Abstract
In political economy, research on growth coalitions and regime theory concludes that progressive coalitions representing lower-income residents and effectively working for policy change at the local level involving development are unlikely since they lack the resources necessary to build and maintain strong coalitions with long-term influence with elected officials. In Los Angeles, a coalition representing the homeless filed a lawsuit in 2012, which involved one of the most powerful developers in the region, and reached a favorable settlement. Given the strength of growth interests and factors working against redistributive policies, I ask the question, how did the coalition muster the political influence and resources necessary to compel the developer to settle the lawsuit? I contend that the settlement is evidence of a progressive coalition in the region that is working to establish a growth with equity framework and that the coalition has established political influence with local officials.
A coalition representing lower-income residents in Los Angeles filed a lawsuit in August 2012 involving a proposed National Football League (NFL) Stadium in downtown Los Angeles and one of the most powerful developers operating in the region, Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG). Less than three months later, the coalition reached a favorable settlement with AEG. Considering that the homeless were one of the coalition’s main constituents and were one of the most disenfranchised groups in the city, and given the strength of growth interests and factors working against redistributive policies, I ask the question, how did the coalition muster the political influence and resources necessary to compel the developer to settle the lawsuit? I suggest that the settlement is evidence of the political influence of a progressive coalition in the region that is working to establish a growth with equity framework that recognizes that developers receiving city support for projects should provide community benefits to mitigate the negative effects of their projects on lower-income residents. I also suggest that the growing grassroots and electoral political influence of unions and Latinos, and their support of community benefits, contributed to the effectiveness of this progressive coalition. In addition, over the past several decades, as part of this larger regional progressive coalition, a coalition of community organizations in the downtown and South L.A. region has emerged and become an important force in the negotiation of community benefit agreements in the area.
Considering that AEG had the resources to contest the lawsuit, I ask a second question, what did the developer AEG gain from settling the lawsuit? In other words, why do developers agree to provide community benefits? I suggest that by agreeing to these benefits, developers receive community support rather than opposition in the city entitlement process, which improves the chances of city officials approving a project and cuts down on costly delays in the entitlement process.
In political economy, research on growth interests and regime theory have provided key conceptual tools to analyze power and inequality in the politics of urban development (Logan, Whaley, and Crowder 1997). Research on “pro-growth coalitions” (Mollenkopf 1975, p. 264) and the “growth machine” (Molotch 1976, p. 309) emphasize the dominance of growth coalitions composed of corporate elites working with elected officials in local politics to control development policies. One of the major development conflicts is between corporate interests who see land in terms of its exchange value, that is, as a commodity in the pursuit of profits, versus residents who see land in terms of its use value, or, how land contributes to quality of life issues (Logan and Molotch 2007). Large development projects have a long history of negative consequences, in particular, the destruction of neighborhoods and the displacement of residents, which highlights the class, racial, and spatial dimensions of development because city officials usually target low-income and minority communities for demolition (Mollenkopf 1975). While slow-growth movements may occur, research documents that it is primarily organizations that represent the interests of affluent residents that have the resources and political influence to counter corporate growth interests (Logan and Molotch 2007).
Research on regime theory, which examines the “informal arrangements” among business interests, elected officials, and community members that contribute to the governance of a city, also stresses the importance of development in local politics, the conflict between corporate and resident interests, and the strength of growth coalitions in local politics (Stone 1989, p. 6). An important difference from research on growth coalitions and machines, however, is that regime theory allows for greater influence and power among noncorporate members of society and examines the range of coalitions that may form (Stone 1989). Stone (1993, pp. 18–20), whose work is central to regime analysis, outlines different types of regimes, including “development regimes” focused on growth promotion; “middle class progressive regimes” concerned with affordable housing, linkage fees, and environmental issues; and “lower class opportunity expansion” regimes aimed at improving access to jobs, education, and homeownership. While regime theory acknowledges the possibility of progressive regimes with development policies to help low-income residents, regime theory research reaches a similar conclusion with research on growth coalitions. Progressive regimes are unlikely to form, according to this research, because it is corporate elites who have the necessary resources to work with elected officials to build and maintain coalitions to establish and implement a long-term policy agenda (Stone 1989, 2015).
Using this case, I contribute to the research on growth coalitions and regime theory in two ways. First, I analyze how a durable and effective coalition composed of unions and community organizations has formed in Los Angeles since the 1990s to represent the interests of lower-income residents and has worked to negotiate major changes in city policies regarding development. Building on emerging research on community activism (Camou 2014; Jones-Correa and Wong 2015), I suggest that this coalition contradicts an important thesis of work on growth coalitions and regimes that argues that these coalitions are unlikely to be effective in the long term because of a lack of resources and political influence. Second, I suggest that this coalition is working to go beyond implementing individual policy changes and Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs) with projects, and instead, is attempting to establish a fundamental change in development policy through the implementation of a growth with equity framework that recognizes that developers receiving city support for projects should provide community benefits to mitigate the negative effects of their projects.
I contend that the settlement involving the NFL stadium proposal is evidence of the growth with equity framework. I suggest that AEG recognized the coalition’s resources to support the lawsuit, and to avoid costly delays, quickly settled. I also argue, however, that the developer’s decision to settle and provide concessions to the community coalition was a recognition of growing city council support for the growth with equity framework. Surprisingly, considering the success of the coalition’s lawsuit, the unions and community organizations that had negotiated major policy changes and CBAs since the 1990s were not a part of the new coalition. I contend, however, that the work of these two groups contributed in two important ways for a growth with equity framework that made the lawsuit settlement possible. First, these two groups established the groundwork with previous projects for the understanding that developers receiving city support for large projects, such as subsidies and zoning variances, should provide community benefits.
Second, these groups worked to establish new narratives that legitimate discussions on issues of inequality and social justice that challenge the dominant view of business elites that “all growth is good growth” (Camou 2014, p. 629). Reframing the development narrative resonates with the national Right to the City movement, which is working to build “democratic participation and power” among all residents and counter development that displaces lower-income residents (Tides Foundation 2007, p. 9). Whereas, historically, city officials could justify support for projects because of the benefits that supposedly helped all community residents, such as jobs and tax revenues, the discussion has changed to jobs that pay a living wage, stronger enforcement mechanisms for promised benefits, and policies helping residents directly affected by large projects, such as local hiring and affordable housing programs (Kaye and Mendoza 2008).
Los Angeles is a particularly significant place to examine politics and development because of its rapidly growing Latino population, growing union membership, and the strength of its community organizations, which have contributed to the rise of a progressive social justice coalition that has successfully worked for major policy changes. A crucial factor for the coalition is increasing union membership in Los Angeles, in contrast to its early history as an antiunion city and the national trend of declining membership, which has translated into political power in the region (Laslett 2012; Milkman 2006). With an emphasis on social movement unionism with grassroots political organizing and building coalitions, unions provided a key partner for Latinos working to transform their growing population into an electoral force (Kotkin 2011; Meyerson 2013). The result is the election of city and county officials who are receptive to issues important to low-income and working-class Latinos, and research has documented the successful policy campaigns by coalitions uniting organized labor, Latinos, and community organizations in the region (Pastor, Benner, and Matsuoka 2009; Soja 2010). For example, the city’s 1997 living wage ordinance and a 2001 CBA with the largest project in downtown Los Angeles have become nationwide models, and with city council approval of a $15 minimum wage in 2015, at the time, it was the nation’s largest city working toward a minimum wage at that level (Jamison, Zahniser, and Walton 2015; Meyerson 2013).
