio n in Kansas City, Missouri, a city with a crumbling governing regime. That planning process does not conform to the work of Peterson or to S tone's model of regime policymaking where economic development policym aking is accomplished with ease. It conforms instead to a hyperplurali stic model wherein social production becomes a difficult and expensive proposition, requiring the building of a coalition on each issue anew . These findings may have broad relevance because many US cities appea r to operate without effective governing coalitions.