Hello and welcome to Retrieving the Social Sciences, a production of the Center for Social Science scholarship. I'm your host, Ian Anson, Associate Professor of Political Science here at UMBC. On today's show, as always, we'll be hearing from UMBC faculty, students, visiting speakers, and community partners about the social science research they've been performing in recent times. Qualitative, quantitative, applied, empirical, normative. On Retrieving the Social Sciences we bring the best of UMBC's social science community to you.
Like many Americans, I live amidst the hustle and bustle of a city. While it makes recording podcasts pretty tough sometimes, I mean, the recycling truck just went by only a few minutes ago, I really wouldn't trade it for the world. And a lot of Americans actually agree with me. In fact, the Census Bureau estimates that 83% of the US population lives in urban areas. That's a remarkable increase from the 1950s when only 64% of us subscribed to urban lifestyles. Americans, live, work, and play together in densely populated urban corridors from the towering megalopolises of New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago to the sprawling city-county conglomerates in places like Charlotte, Atlanta, and Houston. And they also live in smaller, but no less important cities, like Baltimore, the home of UMBC.
Because the majority of us live in cities, social scientists have long considered how to make them better. Of special interest to today's guest is the subject of uirban economies, and the social science of improving economic outcomes of cities and their residents. Today I speak with Dr. Eric Stokan of the UMBC Department of Political Science. Dr. Stokan is an assistant professor in the department who has amassed an impressive array of plaudits since his arrival just a few years ago. In addition to his affiliations with the Metropolitan Government and management Lab at the Indiana University O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Dr. Stokan is an affiliate of the Center for Urban Studies at Wayne State University in his hometown of Detroit, Michigan. A widely cited researcher, Dr. Stokan's work has been funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development among other agencies. I'm really excited to bring you our recent conversation. Let's listen in.
Dr. Stokan, thank you so much for joining us today. We're really excited to have you and really excited to talk about some of your research.
It's an absolute pleasure to be here. Thank you for inviting me.
By all means. So I want to get into just starting off the basis of some of your recent research. A lot of this stuff is about local governance and economic development, which is coincidentally the topic of today's episode. What got you so interested in this subject?
That's a good question Ian. I grew up in a suburb just north of Detroit. And from a pretty early age, it became clear to me that there was a distinction between the suburb that I grew up in and the city of Detroit. And I attended Wayne State University in the heart of Detroit, and really recognized some of these differences. You know, in terms of things like the access to cultural communities and convention centers and sports stadia. We see this reflected in a lot of our cities across the United States. At the same time, there were these neighborhoods that were severely disinvested. And I didn't think about this from sort of a formal standpoint, at this rate, until I finished my master's degree. I interned at the Center for Urban Studies at Wayne State University. And it was there that I was asked to focus on economic development and try to understand and explain what kind of policies actually worked to spur economic development and growth. And that really became sort of a lifelong passion of mine. I'm still focused on this core question and trying to understand one, why governments use particular types of economic development tools, and the broad based impacts that it has on the communities.
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right that this is a perennial question and not one just that applies to your home city of Detroit, but also cities like Baltimore, cities up and down the east coast and certainly being here at UMBC. I think probably affords you some opportunities to study these questions in an environment, right, where these these answers are urgently needed. And so I think, I really want to ask you a bit about some of the findings that you've obtained in your recent research related to economic development in cities. I'm really interested in knowing if you have any kind of advice for cities, right. You know, what should municipalities do to try to promote economic development? Maybe what should they avoid doing? And maybe are there no one size fits all solutions.
