Going Local: Understanding and Avoiding the Dangers of Localism

Localism has recently been placed back on the political agenda in many countries. Given this, the case for prioritizing the local should be subject to renewed scrutiny. In this review essay, I do this in two ways while being guided by two new books: Trevor Latimer's Small Isn’t Beautiful: The Case Against Localism and Jennifer Vey and Nate Storring's edited collection, Hyperlocal: Place Governance in a Fragmented World. Firstly, I use Latimer to examine how the localist revolution—much heralded by some—has the potential not only to produce good as well as regrettable outcomes, but increasingly regrettable outcomes in the name of good. Secondly, I use Vey and Storring to examine why localist solutions emerge and sometimes become necessary in the face of state and federal neglect. But even so, this does not necessarily mean that localism alone, without centralized coordination and oversight, is enough.


Introduction
Localism-or the valorization of local customs, institutions, and communities over centralized forms of power (Clarke and Cochrane 2013;Pratchett 2004;Stoker 2004; Wills 2016)-is firmly back on the political agenda in many countries following the recent surge of populist support and the local lockdowns put in place to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.Indeed, what both the re-emergence of populism and the early interventions to halt the global spread of COVID-19 revealed, albeit in different ways, is how our localities can comfort and protect us during uncertain times.For populists left behind and threatened by globalization's promise, particular local identities and customs helped safeguard "members of the native group" against "nonnative elements" (Chou, Moffitt and Busbridge 2022;Fitzgerald 2018;Macedo 2021;Mudde 2007, 19).Similarly, the border closures, quarantine mandates, and stay-at-home orders enacted during the early phases of the pandemicwhich engendered a heightened localist sensibility if not sentiment in some communities-helped curb the spread of a novel virus before vaccines became widely available (Cresswell 2021).
But even before populism and the pandemic reinforced localist orientations and arguments, the concept of localism had already been on the rise (Harmes 2021).We have seen it, for example, in the food sovereignty, buy local, and shop small movements of recent decades (Ayres and Bosia 2011;Ciuchta and O'Toole 2018), not to mention in the myriad efforts to foster more locally owned and oriented media, transportation, and energy initiatives (Hess 2009).The Evergreen Cooperatives in Ohio and the Democracy Collaborative's Community Wealth Building initiative are examples of economic localism that strive to foster community economic development by growing local jobs and community business ownership.In politics and governance, localism has influenced numerous policies and laws; the UK's Localism Act 2011 represents the most prominent example of a policy instrument developed to devolve to local councils, communities, and individuals the responsibility for rebuilding social cohesion and economic resilience (Featherstone et al. 2012;Watkins 2021).More recently, localist ideologies have shaped debates about the potential for local governance organizations, structures, and networks to drive economic, social, and environmental change in cities and urban communities (Katz and Nowak 2017).As vital spokes in the global capitalist economy, the recognition here is that cities and metropolitan centers can offer innovative solutions to entrenched problems.Then there was the pandemic itself, which prompted many local neighborhood organizations and groups to band together to provide mutual aid to family, friends, and neighbors in an extraordinary, if temporary, show of localist solidarity (Kavada 2022;Tolentino 2020).Taken together, these disparate movements, policies, and ideas signify, for some commentators, a "localist revolution" and maybe even a "localism era" (Brooks 2018;Watson 2017).
For many, the appeal of such a localist revolution or era is obvious.Indeed, for those currently threatened by the worst aspects of globalization, localism holds the promise of political recognition and empowerment (Briffault 2000;Cramer 2016;Wills 2015).For those hoping to build a more sustainable capitalism that has the potential to harness the positive aspects of technological change and globalization, localism (or new localism to be precise) can enhance local entrepreneurship, competition, and innovation and lead, ultimately, to a more humane economy (Katz and Nowak 2017;Kotkin 2023;Rajan 2023).It is this capacity to create "higher levels of economic inclusion" for more individuals and communities that has led some experts to see new localism, in particular, as an antidote to the nativist localism in right-wing populism as well (Chou 2020;Katz and Nowak 2017, 5;Muggah and Glenny 2017).For those seeking to rejuvenate democratic participation and inclusion more broadly, localism provides incentive to "establish a more direct form of democracy: to give individuals and local communities greater decision-making power in order to bridge the gap between the people and the politicians that work on their behalf" (Parvin 2009, 351).Finally, in elevating "family, friendship, locality, community and country," localism connects with the communitarian tradition to prefigure a "post-liberal politics" not dictated by left/right, liberal/populist, and libertarian/authoritarian dichotomies (Pabst 2021, 5;Walzer 1983).In this sense, as Sharzer (2012, 9) notes, "[l]ocalism deserves praise for refusing to abandon a humanist vision of the future, and for suggesting we're not completely powerless against neoliberalism." But while the attractions of localism may seem clear, the impulse to prioritize the local needs to be subjected to renewed examination-particularly in light of the recent rise of localist sensibilities and arguments.Indeed, as both populism and the pandemic showed, the turn to localism as a political solution may come with unintended consequences capable of producing both good and regrettable outcomes.These dynamics and tendencies need to be better understood and scrutinized.In this review essay, I do this in two ways using two new books as my guide: Trevor Latimer's Small Isn't Beautiful: The Case Against Localism and Jennifer Vey and Nate Storring's edited collection, Hyperlocal: Place Governance in a Fragmented World.Although very different books, Small Isn't Beautiful and Hyperlocal are useful complements here because both articulate the precise conditions and circumstances where localist ideas and structures can and cannot thrive as a force for good.
