Imbroscio, David L.

PERSONAL:

Male. Education: Ohio State University, B.A. (summa cum laude), M.A.; University of Maryland, M.A., Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Political Science Department, University of Louisville, Ford Hall, Rm. 205, Louisville, KY 40292. E-mail—imbroscio@louisville. edu.

CAREER:

National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives, Washington, DC, senior research associate, 1999-2000; University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, currently associate professor of political science.

MEMBER:

American Political Science Association.

WRITINGS:

Reconstructing City Politics: Alternative Economic Development and Urban Regimes, Sage Publications (Thousand Oaks, CA), 1997.

(With Thad Williamson and Gar Alperovitz) Making a Place for Community: Local Democracy in a Global Era, foreword by Benjamin R. Barber, Routledge (New York, NY), 2002.

Contributor to books, including Expanding the Boundaries of Urban Regime Theory, edited by Karen Mossberger, University Press of Kansas, 2002; and Critical Evaluations of Economic Development Policies, edited by Laura Reese and David Fasenfest, Wayne State University Press, 2002. Contributor to journals, including Policy Studies Journal, Journal of Urban Affairs, Urban Affairs Review, and Polity. Editorial board member, Journal of Urban Affairs.

SIDELIGHTS:

David L. Imbroscio is a political science scholar whose interests include urban issues and community. His Reconstructing City Politics: Alternative Economic Development and Urban Regimes, written for an audience of planners, educators, and other social scientists involved with these issues, studies how forming progressive political-economic coalitions can enhance traditional development strategies and improve opportunities for urban workers. To do so would be to bring to the fore community concerns by reforming the business-oriented planning that is to be seen in most cities in the United States. He notes the empirical nature of typical city politics—or urban regime theory—through which public and private elites benefit to the detriment of entire groups of people. As part of the solution, he advocates fostering entrepreneurial and community-based enterprise, as well as municipal development.

Reviewing Reconstructing City Politics for the Urban Affairs Review, Susan E. Clarke wrote: "To assess the effectiveness and feasibility of each option, he buttresses this analysis of policy alternatives with an impressive array of empirical evidence that includes technical evaluations and interviews with officials in cities touting embryonic entrepreneurial mercantilist (St. Paul) and community-based economic development (Pittsburgh) strategies." "Imbroscio's dissection of regime theory is well done, and his presentation of the alternative models is thorough and informative," according to Robert A. Beauregard in the American Journal of Sociology. "Moreover, the basic intent— revealing the normative inclinations that other urban political economists keep hidden—deserves praise."

Imbroscio, along with Thad Williamson and Gar Alperovitz, also wrote Making a Place for Community: Local Democracy in a Global Era. The authors state that the conflicts of capitalism are fraught with opposing ideas, such as the need "to preserve, sustain, and strengthen geographically defined communities over time" and the thought that "public policy should seek to facilitate individual and business mobility, no matter what the costs." The authors cite three threats to cities and towns, including urban sprawl, increased free trade and globalization, and mobility of capital that results in lost jobs. Although the book is fact filled, it is a humanitarian tome that focuses on fostering and stabilizing sustainable communities. The theme that democracy must be practiced on a local level emphasizes the need for local participation in government and the economy so that infrastructure is maintained and strengthened. The authors point out existing federal, state, and local policies that could be expanded and applied and stress the need to reexamine U.S. trade policy as it impacts communities. Journal of the Community Development Society contributor Margie Deweese-Boyd wrote that "Making a Place for Community is an important contribution to the literature on place-oriented economic development. A must-read for both practitioners and academics interested in community development, the book presents a detailed and well-researched account of the factors exerting pressure on communities and also highlights the potential of many current efforts to counter these pressures and promote local development."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Journal of Sociology, March, 1999, Robert A. Beauregard, review of Reconstructing City Politics: Alternative Economic Development and Urban Regimes, p. 1572.

City Limits, February, 2003, review of Making a Place for Community: Local Democracy in a Global Era, p. 36.

Journal of the American Planning Association, autumn, 1998, Mickey Lauria, review of Reconstructing City Politics, p. 498.

Journal of the Community Development Society, January, 2003, Margie Deweese-Boyd, review of Making a Place for Community, p. 126.

Publishers Weekly, September 2, 2002, review of Making a Place for Community, p. 72.

Urban Affairs Review, January, 1988, Susan E. Clarke, review of Reconstructing City Politics, p. 33.

ONLINE

University of Louisville Department of Political Science Web site,http://www.louisville.edu/a-s/polsci/ (October 10, 2006), biography and career information on David L. Imbroscio.

Yes,http://www.yesmagazine.org/ (September 12, 2006), David Morris, review of Making a Place for Community.