The mission of the National League of Cities is to advocate for cities—and the organization is now gathering evidence to push back on growing amount of state preemption of local control.
The National League of Cities is pushing back on a wave of threats to local control by states in every part of the country. The National League of Cities calls the expansion of state control "preemption," and it's re-upping its research efforts into the economic effect of preemption with a three-year research grant by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
According to an article announcing the funding, the National League of Cities "[posits] that preemption is negatively affecting the entrepreneurial ecosystems of cities and thereby impeding growth and innovation in city economies." The forthcoming research will "test this hypothesis through rigorous analysis and quantitative research to provide data on the ultimate impact of these misguided policy dichotomies between state and city."
The article notes that the research is coning at a "critical time" in the political debate that pits state versus local municipalities. According to analysis published by the National League of Cities in 2017, "Preemption, or the use of state law to nullify a municipal ordinance or authority, has proliferate in recent years, particularly in economic development-related policy areas, including minimum wage, municipal broadband and the sharing economy."
FULL STORY: Preemption Threatens Economic Development and Innovation
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University of Cincinnati Online
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Journal of the American Planning Association