Firstly, I use Latimer's book to examine how the localist revolutionmuch heralded by some-has the potential not only to produce good as well as regrettable outcomes, but increasingly regrettable outcomes in the name of good.For Latimer, understanding the ideological underpinnings of the localist revolution-what he calls normative localism-and subjecting it to empirical scrutiny is crucial to seeing how many of localism's purported virtues are now antithetical to genuine localist causes.Secondly, taking up Latimer's call to examine the empirical evidence in support of localism, I turn to Vey and Storring's collection on hyperlocal place governance organizations to highlight the type of factors and considerations that aid this empirical examination.Through a series of case studies, Vey and Storring's collection does the very thing Latimer theorizes about: subjecting localist solutions to scrutiny, even when the rationale for them seems clear.Doing so, in the case of America's place governance organizations, reveals something paradoxical: that many of these hyperlocal organizations and networks-which emerged out of state and federal neglect-may now be best placed to address the patchwork of inequitable economic growth within and across American communities when connected in to, and coordinated through, the city, state, and federal agencies they complement.

The Case Against Localism
Localism, and localist thinking, is now everywhere, according to Latimer.What began with Eric Schumacher and his seminal 1973 treatise, Small Is Beautiful, a searing critique of the prevailing economic, political, and social "gigantism" at the time for a life lived on a smaller or more human scale, can now be seen in America's education policy, housing regulations, policing, welfare programs, firearm regulations, even in Donald Trump's discourse ("the relationships people value most are local"), not to mention in the selfdescribed liberals who went local to defy Trump during his term in Washington (Somin 2019).But whereas the notion of contemporary localism emerged as an antidote to a particular trend or crisis-excessive centralization -the problem today is that localism has become a sort of fuzzy or catch-all solution for problems as disparate as the "ills of globalization, the sclerosis of the welfare state, entrenched partisanship, the democratic deficit, the culture wars, anomie, apathy, and, in one extreme variety, the failure of liberalism itself" (Latimer, 13).
For Latimer, the case for localism has become blurred and backed largely by ideology.Instead of seeing localism as a specific solution to a specific crisis, "people began to argue that we should make decisions more locally because doing so was good in its own right" (Latimer,5).This form or use of localism, which Latimer labels normative localism, is troubling, and it is what Small Isn't Beautiful is dedicated to interrogating.
To understand why and how it is troubling, we need to first pause on Latimer's definition of localism.Here, it turns out that much of what Latimer finds problematic about localism echoes Markusen's (2003) critique of "fuzzy concepts" in regional studies, which are those concepts that have come to be characterized by conceptual slippage and lack of rigorous empirical scrutiny.Beginning by acknowledging those who have come to the concept before him-here Latimer cites scholars like Paul Hildreth, Jane Wills,David Hess,Mark Evans,Richard Briffault,and Jackson Turner Main,) maintains that localism is "malleable" and riddled with competing definitions.To take Wills' characterization, for example, would see localism defined as decentralizing power to local institutions and people.Conversely, understood through Hess, localism becomes a movement for local democracy and economic ownership.To Main, localism is something quite different again: an individual or outlook that is limited, provincial, or parochial.But for Latimer, these diverse definitions all share a common problem: they lump the label "localism" on all variety of things without necessarily pinpointing what specifically constitutes localism.For some scholars, this is precisely what localism is-"an umbrella term" (Evans, Marsh and Stoker 2013, 405).To Latimer, however, this approach is problematic.