To examine politics and development, the entitlement and environmental review process for proposed projects provides a rich source of data through reports and public hearings (the city provides transcriptions of the major hearings), and I, and my research assistants, used archival research to gather these documents. These documents included health impact assessments, community benefit agreements, environmental impact reports, development agreements, city staff reports, and AEG reports. In particular, we examined the documents for the developer’s and city’s data and analysis regarding the project’s impact on neighborhoods, such as rising property values, rent increases, demolished residential units, and the displacement of residents. We also examined these documents for negotiations between the city and developer for subsidies and other city resources for the project. In Los Angeles, community organizations have the technical and legal resources to conduct research and generate in-depth analyses and reports on proposed projects. We examine community groups’ analysis of the developer’s statements, data generated by community groups on these topics, and additional issues raised by these groups in reports and at public hearings. We also interviewed members of these organizations and AEG, and conducted newspaper searches on these events and organizations. We augmented this data through fieldwork and attended public events and meetings held by the developer, city of Los Angeles, unions, and community organizations involved in the projects.
Urban Theory and Los Angeles
In the post-World War II era, urban areas experienced dramatic decline due to deindustrialization and suburbanization as affluent residents, manufacturers, and retailers left the urban core for the new suburbs. In one of the key early works in political economy, Mollenkopf (1975, p. 256) examined how city officials, major corporations, real-estate interests, and construction unions formed “pro-growth coalitions” to transform downtowns from manufacturing to knowledge and service economies for government functions, corporations, and affluent residents. Similarly, Molotch (1976, p. 313) developed one of the central concepts for the relationship between development and politics, the “growth machine,” which asserted that growth was a central concern of local politics and that corporate and political elites worked together to guide development.
DeLeon (1992) and Clavel (2010) note the resistance to growth interests in the 1980s by slow-growth organizations protecting the rights of middle-class homeowners and the rise of progressive regimes advancing the interests of residents. During this period, regime theory emerged, considered these challenges to the growth machine, proposed a range of coalitions that may form to govern a city, and has become one of the dominant theories in political economy to examine politics and development (Elkin 1987; Stone 1989). In Stone’s (1989, p. 227, 229) research, he discussed his “social-production model” of governance and the need for cooperation and diverse resources among different groups to establish “power to” accomplish policy goals, rather than “power over” and social control. In the social production model, Stone (1989, p. 6) emphasized the “informal arrangements” between city officials and business leaders, and the resources that each group controlled, that contributed to the governance of the city and downtown development. Neither group controls the resources necessary to carry out large projects alone, but working together, city officials can manage the entitlement process and can assist projects through subsidies, zoning variances, and the use of eminent domain to acquire property. Corporate executives, on the other hand, provide much needed capital and business expertise to fund and build major projects and their networks and leadership to help guide the planning process.
Logan, Whaley, and Crowder (1997, p. 606) explain that “because regime theory treats the local political balance as a variable not to be taken for granted, some analysts consider it to be distinct from” work on growth coalitions, which assumes the dominance of growth interests. Logan, Whaley, and Crowder (1997, p. 607) suggest, however, that both bodies of work agree that there is an “inherent conflict between the business community and residents over growth policy,” recognize the power of growth coalitions, and the centrality of development in city politics. Where they differ, however, is that regime theory recognizes the “influence accorded to other groups” in the politics of development (Logan, Whaley, and Crowder 1997, p. 607). Stone (1993, p. 17) explains, however, that a “governing coalition . . . must be able to mobilize resources commensurate with its main policy agenda,” and because of this need for resources for major policy initiatives, Stone (1989, 1993) concludes that progressive regimes are predominately found in communities with a strong middle class and represent their interests.
In Los Angeles, Mayor Tom Bradley strongly supported growth interests during his time in office from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s. Rapid growth, however, contributed to increasing density, gridlocked traffic and highly toxic levels of air and water pollution, and sparked a strong slow-growth movement in the 1980s, which was led largely by homeowners’ associations representing affluent residents in suburban areas of the city and environmental groups. Research suggests that as a result of these slow-growth efforts, the loss of business leaders in the region because of corporate mergers, competition from emerging business centers outside the city, and the increasing involvement of national and international developers without roots in the community, growth interests in the Los Angeles region have declined and fragmented (Fulton 2001; Whittemore 2012).
Growth interests have declined, but their political involvement and influence varies across the city. Deener et al.’s (2013) analysis of the slow-growth movement notes that it contributed to a new city charter in 1999 that included the formation of neighborhood councils and local planning commissions, which contributed to more resident participation in local planning decisions and a decentralization of the planning process. Deener et al. (2013) contend that the democratizing and decentralizing reforms led to successful efforts by homeowners’ groups to limit growth in the suburbs, refocused development downtown, and allowed for developers to have greater control of development in downtown Los Angeles. Deener et al. (2013) also suggest that while community activists have protested the displacement of low-income residents, in the downtown region, “with a large minority population and an area filled almost exclusively by multifamily residents . . . it is an area that is unlikely to produce a strong political movement opposed to major projects.”
Deener et al.’s (2013) analysis of Los Angeles supports research on growth coalitions and urban regimes that finds that organizations representing affluent residents are much more likely to have an impact on development policy than organizations representing lower-income residents. Also, policies to help low-income residents face major obstacles because cities are reluctant to establish redistributive policies that may deter private capital investment, and the rise of neoliberal policies that favor market forces to regulate development and the use of government actions and resources to assist private investment, also work against such policies (Logan and Molotch 2007).
The Rise of Organized Labor and Latinos in Los Angeles
Given the continued strength of growth interests, and powerful factors working against redistributive policies, what explains the emergence of the city’s growth with equity framework? Jones-Correa and Wong (2015) explain that, in places such as Los Angeles, progressive coalitions have developed the resources and capacity for sustained political action. As Jones-Correa and Wong (2015, p. 168) suggest, “they may not direct policy for the city as a whole, but the actions of these actors accrete over time, shaping local environments over years and often with broader effects for their neighborhoods and communities.” Research shows that laying the foundation for the emergence of a progressive coalition were two transformative changes in the city’s politics and demographics with the rise of organized labor and the Latino population (Laslett 2012; Milkman 2006). Faced with deindustrialization and declining membership in its traditional base in manufacturing, with new leadership and organizing tactics, the region’s unions moved from the historical focus on White, male, U.S.-born workers, to major union expansion that was driven largely through growth in service worker unions and the recruitment of Latinos and immigrants (Milkman 2006). The change in union membership and occupations contributed to the growth with equity framework because of an increased focus on living wages or union representation for the service jobs created in finished projects, along with continued support by the construction trades for development because of the jobs created (Meyerson 2006a). Thus, unions managed to be part of the traditional growth coalition through support of new construction, while promoting growth with equity.