I think you hit the nail on the head, you know, with the comment that there's not a one size fits all solution, right? Yet many communities sort of engage in activities that are ubiquitous, right? You know, it is very common that our local governments will use tools like property tax abatements, to try to attract businesses. And what that does is it effectively reduces the the taxes that they would have to pay on property in a given area. I think part of the reason we see that, even though, you know, most research shows, it's not a very effective strategy, is that communities often don't have the same sets of resources. You know, this becomes a tool that they can all use in part, because it's not requiring them to use a lot of the resources that they have on hand today, right. They don't have to kind of tap into the budget in the same way. They're just forgiving property taxes over a certain amount of years. So, you know, this becomes the most common strategy that we see of economic developers. And if we look at, you know, Amazon headquarters 2.0, it's, it's a prime example of what happens here. You know, we see, of course, some sort of silly and absurd examples where, you know, take a city like StoneCrest, Georgia who's willing to change part of their name to Amazon, or, you know, another example of Tucson, Arizona, that sends, you know, the Seattle headquarters a 20-foot cactus. You know, those are notable examples,they stick out. But really, you know, the kind of more important aspect of this is that a lot of communities decided to offer huge incentives in the form of tax breaks.
If I'm not mistaken, Baltimore also offered a pretty lucrative package, maybe to Amazon to try to attract the headquarters, which, obviously, that didn't pan out.
That's absolutely right. I mean, both Baltimore, as well as Montgomery County, right. And, you know, what's interesting about this is that in particularly in the case of Montgomery County, they're positioned in a metropolitan region, where at least some of that benefit's gonna spill over into other communities that are outside of the jurisdiction. And this is often what happens, right. So, you know, Montgomery County, for example, was going to spend $6.5 billion in tax incentives, and then an additional $2 billion on infrastructure and transportation development. And, you know, I think this just highlights the extent to which communities that are even well-positioned, will sometimes use these tools, without maybe balancing all their priorities that I think is important, such as equity and environmental sustainability. You know, if I can stick a little bit with Amazon example here, part of what they were looking for, and their requests, were things like talent: how educated is the labor? You know, what's the quality of life? What does housing affordability look like in those communities? But a lot of the incentives that were offered were not fully aligned with this. And I think communities really would do well to leverage some of their tools. But think about other goals like equity, like environmental sustainability.
Yeah, I think that's a fascinating perspective, that it's really a holistic picture to try to understand how to attract these corporations to try to attract this, this investment. Yes. Dr. Stokan? I think those are some fantastic insights. And it really does speak to the idea that there's really no one size fits all solution, as you're saying, but also that these municipalities need to think about, you know, this bigger picture, that's, you know, really, I think widens our perspective on the topics that local government can consider. I want to think a little bit also about this recent article that you published with some co authors in Urban Affairs Review. And the link to that article, by the way, will be in the show notes for interested listeners. In that article, you make a distinction between what's called firm and locality-based strategies. Obviously, that's a little bit of a technical phrase. I was hoping that maybe you could unpack that for the listener a little bit. Is that similar to what we've been talking about so far? Is that something somewhat different?
So I think it is reflected in our article, right? The idea that mostly what we see in economic development and have seen really even going back to prior to the 1950s, is focused on trying to attract the firm, right. And so this holds in the case of Amazon, that would be considered a firm-based strategy. Many economic developers want to try to attract businesses, and they do this to some of those tax incentives that I mentioned. But counter to that, or another sort of pathway to economic growth, is through locality -based strategies, or what we sometimes call place-based strategies. The focus here is really on developing the place. And when we think about the infrastructure package that President Biden just signed, a big part of that is focusing on the physical infrastructure: developing the roadways, fixing bridges, maintaining the physical infrastructure that will help our communities get to their jobs, will help individuals get to school. But you know, what's also important from these locality-based strategies is developing the place in a way that becomes conducive to attracting a broad base of individuals. You know, there's a somewhat famous book now by Richard Florida, talking about the creative class and very much focused on this idea that, you know, we don't have to just attract businesses to grow our economy, we can also attract people who have desires for certain types of amenities, and developing the place can absolutely help with that.
It strikes me that this is an argument or a set of ideas that really invokes a lot of considerations related to equity as well, because, you know, if you can manage to do this for a place, then there can be spillover effects to the existing community, right. So I think about this not only as a way to maybe attract talent, but also to actually serve communities that are already existing in a place where economic development is, is a priority.
