Corporate
Philanthropy in the New Urban Economy: The Role of
Business-Nonprofit Realignment by Leonard
Nevarez Department of
Sociology Vassar
College Accepted for publication in
Urban Affairs Review November
2000 I
examined corporate philanthropy to community nonprofits in
three coastal Southern California communities&endash;Santa
Monica, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo&endash;where
economic restructuring has recently transformed local
economies to different degrees and with different emphases.
The most economically vibrant of the three, Santa Monica
(1990 pop. 86,905) has a critical mass of entertainment and
software firms linked to the greater software and
entertainment districts of the Los Angeles metropolis, as
well as strength in professional services like health care
and architecture.3
Removed from Los Angeles's sprawl by scenic stretches of
wilderness and coast, Santa Barbara (1990 pop. 89,200)
appears to be reaching the stage of industrial "critical
mass" as growth in software, telecommunications, and
high-tech medical devices sectors gradually offsets the
decline of older, defense-related R&D firms; the area
also includes a handful of entertainment firms, mostly
independent production companies and post-production
studios. The least industrially developed of the three
research sites, San Luis Obispo (1990 pop. 41,958) is the
seat of a predominantly agricultural county where high-tech
entrepreneurs and city officials seek to expand what they
acknowledge is a modest base of new software, Internet, and
light manufacturing firms (but virtually no entertainment
firms). All three research sites also
contain environmental and community amenities that sustain
tourism industries and retiree/second home populations.
Santa Monica's beachfront district is the location for
television's "Baywatch" and a popular commercial/leisure
destination for local and international visitors. Santa
Barbara combines a Spanish colonial ambiance
(architecturally mandated in a Mission Revival motif) with
the outdoor recreations and New Age texture of its
university-related populations. San Luis Obispo's natural
and pastoral landscapes, small town ambiance, and
university-based cosmopolitanism have attracted retirees
(25% of residents in some communities) and other
émigrés from metropolitan regions.
Environmental and community amenities, of course, lure more
than people seeking leisure. In Santa Barbara and San Luis
Obispo, they attract firms and freelancers in software and
entertainment able to work at long distance from industrial
districts due to telecommunications and relative proximity
to Silicon Valley and Los Angeles (Nevarez 1999). Finally, all three sites have
progressive urban regimes. Their policy thrusts, which have
earned notorious "antibusiness" reputations, range from rent
control in Santa Monica toward more middle-class concerns
for slow growth and preserving environmental amenities in
Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo. These progressive regimes
sharpen the context for analyzing business activism and
philanthropy. My reasoning here is that if the
"antibusiness" climate troubled software, entertainment, or
tourism companies, then they would mobilize the political
activism of the traditional urban business community
(Friedland and Palmer 1984, 407; Molotch 1979). Presumably
this mobilization would occur at least in part through
conventional forms of corporate philanthropy and thereby
confirm the null hypothesis scenario running through my
analysis. The civic domain is not the
chief arena for progressive regime politics in all three
research sites (cf. Ferman 1996). In Santa Monica, that
distinction goes to the electoral arena. Since 1977, the
Santa Monicans for Renters Rights (SMRR) party has
successfully organized and implemented progressive policies
in the city, for example, by establishing an elected rent
control board and using its city council majority to enact
social programs funded by linkages to development projects
(Capek and Gilderbloom 1992; Keating 1986). Still, the civic
sector farms progressive leaders and policy concerns to
SMRR. The city has a "Task Force on the Environment"
consisting of leaders from several environmental
organizations and is the model program for runoff policies
formulated by the locally headquartered Heal the Bay
organization. Six neighborhood organizations voice local
concerns that tend to center on diminishing open space,
reduced parking, increased noise and traffic, and other
impacts of Santa Monica's vibrant economy. In the other two research sites,
the civic domain is the chief arena for progressive
politics. In Santa Barbara, environmental organizations have
articulated and promoted most of the area's
environmental/slow growth policies since at least the 1969
Santa Barbara Channel oil spill, when the "Get Oil Out!"
organization led the charge for restrictions on offshore oil
development (Easton 1972). Similarly, San Luis Obispo's
"Mothers For Peace" galvanized national antinuclear protests
in the 1970s and local environmentalists in subsequent
decades (Epstein 1991). Since then, a number of local
environmental nonprofits have channeled activists' energies
toward establishing tough land use and environmental
regulations; when their efforts have brought them before
city or county government, they have effectively used
citizens' initiative ballots and electoral
referenda. In all three research sites,
certain community nonprofits provide the conservative
business community an organizational stronghold that I call
the traditional civic arena. In Santa Monica, the
boards of local nonprofits like the Chamber of Commerce, the
Santa Monica Museum of History, and the Boys and Girls Club
have historically provided formal and informal homes for
interest groups on the right, who lack a party organization
comparable to SMRR. Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo's
civic sectors are likewise segregated. The business
community cultivates its own civic settings, primarily the
chamber of commerce and the United Way. 3. Although entertainment has a
long history in Los Angeles, firms did not appear in Santa
Monica in substantial numbers until the early 1990s, after a
recessionary real estate crash triggered corporate
migrations from Hollywood proper (Kotkin 1998). Before that,
as a local banker told me, "it was tough to bring businesses
out here" because Santa Monica "was so far away" from Los
Angeles's older business districts. Back
to text.
in Regime Politics