Organized labor has emphasized social movement unionism and using resources to build organizations, coalitions, and grassroots activism. Research has documented that since the 1990s, labor, environmental, faith-based, immigrant, and community organizations have worked to form deep and durable ties to build effective and influential coalitions working on social justice issues in Los Angeles (Pastor, Benner, and Matsuoka 2009; Soja 2010). A key to the success of this coalition is developing the resources to conduct research on public policy that can reframe debates to counter corporate proposals. As part of this effort, unions helped establish community organizations that have led social justice campaigns through their research, policy advocacy, and coalition building. These include Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE) and Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE), which have led campaigns for living wages and community benefits. Other organizations provide additional resources, such as Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, which, as a faith-based organization, adds moral authority to arguments about inequality (Hondagneu-Sotelo 2008). In addition, political analysts note that unions have become a major political force in the region through their campaign fundraising, which has served as an effective counter to corporate funds, and grassroots campaigning that has proved successful in elections and lobbying city officials (Kotkin 2011; Meyerson 2006a; Sonenshein and Pinkus 2005).
Stone’s (1989) study of Atlanta pays close attention to the conditions of a particular time and place that affect the type of coalitions that form. Stone’s (1989) research on the growing African-American population and electoral power in Atlanta in the 1970s and 1980s showed the strong ties that African-American leaders had with the White business elite. This coalition produced important agreements in terms of jobs and business contracts that helped the middle class, but did less for low-income African-American.
Parallel to the change in Atlanta’s African-American population, and critical to the rise of a progressive coalition in Los Angeles, is the growth of Latinos, who are now the largest group in the city, with 48.5% of the population, with Whites at 28.7%, Asian-Americans at 11.3%, and African-American at 9.6% according to the 2010 census (U.S. Census Bureau 2010). This population growth has translated into growing Latino political power, and because unions in Los Angeles have become a political force, they offer a potential partner unavailable to African-American in Atlanta. As a result, the rising working-class Latino electorate and unions could form a coalition, and the two groups have worked closely together to become one of the major political blocs in the region, with the resources and capacity for sustained political activity (Kotkin 2011).
A growing population does not automatically translate into increased political power for Latinos because research shows that Latinos have lower rates of participation in electoral politics than the population as a whole because of factors such as the number of immigrants and noncitizens (Pantoja, Ramirez, and Segura 2001). Researchers find that since the 1990s, however, the trend is toward greatly increased participation in electoral politics and grassroots activism, driven in part by Latino perception of California propositions (such as Proposition 187 in 1994 that would have cut off public services to undocumented immigrants) as anti-Latino and anti-immigrant, Latino organizations (such as the Southwest Voter Education and Registration Project) involved in naturalization and voter registration efforts, and increasing political incorporation in Los Angeles with the election of representatives seen as responsive to the interests of Latinos (Barreto, Villarreal, and Woods 2005; Pantoja, Ramirez, and Segura 2001). In that decade, over one million new Latino voter registrations occurred in the state, and the Latino share in city elections rose from 10% in 1993 to 24% in 2013 (Sonenshein et al. 2014; Sonenshein and Pinkus 2005).
Additional factors contributing to political mobilization among immigrants from Mexico and Central America include a history of involvement in labor or political activities in their countries of origin, and strong networks because of organizations formed in Southern California (such as hometown associations) that serve social, political, and economic functions (Hamilton and Chinchilla 2001; Milkman 2006). The dense networks that lead to concentrations of workers from the same communities in the same occupations and work sites, and strong organizations established by these workers, greatly aids the organizing efforts of political activists and union organizers (Milkman 2006), as exemplified by the March 25, 2006 demonstration in downtown Los Angeles when 500,000 people took to the streets in support of immigrant rights (Meyerson 2006b).
Unions, with an emphasis on social movement unionism and grassroots political organizing and building alliances, have joined the effort to increase Latino political participation with citizenship and voter registration drives (Laslett 2012), and political analysts assert that the Latino-union alliance is now one of the major political forces in the region (Kotkin 2011; Maddaus 2010). Demonstrating the importance of the Latino/union political alliance, the election of Los Angeles city council representatives supporting growth with equity led to landmark changes in the 1990s, and these changes illustrates regime theory’s belief that government officials and corporations need to manage “conflict and mak(e) adaptive responses to social change” to be effective in the long run (Stone 1989, p. 6). These changes include the nation’s first worker retention ordinance, which protects jobs when a new contractor takes over a city contract, a living wage ordinance for companies receiving city contracts that became a nationwide model, the city’s first CBA for a shopping center in Hollywood, and regional efforts that resulted in job training and local hiring programs for the Alameda Corridor rail cargo expressway (Meyerson 2013; Pastor, Benner, and Matsuoka 2009).
In the following decade, demonstrating the “growing legal, organizing, and advocacy capacity and influence” of organized labor, and environmental and community organizations, in 2008, the City and Port of Los Angeles reached historic agreements to fund policies to address health and development issues caused by port expansion (Matsuoka and Gottlieb 2013, p. 458). Given that the port is one of the major economic engines of the region and has enormous political clout, as Matsuoka and Gottlieb (2013, p. 458) suggest, this agreement “illustrated how port staff recognized the sophistication of the groups able to come up with policy solutions and generate the political influence necessary for their passage.” Unions and Latinos have also successfully backed pro-labor and Latino candidates to the mayor’s position, electing Antonio Villaraigosa in 2005, the first Latino elected to that position in over 130 years (Sonenshein and Pinkus 2005), as well as other candidates to the County Board of Supervisors, and the state legislature and congress.
In contrast to earlier slow-growth movements that opposed development (DeLeon 1992; Logan and Molotch 2007), the growth with equity movement in Los Angeles supports growth. First, because of much needed jobs and tax revenues to address high levels of poverty and low wages and to fund government social service programs (Benner and Pastor 2012). Second, illustrating Stone’s (1989, p. 193) argument that to “go along to get along” is an important strategy because “cooperation pays,” while opposition can lead to “opportunity costs,” there is a pragmatic recognition that government support for major projects remains strong and that it is better to use political campaigns to improve the outcomes of the projects than to oppose them in what would most likely result in failed and costly efforts.
Los Angeles: Building the Sports, Tourism, and Entertainment Infrastructure, 1970s–2010s
Adding to the Bradley-era emphasis on constructing high-rise office buildings, since the 1990s, developers and city officials have worked on transforming downtown Los Angeles into a place of entertainment, culture, and tourism, a prominent strategy in cities across the nation (Zukin 2010). The construction of sports facilities and convention centers is a key aspect of this strategy, which I examine through the proposal to build an NFL Stadium in downtown Los Angeles next to the city’s convention center and the Staples Center sports arena (Rosentraub 2010).
As part of Los Angeles’s early strategy to bring in out-of-town visitors, the city built the Convention Center in 1971, with a $525 million expansion in 1993. In the hypercompetitive convention market, the center has failed to attract the number of large national meetings predicted in the planning stage and, as with many other centers across the country, has not met expected profit goals and has required millions of dollars from the city to pay the bond debt (McGreevy 2002).