To rectify this, Latimer puts forward his more specific definition that hinges on two fundamental facts: localism's spatial and indefinite dimensions.Understanding this, Latimer (28) argues, helps us to understand that localism is about "prioritizing anything smaller, in terms of size; closer, in terms of distance; or lower, within a 'jurisdictional hierarchy.'It is making decisions, exercising authority, or implementing policy somewhere small or smaller, close or closer, low or lower."But because space and scale are not natural or neutral concepts, Latimer argues that there is a need to be cautious of what underpins the case for prioritizing things smaller, closer, and lower.Doing so may reveal that localism may not be driven by evidence but rather normative considerations.In some instances, these normative considerations can hijack localism to achieve ends that "undermine rights or the public good" (Latimer, x).One example that Latimer gives of this is America's education policy, where "local autonomy has long been thought essential both to the maintenance of community concern and support for public schools and to quality of the educational process," as Chief Justice Warren Burger ruled in one of the most significant Supreme Court decisions on desegregation jurisprudence (Latimer, x).Despite this, Latimer (Id.) points out that there is now a "large and compelling" scholarly literature that demonstrates how localism in education can be problematic, particularly when it comes to segregation and inequitable funding.
The remainder of Latimer's book is dedicated to examining why the normative localist argument in relation to tyranny, belonging, nature, democracy, knowledge, and efficiency are popular but flawed.Here, I only zoom in on one of these arguments-in relation to belonging-to illustrate his case against normative localism.Although taking this blinkered approach obscures Latimer's broader arguments, it is done to concretely highlight his case in one instance-an instance that dovetails with the core subject of Vey and Storring's collection.
"Because we feel we belong in our local communities, because we value them and find meaning in them, it is permissible, or perhaps even obligatory, to prioritize them.Therefore, we should make more decisions and exercise more authority in the localities that matter to us most."That is the direct localist argument from the point of view of belonging in a nutshell, according to Latimer (67).And on the face of it, it is a widely supported argument.In poll after poll, as he notes, Americans express higher levels of confidence and trust in their local government and leaders compared to state and federal counterparts.For Americans who feel this way, it is because of the sense of belonging and attachment generated by their local community.Not only that, but data frequently shows that a majority of Americans believe their local institutions are better equipped to tackle a wide range of issues, from improving neighborhoods, reforming schools, helping the poor and disadvantaged, improving living standards, to making the environment better, than national institutions.The corollary of this sense of local trust and esteem is that more power and authority should be vested in local authorities and institutions than in state and federal equivalents.
But while it is tempting to see the localist argument for belonging as an offshoot of the intrinsic value of local community, Latimer contends there is something more troubling at play.This is stated most clearly when he writes: "Note that we feel attachment to our local communities, we find meaning and value in them, not entirely because of features about them but because they are ours" (Latimer, 67).In other words, trust in local governments and leaders tends to be highest because these institutions benefit us, and our families, friends, and neighbors, most.In this way, the meaning or value that stems from belonging is not an intrinsic value, but more an instrumental value as it is entwined with self-benefit.Similarly, calls to grant local institutions and practices with more power is less about capability than selfinterest.From a utilitarian perspective, then, favoring local communities and institutions-which means favoring friends and family at the expense of others-should not be morally justifiable.The only exception to this is where privileging friends and family "makes people's lives go better overall," not just our own lives and the lives of those closest to us (Latimer, 69).Stated differently: the localist argument stemming from belonging stands morally only if the outcome is greater belonging for all.This is less a normative question than "an empirical matter" (Latimer, 72).
Latimer illustrates the contours of his argument in various ways.The one I highlight here is his discussion of local development.Borrowing from Paul Peterson's classic distinction between redistributive, allocational, and developmental local policies, Latimer claims that prioritizing one's locality should only be justified in the case of developmental policies because these policies improve the economic well-being of an entire area and all its residents.Unlike redistributive and allocational policies, which either work to tax rich residents to aid poor residents or are mechanisms to determine which groups get which services first, developmental policies "enhance the local economy because their positive economic effects are greater than their cost to community residents" (Peterson 1981, 42).In particular, it is developmental policies' capacity to improve the welfare of all people-to be positive-sum-that is important, from Latimer's perspective.This, in other words, is the one exception he identifies where favoring local communities and institutions would be justifiable.