Yeah, and I think that's hugely important. You know, one of the things that we see from the research generally, is that when we use these kind of traditional financial tools to attract firms, what happens is it has an immediate economic impact. Jobs are created. But the key question becomes, who shares in those jobs? And then what impact does that have on the rest of the community and the residents that exists there? You know, we don't often think about it this way, but it's their tax dollars that are effectively funding these decisions. So when we look at some sort of investment that's made to attract businesses, we see that, in the short run, more jobs are created. Timothy Bartik, at the Upjohn Institute, has done some important research in this area and finds that within about five years, 80% of those jobs will go to people who didn't initially live within that community.
Wow, that's a staggering statistic. 80% of those jobs are taken then by people who come into the community, not the people who were there initially. Really?
Absolutely. And I think, you know, sometimes this is lost on us, right? I mean, there, it is hard for communities, and it's much easier to be critical of them. Right. I mean, you know, when you are an economic developer of a small city, there's only so many things that you can do. And there is a disconnect that exists between politics and economics here. You know, what makes for good economics does not always make for good politics. So, you know, this is why we see ribbon cutting ceremonies, right? We highlight the any sort of political wins in this area, but we need to ask ourselves and think very critically, and I think this is the time to do it. What are these tools mean for the residents that currently exist here? And can we, you know, simultaneously balance growth and equity, and that's much of what the research I do is focused on. It's trying to say, look, you know, we know that there's opportunity cost, if we spend money and resources trying to attract Amazon, that comes at a cost of other things we could do like supporting local entrepreneurs. You know, there's a lot of research to suggest that something like a business incubator, where municipalities, you know, help to subsidize the cost of rents for entrepreneurs and provide them with a range of services, I mean, financial services, marketing services, technical services, as well as important networks. That can be a tool that maybe it's not on the same level a, you know it, it's harder to scale it up, but it helps develop the economy from within and more of the community shares in the actual benefits.
Growth and equity. Two important goals. Two maybe conflicting goals, maybe sometimes synergistic goals. I think that this is a really fantastic set of insights, Dr. Stokan, and I want to thank you so much for providing them. I want to ask a follow up question. Given that these are such important topics that you're dealing with, obviously, we as social scientists can't just make claims out of thin air, right? We've got to have evidence to support what we're saying. And I want to ask you a little bit about the process of your research, about how you come to some of these conclusions about these important topics for cities and municipalities. And what kind of data are you using to arrive at these conclusions? And what are some challenges maybe that you face doing the actual science behind this work?
Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I mean, when we think about data today, particularly for governmental data, it's becoming much more readily available. But a lot of what I do, much like the article you discuss, focuses on longitudinal decision-making. And we haven't traditionally had great data that tell us, you know, what, and to what extent communities are using some of these tools, and in fact, they've done a pretty good job in shielding themselves from making this publicly available until recently. So I rely very heavily on survey data that comes from the International City County Management Association. They've done a survey of economic developers every five years going back to 1984, across the United States, so it really becomes the only sort of a longitudinal set of data that we have on key economic development decisions. Now, as you suggest, there's always, you know, some shortcomings or complications with the data that we have. And in this case, all I can say is whether or not a policy is offered, I don't really know the extent to which and how much money is being spent. If I want to look at this from a longitudinal standpoint. Furthermore, you know, anyone who uses survey data often recognize that not everyone responds at the same rate. And unfortunately, some of the factors that drive the decision to respond are also tied to the things that might make them more likely to use certain types of policies. So, you know, so you know, who responds? Well, it tends to be cities that have larger populations, likely more resources, the capacity to respond to the surveys. So there are shortcomings, and I think a lot of efforts and certainly some efforts I'm engaged in now are trying to figure out smart ways to supplement that survey data with administrative records, and maybe even and into the future data that can be found from websites or scraped from other sources.
Yeah, I know Halloween was only a few weeks ago, but I think a really scary costume for a social scientist might be sample selection bias. If you dress up a sample selection bias, I think you'd probably scare a lot of social scientists. That's a really pernicious issue. And I'm really excited to hear that you're able to work with your co-authors on potentially mitigating some of those issues, especially because they seem to run parallel to some considerations about equity as well. On that note, I want to ask you some questions about sort of your role as as a teacher as well as a researcher. Oviously, as a professor at UMBC we're called to be excellent at both, and I want to know if you have any advice for students who might be interested in getting more involved in the social sciences, potentially making social science into a career path. Do you have any, any words of advice for a student who might be listening to this podcast and interested in, in tailoring their skills to a social science career?