In the mid-1990s, Edward Roski, a local developer, and Phillip Anschutz, a Denver developer, formed a partnership to build a new sports arena to house the Los Angeles Kings hockey team and the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team. To enhance the marketability of the convention center, Los Angeles city officials convinced Roski and Anschutz to build their project next to the city’s convention center, offering eminent domain to help assemble the land and subsidies to assist with the costs. The sports arena, built for nearly $400 million, opened in 1999, and was named the Staples Center, the result of a $116 million naming rights deal (Simers and Wharton 1999; White and Dillman 1997). Developers and the private sector continued to lead the resurgence of downtown Los Angeles, and the new cathedral, Our Lady of the Angels, opened in 2002, and the Frank Gehry–designed Walt Disney concert hall opened in 2003. Following the Staples Center, Anchutz built L.A. Live, through his company, AEG. The $2.5 billion sports and entertainment center covering 27 acres was built next to the Staples Centers, with venues opening through 2010, including the Microsoft Theater, Regal Cinemas, Marriot hotels, luxury condominiums, office space, restaurants, and nightclubs.
AEG’S NFL Stadium Plan, Community Benefits, and the Play Fair at Farmers Field Coalition
In terms of the city’s NFL history, two NFL teams played in the Los Angeles region in 1994, but searching for more lucrative stadium deals, the Raiders moved to Oakland, and the Rams left Anaheim for St. Louis. Los Angeles City officials and local corporate leaders have failed in their multiple attempts to bring an NFL team back to the region in the following two decades.
In 2010, AEG announced its interest in building an NFL stadium next to L.A. Live and signed a $700 million naming rights deal in 2011 with Farmers Insurance, and the proposed stadium was then called Farmers Field (Farmer 2011). A decade earlier in 2001, in a landmark victory for the city’s progressive movement, AEG and a community coalition negotiated a CBA for the L.A. Live project, which was the nation’s first comprehensive CBA and has served as a model for CBAs across the country (Wolf-Powers 2010). A CBA is a contract between a developer and a coalition that contains developer-provided benefits, such as affordable housing, local hiring, and living wage jobs.
By establishing a CBA with community organizations, developers gain their support in the entitlement process and avoid disputes and possible lawsuits that might occur that would create delays and drive up costs (Rappleye 2002). Considering the resources the city used to help the developer with L.A. Live, including the use of eminent domain to help the developer acquire property and hotel tax rebates that were estimated at more than $200 million (McGreevy 2005), the developer recognized the political influence of the labor and community organizations and the importance of having their support in the entitlement process for the project and request for tax rebates. As a result, the developer understood the L.A. Live CBA as a cost of doing business (Lunsford 2001), and a relatively small cost in relation to the hotel tax rebates, other city subsidies received, and the overall cost of the project.
Ted Tanner, executive vice president for real-estate development for AEG, and the lead negotiator with the L.A. Live CBA, acknowledged the political influence of community organizations and understood CBAs as “a sign of the times with all of these broad community coalitions forming” (Lunsford 2001, p. B7). Tanner (2017) explained that AEG’s “groundwork” with community groups to establish the L.A. Live CBA was essential for the community support that AEG received because community members “bought into our project” and “wanted to see it succeed” because of the benefits it would bring to the neighborhood. When asked whether a CBA helped with the L.A. Live entitlement process with the city council, Tanner (2017) replied, “absolutely,” “there were hundreds of people that came to various hearings and meetings” and the City Council members were “literally stunned that there was so much vocal support.”
Similarly, Cliff Goldstein, a partner in J.H. Snyder, a major Los Angeles commercial development company, explained that with the company’s mixed-use project in North Hollywood, which received a subsidy from the city, negotiating a CBA in the early 2000s was an important part of managing the entitlement process. As Goldstein explains, “the best way to get our project approved is to join with the community . . . Once we’ve crafted an agreement, we walk hand in hand downtown to the council” (Meyerson 2006a, p. 1). Goldstein notes, “as a developer we’re looking for a win–win . . . it’s self-interest. We’re being realistic” (Rappleye 2002).
Historically, there have been important examples of redistributive policies, and the 1980s saw the rise of progressive city governments. In San Francisco and Boston, for example, policies connected development with community benefits that assisted low-income residents, such as inclusionary zoning and linkage fees for affordable housing, and the Los Angeles movement clearly resonates with those earlier efforts (Clavel 2010; DeLeon 1992). In Los Angeles, however, efforts differ in that they are now more focused on bringing benefits to the neighborhoods directly affected by development, are negotiated by community coalitions rather than city staff and elected officials, and are backed by stronger enforcement mechanisms (Annie E. Casey Foundation 2007; Gross, LeRoy and Janis-Aparicio 2005; Kaye and Mendoza 2008).
Efforts to change the development debate in Los Angeles correspond with the national living wage movement that started in the mid-1990s to reframe policies by supporting the principle that municipal governments should address inequality and have contracts with firms that pay above-poverty-level wages (Dreier 2014). The widening divide between the working poor and the wealthy is increasingly receiving attention from elected officials, and development is seen as a tool to address this issue. For example, the Mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, is addressing inequality and promoting development to generate revenue for affordable housing, and predating de Blasio’s election as mayor, New York City has linked city contracts with job training and local hiring programs (BAE Urban Economics, Inc. et al. 2015; Wolf-Powers 2006).
The coalition that negotiated the 2001 L.A. Live CBA worked to be broad-based and involved low-income residents and racial minorities. The rise of a new coalition in the fall of 2011, after a city hearing generated concerns about the impact of the proposed NFL stadium on nearby neighborhoods, however, involved organizations that had not participated in the 2001 L.A. Live CBA. The new group, the Play Fair at Farmers Field Coalition (Coalition), included a constituency, Skid Row homeless residents, who previously have wielded little influence in city development politics. Central to the new Coalition was the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN), which advocates for the interests of low-income residents and the homeless, who are predominately African-American. LA CAN (2012) emerged in 1999 to “help people dealing with poverty . . . have voice, power & opinion in the decisions directly affecting them.” The Los Angeles Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, part of the national organization that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 for their work to reduce nuclear weapons, was the other key Coalition organization, with legal assistance provided by the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.
The Entitlement Process and the SB 292 Legislation
A key step for proposed development projects is the entitlement process in which projects go through formal review by a number of city commissions and the city council before approval. A major part of the entitlement process is the environmental impact report submitted by developers to disclose the effects of their projects and propose ways to minimize the negative impacts. This is mandated by the 1970 California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which requires cities to examine the environmental consequences of projects (Harris 2012). The entitlement and environmental review process requires reports by the developer and city, and public hearings, which provide community organizations with in-depth descriptions, analyses, and public discussions of a proposed project and its potential impact on surrounding neighborhoods.
CEQA requires city officials to take into consideration community input during the environmental review process, which provides community organizations a crucial opportunity to voice their analysis of a project and to support or oppose it. Thus, the entitlement and environmental review process creates the opportunity to study a project through the perspectives of the developer, city, and community organizations through the reports and public hearing testimonies and debates.
