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Urban Fiscal Crisis and Local Emergency Management: Tracking the Color Line in Michigan

Author

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  • Breznau, Nate

    (University of Bremen)

  • Kirkpatrick, L. Owen

Abstract

Increasingly, U.S. state governments deploy emergency management techniques to re-solve troubled municipal finances. Layoffs, school closings, pension renegotiations, and sale of public assets results. These costs unevenly affect black residents. Recent legal de-cisions argue this is an innocent byproduct of black concentration in fiscally distressed cities. Thus, targeted emergency intervention is colorblind. We investigate this assertion, asking if racially inequitable outcomes signal differential impact on, or differential treat-ment of black people. We investigate Michigan, the country’s most intensive emergency management site. Using all politically incorporated units in Michigan, 2007-2013, we ap-ply causal logic and maximum likelihood estimation with covariates of fiscal distress, per-centage black and median household income. We find a net effect of the percentage of black residents on the likelihood of emergency management after adjusting for the other covariates. If correctly specified, our model gives evidence that racial bias was a factor in the application of emergency management.

Suggested Citation

  • Breznau, Nate & Kirkpatrick, L. Owen, 2018. "Urban Fiscal Crisis and Local Emergency Management: Tracking the Color Line in Michigan," OSF Preprints k9ve7, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:k9ve7
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/k9ve7
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Lee, Shawna J. & Krings, Amy & Rose, Sara & Dover, Krista & Ayoub, Jessica & Salman, Fatima, 2016. "Racial inequality and the implementation of emergency management laws in economically distressed urban areas," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 1-7.
    3. Wilson, William Julius, 2011. "The Declining Significance of Race: Revisited & Revised," Scholarly Articles 8052151, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
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    7. L. Owen Kirkpatrick, 2016. "The New Urban Fiscal Crisis," Politics & Society, , vol. 44(1), pages 45-80, March.
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    Cited by:

    1. Rae Baker, 2025. "Speculative Criminality at Home: Bypassing Tenant Rights Through Police Surveillance in Detroit’s Rental Housing," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 10.

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