IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/loceco/v28y2013i5p488-498.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tax lien sales as local neoliberal governance strategy: The case of Waterbury, Connecticut

Author

Listed:
  • Hilary Botein
  • C Patrick Heidkamp

Abstract

This article examines bulk sales of municipal property tax liens in the formerly industrial city of Waterbury, Connecticut, USA, in the 1990s, in order to explore the limits and contradictions of neoliberal local governance strategies. In the USA, cities and states create property tax liens by reducing delinquent real estate taxes to a judgment that creates a legal claim against the property at issue. We argue that Waterbury's efforts to resolve its fiscal stress by enhancing short-term revenues ultimately further constrained its revenue base, the tax lien sales reflected a spatial selectivity that created barriers to revitalization when neither the city nor tax lien purchasers had incentives to foreclose on distressed properties in struggling neighborhoods, and the tax lien sales' failure to resolve the city's budget crisis set in motion new efforts at tax base enhancement through real estate-led development in the central business district that also were unsuccessful.

Suggested Citation

  • Hilary Botein & C Patrick Heidkamp, 2013. "Tax lien sales as local neoliberal governance strategy: The case of Waterbury, Connecticut," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 28(5), pages 488-498, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:loceco:v:28:y:2013:i:5:p:488-498
    DOI: 10.1177/0269094213485530
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0269094213485530
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0269094213485530?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brenner, Neil, 2004. "New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199270064.
    2. Rachel Weber, 2010. "Selling City Futures: The Financialization of Urban Redevelopment Policy," Economic Geography, Clark University, vol. 86(3), pages 251-274, July.
    3. Marques Benton & Lynn E. Browne & Prabal Chakrabarti & DeAnna Green & Yolanda Kodrzycki & Ana Patricia Munoz & David Plasse & Richard Walker & Bo Zhao, 2009. "Reinvigorating Springfield's economy: lessons from resurgent cities," Public and Community Affairs Discussion Papers 2009-03, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    4. Yolanda Kodrzycki & Ana Patricia Munoz, 2009. "Lessons from resurgent cities," Annual Report, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, pages 9-31.
    5. Gordon L. Clark & Lisa A. Hagerman & Tessa Hebb, 2007. "Investment intermediaries in economic development: Linking public pension funds to urban revitalization," Community Development Innovation Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue 1, pages 45-65.
    6. Rachel Weber, 2010. "Selling City Futures: The Financialization of Urban Redevelopment Policy," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 86(3), pages 251-274, July.
    7. Marques Benton & Lynn E. Browne & Prabal Chakrabarti & DeAnna Green & Yolanda Kodrzycki & Ana Patricia Munoz & David Plasse & Richard Walker & Bo Zhao, 2009. "Reinvigorating Springfield's economy: lessons from resurgent cities," Public Policy Discussion Paper 09-6, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    8. Prasad, Monica, 2006. "The Politics of Free Markets," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226679013, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stephanie Farmer & Chris D Poulos, 2019. "The financialising local growth machine in Chicago," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(7), pages 1404-1425, May.
    2. Kevin Fox Gotham, 2016. "Re-anchoring capital in disaster-devastated spaces: Financialisation and the Gulf Opportunity (GO) Zone programme," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(7), pages 1362-1383, May.
    3. Peter O’Brien & Andy Pike, 2019. "‘Deal or no deal?’ Governing urban infrastructure funding and financing in the UK City Deals," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(7), pages 1448-1476, May.
    4. William Sites, 2012. "God from the Machine? Urban Movements Meet Machine Politics in Neoliberal Chicago," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 44(11), pages 2574-2590, November.
    5. Klink, Jeroen & Stroher, Laisa Eleonora Maróstica, 2017. "The making of urban financialization? An exploration of brazilian urban partnership operations with building certificates," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 519-528.
    6. Feng, Yi & Wu, Fulong & Zhang, Fangzhu, 2022. "The development of local government financial vehicles in China: A case study of Jiaxing Chengtou," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    7. Federico Savini, 2021. "Towards an urban degrowth: Habitability, finity and polycentric autonomism," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(5), pages 1076-1095, August.
    8. Laura Deruytter & David Bassens, 2021. "The Extended Local State under Financialized Capitalism: Institutional Bricolage and the Use of Intermunicipal Companies to Manage Financial Pressure," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 232-248, March.
    9. Xiaobo Su, 2015. "Urban entrepreneurialism and the commodification of heritage in China," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 52(15), pages 2874-2889, November.
    10. Hanna Hilbrandt & Monika Grubbauer, 2020. "Standards and SSOs in the contested widening and deepening of financial markets: The arrival of Green Municipal Bonds in Mexico City," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(7), pages 1415-1433, October.
    11. Kate Gasparro & Ashby Monk, 2020. "Demystifying “localness†of infrastructure assets: Crowdfunders as local intermediaries for global investors," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(5), pages 878-897, August.
    12. Antoine Guironnet, 2019. "Cities on the global real estate marketplace: urban development policy and the circulation of financial standards in two French localities," Post-Print halshs-02297204, HAL.
    13. Paul Langley, 2018. "Frontier financialization: Urban infrastructure in the United Kingdom," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(2), pages 172-184, June.
    14. Philip Ashton & Marc Doussard & Rachel Weber, 2016. "Reconstituting the state: City powers and exposures in Chicago’s infrastructure leases," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(7), pages 1384-1400, May.
    15. Frances Brill, 2020. "Complexity and coordination in London’s Silvertown Quays: How real estate developers (re)centred themselves in the planning process," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(2), pages 362-382, March.
    16. Peter O’Brien & Phil O’Neill & Andy Pike, 2019. "Funding, financing and governing urban infrastructures," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(7), pages 1291-1303, May.
    17. Desiree Fields & Sabina Uffer, 2016. "The financialisation of rental housing: A comparative analysis of New York City and Berlin," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(7), pages 1486-1502, May.
    18. Erica Pani & Nancy Holman, 2014. "A Fetish and Fiction of Finance: Unraveling the Subprime Crisis," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 90(2), pages 213-235, April.
    19. Marques Benton & Lynn E. Browne & Prabal Chakrabarti & DeAnna Green & Yolanda Kodrzycki & Ana Patricia Munoz & Richard Walker & Bo Zhao, 2010. "Does Springfield receive its fair share of municipal aid? : implications for aid formula reform in Massachusetts," New England Public Policy Center Working Paper 10-4, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    20. Matthias Bernt & Laura Colini & Daniel Förste, 2017. "Privatization, Financialization and State Restructuring in Eastern Germany: The case of Am südpark," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(4), pages 555-571, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:loceco:v:28:y:2013:i:5:p:488-498. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/index.shtml .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.