In September 2011, state legislators passed SB 292 for the AEG NFL stadium project to speed up the environmental review process in case of lawsuits. The legislators and unions supported the bill, along with similar bills crafted for other proposed sports venues around the state, because the United States was in the middle of a deep recession and the projects would generate capital investment and jobs. SB 292 changed the judicial process if a lawsuit was filed. To avoid protracted legal battles, a case would skip the Superior Court and start in the state Court of Appeals and would have to be decided within 175 days. The Judicial Council of California (2014), which is the “policymaking body of the California courts,” objected to this provision because, as Los Angeles Times business writer Hiltzik (2012, p. B1) reported, the Court of Appeals are “‘not well suited’ to function like trial courts: They have fewer judges and therefore can handle fewer cases, they have fewer locations and therefore are harder for litigants (especially poor litigants) to get to.” Hiltzik (2012, p. B1) criticized SB 292 for “shifting the balance of power in land-use policy further away from the average citizen and more in favor of wealthy and politically powerful developers.”
The AEG Stadium Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) and the Coalition’s Health Impact Assessment (HIA)
Marking a key step in the entitlement process, in April 2012, AEG released the stadium Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR), which cost $27 million (Farmer and Fenno 2015). Understanding the tremendous support that the stadium proposal had among Los Angeles city officials and state legislators who had passed SB292 to streamline the judicial process, that AEG was working to get city approval as quickly as possible to attract an NFL team and start construction, the Coalition considered what they could do under those conditions. Eric Ares (2014), an LA CAN staff member, stated, “what leverage do we have, what can we do?” Ares noted that the Coalition decided to do an HIA, which “uses an array of data . . . and considers input from stakeholders to determine the potential effects of a . . . project on the health of a population” (Human Impact Partners 2012, p. 12). Ares (2014) explained that the HIA would provide the Coalition with “its own analysis that can be our official response to the EIR and provide a more specific community response.”
The National Research Council (2011, p. 3) notes the growing use of HIAs in the United States since the early 2000s and sees the HIA “as an especially promising way to factor health considerations into the decision-making process” when projects are in the planning stage. Martha Dina Arguello (2014), the executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility–Los Angeles, explains that environmental impact reports should include “a more robust health analysis” to take into account the impact of displacement, in addition to the traditional environmental concerns such as traffic, parking, and pollution. The HIA (Human Impact Partners 2012, pp. 29–30) refers to the extensive research that examines the health impact of these changes on residents: Gentrification can lead to increases in housing costs, which can threaten food security and financial security, and lead to overcrowded living conditions, displacement, and acceptance of substandard housing conditions [and] . . . increase risks for mortality, infectious disease, poor mental health, and poor childhood development. For adults, displacement and relocation can disrupt social ties and result in job loss [and] . . . in childhood has been linked to . . . academic delay, school suspensions, and emotional and behavioral problems.
San Francisco is a leader in the effort to consider the health impacts of development, and Corburn (2009) explains the roots of this effort. In 2003, a developer proposed to demolish a rent-controlled apartment building and replace it with market-rate condominiums. At the urging of community organizations, the city’s Department of Public Health carried out a study to examine the health impacts of displacement, and submitted the findings to the city’s Planning Department. Responding to the study and community concerns, the Planning Department asked the developer to analyze the impact of displacement. Instead, because of increasing costs due to delays, the developer revised the proposal to include rent-controlled units for the existing tenants in the new project. Building on this experience and other development projects, the city’s Public Health and Planning departments adopted the Healthy Development Measurement Tool as a way to review the health effects of development projects. As Corburn et al. (2014, p. 623) point out, the City of Richmond, across the bay from San Francisco, carried this a step further in 2014 and became perhaps the first and only city in the country to establish a “health ordinance and strategy” to work toward “health equity” in “city services and policymaking.”
Building on research developed in the San Francisco Bay area, The California Endowment launched a 10 year, $1 billion program in 2010 called Building Healthy Communities, to address health inequities through policy and neighborhood change in 14 communities across the state. The California Endowment (2015) program focuses on the “social determinants” of health, that is, the “social, political, and economic environments” that influence access to quality food, housing, jobs, and schools in neighborhoods. Recognizing the importance of health disparities in the city, the Los Angeles City Council, working with the California Endowment, adopted the Plan for a Healthy Los Angeles in 2015. The Plan recognizes that serious neighborhood health disparities exist, and the city will attempt to improve the health of communities when shaping new policies and distributing resources.
The Building Healthy Communities program and Plan for a Healthy Los Angeles build on the history of local community groups working to establish organizations and coalitions to focus on health and development issues. An essential part of the effort to build organizations was the founding of SAJE, which served as the umbrella group for the community groups engaged in the L.A. Live CBA negotiations. SAJE has been a key leader in efforts to support the interests of lower-income residents in downtown Los Angeles and South Los Angeles, working on issues such as illegal evictions, affordable housing, and living wages. Established in 1996 and headquartered in South Los Angeles near the University of Southern California (USC), SAJE emerged in the mid-1990s when discussions began among about 50 community-, labor-, and faith-based organizations in the region to build connections and coordinate actions among the groups (Haas 2002). As Gilda Haas (2002), one of the founders of SAJE, noted, many of the groups had previously worked on issues in the same neighborhoods but had not formed alliances, and some had even been unaware of the activities of the other groups. As the scope of its community work has grown, SAJE has helped launch other organizations, including a community land trust in 2005, TRUST SOUTH LA. Among its achievements, in 2012, TRUST SOUTH LA purchased a 48-unit apartment complex a block from USC that its owner had planned to shift from affordable to market-rate housing. Another organization that emerged from SAJE’s work is United Neighbors in Defense Against Displacement (UNIDAD), which was established in 2009 and has been instrumental in negotiating CBAs with major projects in South LA.
The California Endowment selected South Los Angeles to be part of the Building Healthy Communities program, and a central part of the initiative is funding to strengthen the infrastructure among community organizations. As Pastor et al. (2015, p. 22) found in their research on the program, “regularly convening” the groups “helped solidify the common narrative for social justice and community health” and “created strong cross-organizational ties.” The program included key members of the L.A. Live CBA coalition, such as SAJE and Esperanza, as well as members of the Play Fair at Farmers Field Coalition, including the Legal Aid Foundation, LA CAN, and Physicians for Social Responsibility. Organizations that played major roles in local CBAs, such as SAJE, Esperanza, LA CAN, and Physicians for Social Responsibility, have a long history of working on health issues, and the Building Healthy Communities project is building on that work.
The NFL Project, Pico Union, and Skid Row
In Los Angeles, the Coalition was concerned with the NFL project’s impact on Pico Union, a neighborhood of low-income and working-class Latinos, located directly west of the project. The Draft Environmental Impact Report (2012, p. VI-26, IV A-30) stated that “since the opening of STAPLES Center in 1999, there is little evidence of widespread gentrification in the Pico-Union area” and the NFL stadium project “would not adversely affect this community.” In contrast, Ares (2014) explained that with the Staples Center and L.A. Live next door, and the University of Southern California several miles to the south, residents have felt the pressure of growing development from both ends, which was “leading to more criminalization, an increase in rents, and more displacement.”
