Another Washington-New York Consensus? Progressives Back in Contention

I use the case of New York to explore how federal activism in the wake of crisis affects US urban regimes. Multiscalar policy networks , formerly used to extend neoliberalism to subnational levels, now feature an odd mix of progressives and neoliberals. I use the idea of path dependence to explain this indeterminacy in terms of the contradictory effects of US federalism on national regime formation: while federalism provided havens for progressives to mobilize for regime change, it also anchors defenders of neoliberalism and its legacies. The Obama administration has exploited crisis to move scalar relations in a progressive direction. This has brought some changes to New York's neoliberal regime. That, along with the White House's cool reaction to recent proposals from New York, suggest a break with the neoliberal apparatus. Yet neoliberal legacies constrain efforts to institutionalize new federal roles and scalar relations, leaving the New York regime unsettled. What seems the likely result is a heterodox national regime that combines state and market mechanisms and a policy network open to heterogeneous influences—a mix where progressives are back in contention, if not necessarily in control.