An example Latimer provides of this type of developmental initiative is what Philadelphia's Delaware River Waterfront Corporation (DRWC), a public-private partnership (PPP), has been doing to revitalize different sites along the Delaware River for public use.Latimer highlights their work at what is now Spruce Street Harbor Park, a floating beach constructed on three connecting barges, as a positive-sum developmental initiative that benefits Philadelphians-not just a subset of Philadelphians-economically and culturally.Drawing from this initiative, Latimer (82) concludes that in practice "development projects that bring resources to the communities that need them most, or will be more productive in using them," tend to be those that most "contribute to the general welfare." Taken together, the localist argument stemming from belonging exemplifies Latimer's broader critique of localism in two ways.First, it demonstrates how the intrinsic value of local community has come to be used as a foil for the instrumental value of local community.Whereas the former promotes local public benefit, the latter advances local self-benefit if not private benefit.Given this, emphasizing localist arguments deriving from belonging can be less morally justifiable than it seems when it privileges only a small segment of the local community-the segment most aligned to ourselves and our friends and family-potentially at the expense of the local community at large.Second, it shows that assessing the merits as well as demerits of localism from the perspective of belonging can be better done when ideology is replaced by evidence.This is something Latimer does by demonstrating how developmental local policies, as opposed to redistributive and allocational policies, can realize the true virtues of going local without the excessive baggage of that comes along with the idea of localism.
In sum, it is certainly possible to read Latimer's broad-ranging critique of localism against the recent localist literature that has sought to bring the concept into conversation with topics ranging from how to redefine the here and now in the age of globalization and digitization (Stables 2019) to the prospect of establishing a postliberal political order (Pabst 2021) to the design of political systems in the twenty-first century (Harmes 2021).But Small Isn't Beautiful is arguably better read in another, more specific light.Indeed, written against the backdrop of Trump's rise to power in the US, Latimer's work represents not just a critique of the troubling localist sentiments and visions that Trump and his supporters embodied, but a rebuke of the liberal turn to localism to fight federal power during Trump's presidency as well (Cortright 2018;Katz and Nowak 2017).Both are examples of the type of normative localism Latimer condemns.The former represents the idealization of certain types of communities and localist identities overlooked by globalization, even though they are often entwined with nativist sentiments of fear and hatred.The latter celebrates the rise of new localism, which situates cities as drivers of positive social and democratic change, the providers of sanctuary, and as the engine rooms of more inclusive economic development, despite the fact that many of these experiments merely recreated a new urban elite separated from the urban masses who remain unable or unwilling to tap into the new local opportunities.In this way, what Latimer's book ultimately does is to show how the recent rise of normative localism, particularly in the US, became so powerful a proxy for a whole swathe of enticing arguments capable of doing great harm in the name of good.
Place Governance and the Limits of Localism I will return to Latimer at the end of the essay.For now, I want to use his discussion of local development as a broad segue to Hyperlocal, Storring and Vey's collection on place governance organizations that seek to realize the type of developmental policies that Latimer lauds.Hyperlocal is the result of a collaboration between Project for Public Spaces and the Brookings Institution on the question of "how community stakeholders come together to exert agency-governance-over their places" (Vey and Storring, pp.viii-ix).Focused on places "within a region where people, jobs, and physical assets cluster and connect with one another"-what the authors label the "hyperlocal" scale (Vey and Storring, viii)-the book examines how place governance organizations like business improvement districts, public community boards, and private neighborhood associations operate, and the ways in which they can be improved to benefit more people and places.The urgency of understanding and improving these place governance organizations is clear against the backdrop of growing place-based inequality across the US, and the challenges that traditional units of government face in addressing "the needs of places within a region and [networking] them together efficiently and equitably" (Vey and Storring, 2).Given this, Hyperlocal's objective appears to dovetail with the one exception Latimer outlines in his book where favoring local communities and institutions would be permissible.
But before examining this, I first summarize the book's definition of place governance.Although the concept of governance has been the subject of extensive scholarship, what makes place governance distinct, as Loh and Vey set out in the "Introduction," is that it is about bringing public sector actors (local and state governments) together with private sector actors (businesses and corporations), civil society actors (non-profits and foundations), and the public (residents and citizens) to co-govern a location.Some readers may see in this concept inevitable parallels with such ideas as new localism or discursive localism, where the emphasis is on a horizontal drift away from government to an embrace of multisectoral local networks of public, private, and civic actors (Bradford 2016;Katz and Nowak 2017).But whereas new and discursive localisms may have broader ambitions, Loh and Vey note that place governance is usually more circumscribed: dealing with matters as simple as those arising from place management to questions of investing in place to the more complex endeavors associated with place development.What unites all these various initiatives is the hope that bringing a wider range of interests and stakeholders into the tent will produce a "broader development vision [where] benefits will be more widespread," as Foster writes in her chapter on "Who Governs?" (Vey and Storring, 67).However, whether this is so will turn on the particulars of the case, specifically whether essential public services are further privatized, problems and solutions are further siloed, and existing inequalities are further exacerbated-or not.