Sure, let, I think I can keep it to about an hour. So I think that would work, right, for the segment? Joking aside, absolutely. Right. I mean, when we think about social science, and sort of, as I've already alluded to, we're in this period where data is becoming much more available. right? And with that comes a whole host of challenges. You know, I think students that really want to do research in the social sciences need to of course, take fundamental courses that are going to help them to that end, right. I mean, certainly, you know, classic research methods courses. But also, you know, I mean, I think the best research that we see today are mixed methods, right? That blend computational empirical research with really smart design and qualitative studies, you know, other ways in which we can make inferences. You know, for those that have a bend towards the empirical, I say, take as much math and statistics and computer programming and data science courses as you can. That's going to help them in the long run. More and more governments are trying to keep up with what's happening in industry. So there's a whole new realms of predictive analytics and, you know, programming tools that we can use to analyze large data. I also think, though, it's worth considering some of the non-academic things, you know, researchers need to do. There's an excellent book that I'm going to make a huge plug for here called Deep Work by Cal Newport. He's a computer programmer. And, you know, when we think about the sort of constant way in which we get information, whether that's, you know, through text messages, emails, social media, we're getting push notifications from games and apps. We are bombarded.
I shudder to think how many emails I've received during the course of this interview, right?
If you would do well not to check those until much later, right? And this is going to be Cal Newport's, you know, argument that, look, as a result, this rewires and restructures our brain. I mean, the the dopamine hits that we get from constantly checking these emails actually impacts the quality of things like the research we would do. So, you know, taking time and spending a couple hours thinking deeply about the type of research and, you know, and really honing in on some of these core skills, I think, would serve any student well, going into the future. You know, the one other thing I'd say is read a lot. Think across disciplines. You know, within our traditional disciplines, we spend a lot of time thinking about what we study, and sometimes it becomes a little bit narrow. And I think a lot of the advances that we see in social sciences generally and some of the important advances happen at the intersection of two areas, let's say politics and psychology, right, Dr. Ian?
That may well makes sense to me. Dr. Stokan, fantastic insights, fantastic advice. Certainly advice that I'm also going to take with me at the conclusion of this interview. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today. And I wish you all the best as you continue to work on this critical research enterprise.
Well, thank you so much for having me here today. And I definitely enjoyed answering the questions.
Campus Connection (6x)
It's time now for Campus Connection, a segment where we connect the work of today's featured guest to other Social Science happening on UMBC's campus. Dr. Stokan's work on revitalizing urban economies reminds us of the immense stakes of social science research. Our research into the urban economy and the trade offs between firm-level and municipality-level policy approaches can make the difference between who benefits from economic initiatives and who gets left behind. They also help to determine whether our cities are more verdant, featuring richer levels of biodiversity. Biodiversity is a key outcome of interest for Dr. Christopher Swan, a professor in the UMBC Department of Geography and Environmental Systems. In a recent co-authored article in the journal: Landscape Ecology, Dr. Swan and co-authors propose a new model for understanding how species formed communities in the urban landscape. This meta-community perspective is notable in its emphasis on the social factors that impact the species that exist in cities. Just a brief note of clarification, by the way. The model emphasizes human social factors of course, not bird or shrub or insect social factors, though, I'm sure those can also play a role. Anyway, the research suggests that while top-down government processes impact biodiversity, such as the pernicious effects of redlining and other racially motivated policies, the choices made by individual homeowners can also have a major impact too. It takes all of us to think carefully about how to ensure our cities are verdant, economically successful, and socially just. Today's social scientists are working hard to help inform our decisions, and we owe them our thanks for their efforts.
Retrieving the Social Sciences is a production of the UMBC Center for Social Science Scholarship. Our director is Dr. Christine Mallinson. Our associate director is Dr. Felipe Filomeno. And our production intern is Jefferson Rivas. Our theme music was composed and recorded by D'Juan Moreland. Find out more about CS3 at socialscience.umbc.edu and make sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, where you can find full video recordings of recent UMBC events. Until next time, keep questioning.
