The Opening of the Cybernetic Frontier: Cities of the Prairie

by Elazar,Daniel

• ISBN13: 9780765802019
• ISBN10: 0765802015
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781351323345
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-01-31
• Publisher: Routledge
• More Book Details

Summary

The Opening of the Cybernetic Frontier is the third installment in the Cities of the Prairie Project. It completes an ongoing multi-generational, comparative study of ten medium-sized communities located in five Prairie and Plains states--Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Colorado. This long-term study was initiated by Daniel J. Elazar in 1959 to develop a comprehensive theory explaining and forecasting the development of the civil community based upon the changing relationship between internal developments and external factors. In this new volume, Elazar and his colleagues trace developments in these communities during the 1980s and 1990s. The study examines how local communities function politically, socially, and economically, and then analyzes the impact that regional, national, and international trends and patterns have on local political systems in general and the cities of the prairie in particular. It revisits these communities at the dawning of a new frontier, the city-cybernetic frontier, which is characterized by a knowledge-intensive economic base made possible by computer and communication technologies. Changing t

Table of Contents

Fables, Figures, and Maps	ix
Editor's Introduction	xiii
Preface	xv
Introduction: Themes and Theses	1	(12)
Part 1 Reconstitution, Building Civic Capital, Economic Renewal
1 The Civil Community and Its Governance	13	(16)
2 The Internal Dynamics of the Cities of the Prairie	29	(14)
3 The Cities and Their Environment	43	(22)
4 Civil Community, Government, and the New Frontier	65	(22)
5 The Cities of the Prairie in Cyberspace	87	(10)
6 New Departures	97	(16)
Part 2 Northeastern Illinois and Chicagoland
7 The Rockford Civil Community: New Kid in the Northeastern Bloc	113	(20)
8 The Joliet Civil Community: A Buckle on the Rustbelt	133	(20)
Part 3 Central Illinois: The Grand Prairie
9 The Peoria Civil Community: Recession and Recovery in the Illinois Valley	153	(34)
10 Champaign-Urbana: Prosperity on the Prairie	187	(28)
11 Decatur: Agribusiness in a Cybernetic Age	215	(20)
12 Springfield: Capital Prospering	235	(10)
Part 4 Western Illinois: North and South
13 The Southwestern Illinois Metropolitan Region	245	(24)
14 The Quad Cities: The "State of Scott" and Illinois' Northwest	269	(24)
Part 5 Across the Mississippi
15 The Duluth Civil Community: The End of a Long Depression?	293	(24)
16 Pueblo, Colorado: Modernization and the Mobilization of Public Capital: 1967-1997	317	(32)
Part 6 A Summation
17 Building Civil Community on the Cybernetic Frontier	349	(20)
Conclusion: Citizenship and Public in Metropolitan America	369	(12)
Bibliography	381	(2)
Index	383