Working Papers
"Is preemption an evil of Federalism? A framework for thinking about State Preemption Laws"
Abstract:
Previous research on Federalism highlights the coercive nature of the relationship be- tween levels of government. One branch of this literature has focused on studying how states control cities through the use of preemption laws, a type of law that reduces the regulatory and policy power of local governments. Yet previous work does not define preemption in a systematic way. Without an encompassing understanding of what preemption is, it is hard to grasp how the balance of power in the American federalist system functions. I provide a new framework for thinking about these laws and find that there are three paths to preemption and seven categories of these laws. I test the framework by building a novel dataset of preemption laws since the 1970s in five states and, classify the text of the laws, as well as the context under which each law is enacted. My results show significant variation between each category. These findings not only expand our understanding of preemption mechanisms, but also explain the different ways through which power is delegated to local governments over time.
"White Fortressing: How racial threat leads to the formation of local governments"
Abstract:
A large body of research has shown that modern American politics have been highly influenced by burgeoning conservative movements that have risen in American White suburbia since the postwar era. While suburbs in America often still embody this historical legacy, these areas are also moving left and becoming more diversified. These two types of communities remain for the most part geographically differentiated but they often do share county elected officials that represent very different populations in one jurisdiction. This context has led to new cityhood movements in unincorporated areas of some regions of the US. By forming their cities, these unincorporated communities detach themselves from shared county-level authorities and more importantly from the wider populations served by these elected officials. What triggers municipal incorporations today and how are recent incorporation movements different from those of the postwar era? To answer these questions, I conduct fieldwork in Georgia. I find that municipal incorporations are a modern type of segregation triggered by sentiments of racial threat and conservatism. I call this phenomenon White Fortressing. In this manuscript, I update the study of boundary change and new city formation by analyzing a new wave of municipal incorporations, but also, contribute to the literature on White flight, racial threat, residential integration/segregation, and urban politics.
"The effects of White Fortressing in new cities and communities left-behind”
Abstract:
Previous research has shown that White communities create new governments out of a desire to have homogeneous cities and limit redistribution, a phenomenon I have called White Fortressing. While most work has focused on studying why communities incorporate, fewer studies investigate the effects of White fortressing on new and left-behind communities. I argue that if considerable changes occur post-incorporation, new mixes of public goods and policies should enhance community appeal, increase demand for new cities, and eventually promote the capitalization of property values. I use a mixed-methods approach to test the consequences of the creation of new cities. To understand whether citizens perceive changes in their communities post-incorporation, I talk to Mayors and Council members of ten new cities in the Metropolitan area of Atlanta. To test whether these perceptions depict reality, I analyze changes in property values in new cities and left behind communities. My findings suggest that communities perceive substantial changes in their jurisdictions post-incorporation. However, effects of incorporation vary between Black and White communities, with White communities seeing their property values capitalized and Black communities experiencing the opposite effect. This paper has significance for the literature on the costs and benefits of government fragmentation, for work on local civic engagement, and studies on the consequences of geographic segregation.