On July 6, 2012, the Coalition released their stadium project HIA. Since the Staples Center was built, the report (Human Impact Partners 2012, p. 38) found in local communities, increases . . . in nationally recognized measures of gentrification, such as rising rents, and characteristics of neighborhoods that are at risk for gentrification, such as . . . high renter vs. owner occupancy, and high percentages of households paying a large share of household income for housing.
The report (Human Impact Partners 2012, pp. 53–54) documented that “since the development of LA Live was approved . . . an estimated 2,151 units of extremely low-income housing were lost or otherwise impacted” in the immediate area, because of “illegal evictions,” “illegal conversions to . . . upscale/high income development,” and rent increases. Coalition members presented the HIA results at public hearings and city meetings involving the stadium.
The Coalition (Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles 2012, p. 63) also focused on the homeless population in nearby Skid Row and stated that the Draft EIR “fails to analyze the impact of . . . segregation . . . from keeping the predominantly non-White population away from the majority White and affluent population likely to attend events,” and “aggressive police tactics” on this population. Skid Row is an area of about 50 blocks and with growing city and private investment in the downtown area, the city adopted a plan in 1975 to preserve single-room occupancy hotels and social service agencies in Skid Row, later called the “containment strategy” (Connell 1985). Today, the area has the largest concentration of homeless, and housing and services to support the homeless, in the region (Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles 2005; Connell 1985). In 2013, an estimated 3,463 homeless lived in Skid Row, with 71% in homeless shelters and the remainder unhoused, with an estimated 57,737 homeless in the county (Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority 2014). Due to its large size and high levels of poverty, the city of Los Angeles has the largest number of homeless in the nation, and houses a smaller percentage, 21%, than other major cities, such as San Francisco, at 57%, and New York City, at around 90% (Blasi 2007).
The Skid Row residents and service organizations are in conflict with the growing number of projects built close to or in the neighborhood, including high-end restaurants, luxury housing, and growth in a range of industries, such as in toy distributing and garment manufacturing. The Central City Association (2002, p. 7), a policy group that represents the region’s business interests, contends that “Downtown Los Angeles is on the cusp of an urban renaissance . . . . However, this renaissance is threatened every day by street encampments, drug deals, overdoses, and panhandlers.” The City of Los Angeles launched its Safer City Initiative in 2006, adding 50 police officers to Skid Row. Then-mayor Antonio Villaraigosa explained that the effort would help protect the homeless who are targeted by thieves and drug dealers and “preyed upon on a daily basis,” but Pete White, co-director of LA CAN, asserted that the police were targeting the homeless and that “it’s created a situation where long-term residents of color feel that they are under siege” (Heland and Winton 2007, p. B2). White noted that “over a number of years, there has been a no holds barred approach at demonizing an entire community” and a “labelling of criminals and drug dealers.” Becky Dennison, co-director of LA CAN, noted the increased presence of police in the area as a “tool of gentrification and displacement” (Voices from the Frontlines Radio 2013).
The Coalition HIA (2012) referenced Blasi’s (2007, p. 29) research on policing in Skid Row that found that in the first 10 months of the Safer City Initiative, the police issued 10,342 citations for such infractions as pedestrian violations (citations issued at 48 to 69 times the rate in other areas of the city) and littering. Unpaid citation fines can lead to jail time and the loss of social services, housing, jobs, and possessions (Human Impact Partners 2012).
White, countering neoliberal beliefs about factors driving development, noted that when “people think about displacement and gentrification, they love to think . . . that it is done by . . . market forces.” White, however, emphasized that development is assisted by “policy and . . . state action.” Discussing these policies, Dennison added that the city council gave priority to “capital investment in downtown L.A., at the expense of longtime residents, including residents in Skid Row” and in “the historic core” and “throughout long-standing communities of color” (Voices from the Frontlines Radio 2013).
The concerns of White and Dennison are rooted in the history of government policies that contribute to the ongoing struggle over neighborhoods involving race and class (Lipsitz 2011). Examples include urban renewal that led to the targeted destruction of communities inhabited by low-income racial minorities and the use of restrictive covenants and mortgage policies to exclude minorities and create suburbs for White residents. The construction of Staples Center and L.A. Live—aided by the city’s use of eminent domain and the demolition of 184 residential units housing 655 predominately Latino residents (Planning Consultants Research 1997)—served as catalysts for private investment as domestic and international developers poured billions of dollars into projects in the downtown area. The contemporary policies to support development and contain and police the predominantly African-American Skid Row residents may not be driven by the explicit racial intent of earlier policies, but the results disproportionately affect racial minorities (Blasi 2007).
The Coalition Lawsuit and the Politics of Development in Los Angeles
Beginning in early June of 2012, AEG and the Coalition entered mediation, which SB 292 required between AEG and interested parties. From the perspective of LA CAN, however, “AEG has not engaged in serious discussions around many of the mitigation measures . . . (including neighborhood protection plans for South Park, Pico-Union . . .), which would address impacts described in the Health Impact Assessment” (Play Fair at Farmers Field 2012). The Coalition and the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles et al. (2012, p. 1) filed a lawsuit on August 30, 2012, which addressed SB 292 and challenged the “constitutionality . . . wherein the state legislature granted special treatment to a special interest.” The lawsuit (Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles et al. 2012, p. 8) also described problems with the DEIR, including the “inadequacy of the mitigation measures, particularly regarding . . . housing and population.”
On September 28, 2012, the city council voted unanimously to approve the stadium project. As Ares (2014) of LA CAN stated, “AEG has powerful publicity to create their message . . . and in a town full of sports fan . . . they say, ‘We are bringing Football back,’” along with creating jobs and providing a catalyst for economic development. To establish a counter-narrative, Ares explained that the Coalition utilized a number of tactics, including social media, speaking at public hearings, holding press conferences, and developing a website that contained a wide range of information on the stadium project, including press releases and reports from the Coalition. As an example of Coalition tactics, the group held a press conference to publicize the HIA across the street from the L.A. Live Ritz-Carlton Hotel in a parking lot that previously contained one of the last affordable housing complexes in the neighborhood before it was demolished for parking. The Coalition’s message made clear that “this isn’t just about football, this is about people’s lives, and this project is going to displace people” (Ares 2014). According to Ares’s (2014) assessment, the press conference was covered by “every media in Los Angeles.” The coalition put the coverage of their campaign from local television stations, newspapers, and radio programs on their website.
The Coalition lawsuit and mediation request for “$60 million for affordable housing” added to the obstacles faced by AEG to realize its plan to sign a contract with an NFL team and have the stadium in place by the 2015 football season (Zahniser and Linthicum 2012). AEG had to give the Coalition lawsuit serious consideration, given that in 2002, the Legal Aid Foundation had successfully filed a lawsuit—Wiggins et al. v. CRA—against the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency regarding plans for the downtown area. The settlement included provisions to protect affordable housing and provide job opportunities for low-income residents. Since the Legal Aid attorneys had been in contact with the AEG representatives through the mediation process, the 2012 lawsuit came as no surprise to AEG, and AEG was aware that a second lawsuit might be filed challenging the EIR (Gaytan 2014; Schultz 2014).
