key: cord-0825563-duo56nzb
authors: Deslatte, Aaron; Hatch, Megan E.; Stokan, Eric
title: How Can Local Governments Address Pandemic Inequities?
date: 2020-06-02
journal: Public Adm Rev
DOI: 10.1111/puar.13257
sha: a71b9e55b779d9b0af8cf2f621076242cfa7e7df
doc_id: 825563
cord_uid: duo56nzb

COVID‐19 is exposing a nexus between communities disproportionately suffering from underlying health conditions, policy‐reinforced disparities, and susceptibility to the disease. As the virus spreads, policy responses will need to shift from focusing on surveillance and mitigation to recovery and prevention. Local governments, with their histories of mutual aid and familiarity with local communities, are capable of meeting these challenges. However, funding must flow in a flexible enough fashion for local governments to tailor their efforts to preserve vital services and rebuild local economies. We argue in this article that the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) programs are mechanisms for how to provide funds in a manner adaptable to local context while also focusing on increasing social equity. Administrators must emphasize the fourth pillar of public administration ‐‐ social equity ‐‐ in framing government responses to the pandemic.

food. Combined with efforts by counties to reduce their incarcerated populations and state "stay at home" orders along with other public health policy responses, these actions aim to address existing inequities. However, much more will need to be done to address these deeply rooted disparities. These are not simple problems and will necessitate taking on long-standing discriminatory and economic injustice challenges. 3 While perhaps the most capable, many local governments have been poorly served by their states and the federal government and cannot address the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences alone. They need the federal government to provide funding and to ease rules that make it difficult for governments to act. We argue in this article that the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) programs are models for how to provide funds in a manner adaptable to local context while also focusing on increasing social equity. States and local governments will need license to act, which may involve striking previous preemptions which hinder local governments" responsiveness (Goodman, Hatch, and McDonald 2020), or loosening administrative rules. For example, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has waived some regulatory requirements for Community Planning and Development grants and the Housing Choice Voucher Program. 4 Intergovernmental dialog will be necessary for the federal government to understand what financial and administrative support its states and local governments need. Now, more than ever, administrators must emphasize the fourth pillar of public administrationsocial equityin framing government responses to the pandemic (Norman-Major 2011). Only within a social equity lens will administrators be able to address the dual concerns of why COVID-19 had a disproportionate impact on some groups and what can be centers, and highways. The hard lessons learned from these experiences should not be overlooked when developing federal stimulus efforts touted to help "rebuild" economies (Jacobs 1961). now be decentralized, communities were largely on their own to develop the capacities to use these funds wisely and ensure they were meeting the goals of community development. Today, the CDBG program administered by HUD has very few requirements. For local governments to qualify as "entitlement communities" they must have a population of 50,000 and greater for municipalities or 200,000 or greater for counties. Additionally, states receive money to be spent on non-entitlement communities that fall below this population threshold. Whether communities qualify as "entitlement" or "non-entitlement communities," local governments must spend 70% of the funds in low-to-moderate income (LMI) areas or to benefit members that are LMI within those areas. 5

Federalism works best when it compliments rather than replaces federal authority.

Intergovernmental cost-sharing and "fiscal federalism" mechanisms, such as block grant programs, have evolved to better address these problems. And while far from perfect, we argue the flexibility and expediency needed now make them the best approach to revive local economies while supporting low-income communities.

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the extraordinary tension that governing in a federal vacuum can create. Clear lines of authority and responsibility in some cases have broken down, with state and local governments working against, rather than with one another. Examples abound of cities and states competing with each other and the federal government to purchase ventilators and personal protective equipment. 6 These cases expose a worrisome competition where governments with less money and power cannot obtain vital resources to protect public health.

In some ways, these COVID-19 coordination problems mirror state and local economic development efforts over the last four-plus decades. It has long been the purview of state and local governments to create jobs and generate own-source revenues. Today, governments at both levels rely on a broad set of strategies and policy tools to achieve these ends. Such efforts historically revolved around offering firms property tax abatements, tax credits, and tax increment financing (TIF). This typified the tools used for "smokestack chasing." Some communities evolved to focus more on retaining and expanding businesses, spurring entrepreneurship and small business growth. Business incubators and accelerators have become commonplace. A smaller subset of cities has transitioned to approach development in a more Accepted Article inclusive fashion with a cognizance for long-term sustainability (Hawkins et al. 2016) . While this progress is noteworthy, the local economic development landscape in the U.S. is still broadly characterized by intense competition for resources (Zheng and Warner 2010) . In the absence of clear federal guidance for how economies should rebuild, along with flexible funding, the longterm recovery of communities may inevitably resemble "status quo" economic competition.

Recent research suggests there are factors that determine which trajectory governments pursue (Deslatte and Stokan 2019) . Localities make tradeoffs between traditional firm-based approaches focusing on tax abatements and TIFs, and alternative approaches featuring job training assistance, community development loans, entrepreneurship and sustainability (Stokan, Deslatte and Hatch, Forthcoming) . These tradeoffs are explained by three factors: (1) Local government competition for economic development, (2) organizational capacities (financial, technical, political), and (3) organizational interconnectedness --the set of actors that are present to influence policy selection (e.g. governmental and private-sector actors). These factors are also baked into the historical pattern of path dependence which present barriers to moving toward a path of social equity and sustainability. This is important now, because governments face extreme pressures to jump-start local economies in the months and years ahead. Most will also likely need to reduce capital asset investments, delay or cancel purchases, consider monetizing their assets, impose new fees, and otherwise re-allocate diminished resources. In many cases, local governments will be even more reliant on policies that do not require cash outlays today (property tax abatements and TIFs); however, these tools tend to be associated with smokestack chasing unless they are reconfigured in a way to achieve goals of social equity and sustainability. The creativity that is needed now is in how to best structure economic development policies to leverage fiscal resources in a way that

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Across the world, many governments are recognizing that restarting their economies presents an opportunity to take on climate change and inequality through investments in green buildings, infrastructure and energy. New York City, for instance, has announced a COVID-19 "recovery for all" plan to target social inequity as part of its economic rebuilding efforts. Leaders across sectors and at all levels of government recognize that crises are the time to improve upon existing economic and social structures. As Kettl (2020) asserts, now is the time for policy change, not a return to the status quo. We concur, and argue the response to COVID-19 should be made with a social equity lens, using the current circumstance to be "a lever for change" (Guy and McCandless 2012). Local governments can focus their efforts to ensure a more equitable and sustainable development pattern going forward. The U.S. federalist system has gotten a bad rap during the COVID-19 response, but its state and local governments have proven time after time to be a major incubator of innovation. They deserve the chance to prove it again.

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