When Democracy Disappears: Emergency Management in Benton Harbor

In this case study, I look at Benton Harbor, Michigan’s tenure under a state-appointed “emergency manager,” with extensive local powers replacing all local elected government, and a single imperative to balance the city’s budget. The law, ostensibly race-neutral, wound up targeting almost all of Michigan’s cities with significant black population. The law ultimately disenfranchised half the state’s black population but only two percent of whites, as well as the majority of local black officials. This law invalidates a basic civil right and prerequisite for urban political theory: electoral democracy. Who holds power in the urban regime when the state takes over?Drawing on 44 interviews, observations and archival research, I argue that a white urban regime governs without elected representation in this majority-black city. Emergency management, which shut out black officials, allowed this white urban regime to consolidate its influence, showing the deeper disenfranchisement inherent to this law. While posited as restoring “order” to troubled management, the process of emergency management in fact prolongs political crisis. But the ideological framing of emergency management as “neutral,” and black politics as “corrupt” or “self-interested,” provides the logic to blame black governance for structural disinvestment and white-led extraction. (Note: this is the version that was accepted pre-copyediting. It will be updated once the final version comes out in Du Bois Review later this year. There are typos.)

WHEN DEMOCRACY DISAPPEARS

In this case study, I look at Benton Harbor, Michigan’s tenure under a state-appointed “emergency manager,” with extensive local powers replacing all local elected government, and a single imperative to balance the city’s budget. The law, ostensibly race-neutral, wound up targeting almost all of Michigan’s cities with significant Black population. The law ultimately disenfranchised half the state’s Black population but only two percent of Whites. This law invalidates a basic civil right and prerequisite for urban political theory: electoral democracy. Who holds power in the urban regime when the state takes over? Drawing on forty-four interviews, observations and archival research, I argue a White urban regime governs without elected representation in this majority-Black city. The ideological framing of emergency management as “neutral,” and Black politics as “corrupt” or “self-interested,” provides the logic to blame Black governance for structural disinvestment and White-led extraction.

Race, Power and Economic Extraction in Benton Harbor, MI

My dissertation investigates twin financial interventions—urban development and emergency management—in a single small town. Once a thriving city drawing blacks as blue-collar workers during the Great Migration, Benton Harbor, Michigan has suffered from waves of out-migration, debt, and alleged poor management. Benton Harbor’s emphasis on high-end economic development to attract white-collar workers and tourism, amidst the poverty, unemployment, and disenfranchisement of black residents, highlights an extreme case of American urban inequality. At the same time, many bystanders and representative observers argue that this urban redevelopment scheme and the city’s takeover by the state represent Benton Harbor residents’ only hope for a better life. I interviewed 44 key players and observers in local politics and development, attended 20 public meetings, conducted three months of observations, and collected extensive archival data. Examining Benton Harbor’s time under emergency management and its luxury golf course development as two exemplars of a larger relationship, I find that the top-down processes allegedly intended to alleviate Benton Harbor’s inequality actually reproduce and deepen the city’s problems. I propose that the beneficiaries of both plans constitute a white urban regime active in Benton Harbor. I show how the white urban regime serves its interests by operating an extraction machine in the city, which serves to reproduce local poverty and wealth by directing resources toward the white urban regime and away from the city.

Relationships Between Airborne Pseudoperonospora cubensis Sporangia, Environmental Conditions, and Cucumber Downy Mildew Severity

Airborne Pseudoperonospora cubensis sporangia were collected 0.5 m above the ground from May to late September or early October 2010 and 2011 in unsprayed cucumber (Cucumis sativus) fields in Benton Harbor and Frankenmuth, MI. Cucumber downy mildew incidence and severity were evaluated weekly within each field from June until September or October. The first airborne sporangium was detected before the crop was planted for each site-year. The greatest numbers of airborne sporangia were detected when moderate to high disease severity (≥5% symptomatic leaf area) was detected within the field. Fewer airborne sporangia were present with low disease severity (<5% symptomatic leaf area), and even fewer were detected prior to planting the cucumber crop. The number of airborne sporangia detected, time post planting, planting number (first versus second versus third planting), temperature, and leaf wetness were positively associated and solar radiation was negatively associated with disease occurrence for at least one site-year. Michigan growers currently use an aggressive, calendar-based fungicide program to manage cucumber downy mildew. Because airborne sporangium concentrations were one of the most important factors identified in this study, the current fungicide recommendation of decreasing the spray interval following disease detection in an area is warranted.