The contemporary context: CBAs with developer Geoff Palmer and USC
Events framing the settlement of the Coalition lawsuit involving AEG included two CBAs involving other projects, one in 2011 with Geoff Palmer and another with USC in 2012. These CBAs demonstrate the concerns that developers have regarding community benefits, and the various reasons that drove developers to eventually agree to include benefits with their projects.
Palmer, one of the major developers building apartments in the region, bought a vacant 9.5 acre site south of downtown Los Angeles in 2006 that previously held a hospital that the owners demolished and moved to Santa Monica. Palmer planned to build a high-rise luxury apartment complex called the Lorenzo. In 2009, Palmer won a lawsuit against the city’s affordable housing requirement involving another project, arguing that the state’s 1995 Costa-Hawkins Act gives landlords the right to set rents for new units. The court decision established a statewide precedent that inclusionary housing ordinances that restrict rents are not permissible unless public subsidies or zoning exceptions are provided for the project (Kautz 2011).
The land for Palmer’s Lorenzo project had a Q zoning, which restricted its use to medical and educational purposes. UNIDAD, a community organization involved with displacement issues in South L.A., worked with other community organizations, and they produced reports on the project, lobbied city officials, and spoke at public hearings. They argued that since 2006, the area had lost four other hospitals and that the project’s DEIR did not adequately address what the loss of the Q zoning would mean for health services and affordable housing in the neighborhood.
Los Angeles County officials were spending billions to expand the public transportation system, and the Palmer site was across the street from a stop for a new light-rail line under construction that would serve USC to the south and Staples Center/L.A. Live and downtown to the north. Community members voiced their concerns that although low-income residents were the core riders for public transportation, housing costs tended to rise near public transportation and displaced lower-income residents, and the Palmer project with its luxury units would contribute to this trend (Wu 2011).
Recognizing the problem that modifying the Q zoning presented, Palmer negotiated a CBA in 2011, which the coalition characterized as “groundbreaking” because CBAs are usually negotiated with projects receiving city subsidies, but the Palmer project was privately financed (Wu 2011, p. 38). The CBA included a 7,500 square foot community medical clinic in the project with construction costs paid for by Palmer and rent-free for 20 years, affordable housing, and a local hiring program.
Considering his successful lawsuit against affordable housing, why did Palmer decide to negotiate a CBA rather than contest the Q zoning? In an interview after the project was completed, Palmer explained, “We didn’t want to litigate it because we were paying interest on $70 million at the time. We thought ‘We gotta get this thing going’” (Planning Report 2015). Palmer acknowledged the importance of the CBA to get community organizations to support modifying the Q zoning and stated that “we were bludgeoned into having to deal with the social justice groups” (Planning Report 2015). Noting the leverage community organizations gained through the zoning change, Palmer stated, “I’m not going to take something that I’ve got to rezone, where they can come in and bludgeon me again” (Planning Report 2015).
While the Coalition lawsuit involving the NFL stadium unfolded, demonstrating the city’s support for affordable housing, and responding to UNIDAD’s sustained campaign that highlighted the long history of local residents displaced by the expansion of the University of Southern California and rising rents, the City Council’s Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) Committee delayed a vote at their August 2012 meeting on USC’s $1.1 billion expansion plan. The PLUM Committee initiated studies on the neighborhood’s housing and found that USC housed only 29% of its undergraduate students in university-owned housing while four other private urban universities surveyed housed from 64% to 97% of their undergraduate students (Department of City Planning 2012). Another report (Los Angeles Housing Department 2012) noted the increasing number of students, staff, and faculty moving into the neighborhood, the displacement of residents, and the shortage of affordable housing. Responding to concerns raised by the city and local residents, USC increased its affordable housing contribution from $2 to $20 million dollars and established a legal clinic at its law school to help local residents with housing issues, and the city council approved the project in December 2012.
AEG and the coalition lawsuit settlement
The key to AEG’s plan to build an NFL stadium in Los Angeles was having one, or preferably two, NFL team owners agree to move into the stadium, and SB 292 was important to the process because it ensured that lawsuits would be settled according to a set timeline, and the Coalition’s lawsuit challenged SB 292. Tanner (2017) of AEG, who was part of the lawsuit negotiations, explained that “timing was everything” because “we were active in conversations with the league about bringing a team to L.A” and it was necessary “to have definitive deadlines so we could go to team owners, to the NFL, to the city, and say that it will get sorted out.” Settling the Coalition lawsuit would preserve SB 292. In addition, although the City Council had already approved AEG’s NFL stadium plans, Tanner (2017) noted, that the council would support AEG settling the lawsuit because “they would rather not have an angry constituent group . . . opposing something that . . . had enormous local, regional, and citywide benefits.”
Discussing community benefits such as living wages, affordable housing, and local hiring, Tanner (2017) explained that “those have become more the norm than the exception,” especially if the developer is asking the city for something, such as “special zoning, street realignments, or public assistance.” In the long and complicated entitlement process, Tanner (2017) stated that “from a developer’s perspective, what you want is predictability, you want certainty,” and not problems with unexpected city approvals and community lawsuits. “Acquiring that certainty requires developers to have greater sensitivity” to a project’s impact on a “community,” Tanner (2017) noted, and benefit agreements have become a “way of doing business and a cost of doing business.” As Tanner (2017) stated, CBAs are “absolutely . . . vital . . . to enable big projects like this to navigate through the landscape of community, political, and agency approvals.”
On October 25, 2012, the Coalition and AEG reached a Settlement Agreement, and in Ares’s (2014) estimation, the results were “exponentially better” than the provisions offered by AEG during mediation. The agreement (Settlement Agreement 2012, pp. 5–7, 13) included $15 million for affordable housing and “$300,000 . . . for a health promoter” to work to “promote healthy and safe units as a means of preservation and prevent illegal displacement, conversion, demolition, or other means of unit loss.”
In January 2013, building on the relationship developed through the years of collaboration to successfully implement the 2001 L.A. Live CBA, AEG and SAJE established a CBA for the NFL stadium project and improved some of the major provisions of the L.A. Live CBA. For example, the living wage goal of “70% of the jobs” (Development Agreement 2001, p. A-4) was increased to “100% of the jobs” in the 2013 CBA (Community Jobs and Small Business Agreement Farmers Field Project [CJSBA FFP] 2013, p. 7) and the previous $100,000 commitment for job training and local hiring programs (Goldberg 2013, p. 5) was increased to $500,000 (CJSBA FFP 2013, p. 5). A new provision was added to the 2013 CBA local hiring program to include “disadvantaged workers,” such as the “formerly homeless” and those “in contact with the judicial system” and “veterans” (CJSBA FFP 2013, p. 5; Development Agreement 2012, p. 11).
SAJE gained important benefits from AEG through mediation in terms of the increased percentage of living wage jobs and funding for organizations, and the addition of disadvantaged workers to the local hiring program. This agreement, however, did not address the issue of affordable housing, and the Coalition had to file a lawsuit to gain the leverage they needed to obtain a $15 million commitment from AEG on this issue.
