Rebel Cities-David Harvey

82 REBEL CITIESintentioned-erodes the foundations of our liberal democracies becauseit undermines the notion that there can be forms of self-government thatexist outside the institutions of the central government.26Beyond market efficiency and effectiveness, there is a non-commodifiablereason to go to a smaller scale."While large-scale units were part of effective governance of metropolitanregions:· Ostrom concludes, "small and medium-scale units werealso necessary components:' The constructive role of these smaller units,she argued, "needs to be seriously rethought:' The question then arises ofhow relations between the smaller units might be structured. The answer,says Vincent Ostrom, is as a "polycentric order" in which "many elementsare capable of making mutual adjustments ordering their relationshipswith one another within a general system of rules where each elementacts with independence of other elements."27So what is wrong with this picture? This whole argument has its rootsin the so-called "Tiebout hypothesis:' What Tiebout proposed was afragmented metropolis in which many jurisdictions would each offer aparticular local tax regime and a particular bundle of public goods toprospective residents, who would "vote with their feet" and chose thatparticular mix of taxes and services that suited their own needs and preferences/8At first glance the proposal seems very attractive. The problemis that the richer you are the more easily you can vote with your feetand pay the entry price of property and land costs. Superior public educationmay be provided at the cost of high property prices and taxes,but the poor are deprived of access to the superior public education andare condemned to live in a poor jurisdiction with poor public education.The resultant reproduction of class privilege and power throughpolycentric governance fits neatly into neoliberal class strategies of socialreproduction.Along with many more radical proposals for decentralized autonomy,Ostrom's is in danger of falling into exactly this trap. Neoliberal politicsactually favors both administrative decentralization and the maximizationof local autonomy. While on the one hand this opens a space withinwhich radical fo rces can more easily plant the seeds of a more revolutionaryagenda, the counter-revolutionary takeover of Cochabamba in