AEG Exits, and NFL Teams Enter the Stadium Competition
On March 9, 2015, AEG announced that it was ending its stadium effort. Precipitating this action, the owner of the Saint Louis Rams had declared in January 2015 that he planned to build an NFL stadium in Inglewood, eight miles to the southwest of Los Angeles. The owners of the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders stated in February 2015 that they were working together to build a stadium in Carson, 17 miles south of Los Angeles. These plans involved team owners, in contrast to Farmers Field in which AEG needed to attract a team to its stadium. In January 2016, the NFL team owners voted to permit the Saint Louis Rams to move to Inglewood and gave the San Diego Chargers “a one-year option to join the Rams in Inglewood” and, if the Chargers did not move, gave a similar option to the Raiders (Farmer and Fenno 2016, p. A1). In January 2017, the Chargers decided to move to Los Angeles, and two months later, the NFL owners voted to approve the Raiders’ proposed move to Las Vegas.
Conclusion
Ultimately, AEG canceled its plans for an NFL stadium, but the $50 million and five years invested in winning city and state support show the significant outlay of monetary and political capital that the developer spent on the project (Farmer and Fenno 2015). The political effort proved successful and demonstrate that growth interests remain powerful in California and Los Angeles, as shown by the special state legislation SB 292 crafted for the Farmers Field project and strong support from city officials. The entitlement process and lawsuit settlement, however, also revealed significant changes in the politics of development in the city due to the growing strength of organized labor, community coalitions, and Latino voters, which have contributed to the rise of the growth with equity movement.
Research on growth interests and regime theory concludes that coalitions representing lower-income residents are unlikely to be effective in the long run due to a lack of resources. Two significant factors in Los Angeles, however, have transformed politics and policy formation. First, a fundamental change in union leadership and organizing tactics resulting in the recruitment of workers in the service industries and Latinos and immigrants led to impressive membership growth. Combined with social movement unionism and a commitment to grassroots political organizing, establishing community organizations, and building coalitions, unions have provided significant resources to help build a progressive coalition. The coalition has worked to be broad-based, including faith-based, environmental, community, and labor groups, which gives the coalition legitimacy grounded in moral and social justice terms. Second, the demographic transformation of Los Angeles, with Latinos now the largest group in the city, has resulted in growing Latino electoral strength. The Latino/labor alliance has become one of the major political blocs in the city and has supported the election of officials who are receptive to the idea of development combined with community benefits.
Building on the increasing power of unions and Latino grassroots and electoral strength, I suggest that this coalition has successfully worked to build a strong and enduring infrastructure with the resources and political influence necessary to support a growth with equity framework and has changed the development climate and policies. These resources include the legal and technical expertise to research and analyze policy issues and projects to provide a counter to city and developer reports. I suggest that what happened in Los Angeles supports Jones-Correa and Wong’s (2015, p. 168) observation that “these kinds of politics are not displaced by nor do they necessarily displace the elite politics that are the focus of Regime Politics, but they parallel it and at times challenge it.”
An important difference from earlier antigrowth movements is that this effort in Los Angeles, as in other places in the country such as New York City, recognizes that development can contribute to community benefits by generating much-needed revenue and jobs. Community groups are not trying to stop development but, instead, are working to reframe the development narrative from “all growth is good growth,” to one that addresses inequality and uses development to fund benefit agreements that are negotiated with significant community input, contain strong enforcement mechanisms, and provisions that bring benefits to the residents most affected by such projects. The movement has established significant provisions, such as living wages, local hiring programs, and affordable housing with major projects receiving city resources.
Recognizing the growing political influence and successful policy initiatives of the Latino/labor alliance and the emerging growth with equity framework, developers recognize that city support for projects, such as subsidies, tax rebates, and zoning variances, are linked to community benefits and are acknowledged as a cost of doing business. Relative to the size of city subsidies and overall cost of projects, CBAs are a small price to pay. Community benefits also assist developers in the city entitlement process by providing community support rather than opposition, and avoiding or ending lawsuits, reducing costly delays that affect profits.
The rise of a new coalition representing the Skid Row homeless, with organizations outside of the Latino/labor alliance, and the coalition’s successful lawsuit settlement with the developer of the proposed NFL stadium, demonstrates three things. First, formerly marginalized groups have effectively joined the development discussion, using the environmental review process and a lawsuit to gain benefits. Even though the project ended and the benefits will not materialize, the lawsuit demonstrated the ability of the coalition representing the homeless, a new constituency in development politics, to successfully negotiate with the developer.
Second, in addition to the traditional focus on environmental concerns such as traffic and pollution, the growing use of HIAs in the environmental review process provides community organizations with a more comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the physical and mental health impacts of development. The HIA is an important tool to document and analyze the potential impact of projects on nearby residents, can serve as a counter to developers’ environmental impact reports, and is used to leverage community benefits from the developer.
Third, the quick lawsuit settlement, with much improved benefits over those offered by AEG during the mediation process, demonstrated AEG’s recognition of the support of city officials for community benefits. I suggest that AEG was assessing the political strength and resolve of the Coalition through the limited benefits offered during the mediation process. Once the lawsuit was filed, however, AEG quickly moved to settle the lawsuit. The context for the settlement included Geoff Palmer’s 2011 decision to negotiate a CBA with the Lorenzo housing project, rather than contest the Q zoning of the property in contrast to his successful 2009 lawsuit involving the city’s inclusionary zoning requirement. Also important was the clear support of benefits signaled by the city’s delay in approving USC’s expansion plan because of concerns over displacement, and the success of the Legal Aid Foundation’s 2002 Wiggins lawsuit involving affordable housing and job opportunities. In contrast to the new Coalition’s need to use a lawsuit to leverage significant benefits for its constituency from the developer, the 2013 CBA for the proposed NFL stadium that AEG worked out with the community organizations that had participated in the 2001 L.A. Live CBA demonstrated the positive result of a relationship built over more than a decade of implementing that CBA, and the growth with equity framework governing development in the region.
In comparison to past practices when major development projects resulted in the demolition of communities with few, if any, benefits going to the displaced residents, CBAs and the emerging growth with equity framework in Los Angeles represent a fundamental change in development politics in the region. At the same time, however, the level of poverty and scarcity of affordable housing in the city remain extremely high. Community activists note that while many major projects in the city include community benefits, that still leaves a vast number of projects untouched by the growth with equity movement. The next step, according to some of the key members of this movement, is to have some of the major aspects of CBAs become a part of city policy with projects receiving city support, moving beyond project by project negotiations and lawsuits (Estolano 2013). A step in that direction occurred in 2016 when Los Angeles city voters approved Proposition JJJ, which requires affordable housing, wage requirements, and local hiring for large projects requesting zoning changes or General Plan amendments.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The author thanks the interviewees; Manuel Pastor for his ideas on the growth with equity framework; members of the USC graduate student urban studies reading group, Jennifer Candipan, Robert Chlala, Alfredo Huante, and May Lin for their important contributions to this article; and the UAR editors and anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded in part by the John Randolph and Dora Haynes Foundation, Atlantic Philanthropies and the Ford Foundation that was regranted by the USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity, The USC Provost’s Initiative on Immigration and Integration, and the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate. These are all nonprofit organizations with no interests or products involved in the research.