These, it turns out, are the same empirical considerations that Latimer contends is necessary to determine whether localism is warranted in a particular circumstance.But where Latimer only circles around the edges of this discussion, noting that some development policies are positive-sum while others merely zero-or negative-sum, Vey and Storring's volume concretely establishes the factors with which to assess these empirical considerations systematically.For instance, as Foster goes on to demonstrate in her discussion of PPPs that manage parks and public spaces, the "virtue of being able to avoid the red tape, bureaucracy, and inaction in which city parks departments often become mired" must be weighed against the costs of privatizing public goods: "enabling gentrification, exacerbating ethnic and class tensions, and creating a two-tiered park system that disadvantages parks in less affluent neighborhoods" (Vey and Storring, 75).If the benefits of the former are outweighed by the latter, then the case for a particular PPP should be questioned.Conversely, where PPPs show the capacity to encompass diverse stakeholders-like private interests, advocacy groups, residents, donors, and local governments-in co-managing large urban spaces, they can be seen to "serve an important coordinating and stabilizing function, enabling private and public actors to undertake together significant responsibility for urban…management" (Vey and Storring, 76).These are all key considerations, which Latimer only ever manages to point toward without ever fleshing out.
Or take business improvement districts (BIDs)-a different type of publicprivate partnership-as another example.In her chapter on the case for BIDs, Gross highlights the diverse factors that determine whether these hyperlocal institutions become agents of community building and development or community breakers and erasers.At their core, these arrangements are "public-private partnerships financed by supplemental taxes paid by BID property and business owners within a defined area and returned to that area (the district) for locally determined services" (Vey and Storring, 128).For Gross, when BIDs act as community builders they tend to do several things: create to a shared vision; share revenues; and adopt inclusive public-facing decisionmaking processes.Importantly, community builders "engage in activities in the interests of the broadest stakeholder base, pursuing strategies in which most stakeholders achieve some modicum of gain, while also sharing the losses as broadly as possible as well" (Vey and Storring, 136).When BIDs fail these tests, they can become something quite different.Indeed, when they divide the community, distribute benefits inequitably, or worse yet benefit some at the expense of others, BIDs can be community breakers.They can even erase communities if they adopt "strategies designed to replace an area's assets, culture, and heritage with something new, removing existing businesses and purging areas of users such as street venders and people experiencing homelessness" (Vey and Storring, 137).Gross' chapter details these considerations through an analysis of several different types of BIDs, and illustrates why only some can be seen as positive-sum.
One interesting theme that runs throughout Vey and Storring's collection is how the different place governance organizations they examine all emerged, in some respects, out of state and federal neglect.This is particularly emblematic of BIDs in North America.As Kwak's chapter, "What Can the United States Learn from the Rest of the World about the Stewardship of Place?," notes: In the increasingly abandoned urban core, a new "inner city" came into existencea segregated site of disinvestment that was deliberately deprived of the same opportunities that helped white suburbs thrive.Given that the federal government looked generally unwilling or unable to solve the urban crisis, many leaders turned to private investment to restore economic health to the city.BIDs seemed like one such solution, directing private investment to the improvement of urban neighborhoods while arguably distributing costs more fairly among all business interests that might profit from collective improvements (Vey and Storring,200).
In other words, the rise of hyperlocal institutions like BIDs was not just about localist solutions to local problems; it was also a response to the failure of federal and state agencies to govern effectively at the local level.Given these federal dynamics, Loh and Storring demonstrate in their concluding chapter on the "Frontiers of Place Governance" that efforts to improve place governance institutions necessarily require not just local, but state and federal, action and coordination as well.Locally, place governance institutions should incentivize and then mandate inclusive community engagement between all stakeholders in their missions and bylaws.Only then, can these institutions be counted as genuine community builders.But actions at this level alone are not enough.Evidence also shows that many place governance institutions must be embedded into, and coordinated through, city, state, and federal government agencies, which are better placed to connect these hyperlocal institutions to "long-term and large-scale strategies and programs" (Vey and Storring,251).This is what Loh and Storring refer to as "a place governance ecosystem that is accountable, coordinated, fairly and adequately funded, and representative of all users" (Id.).In so doing, they again implicitly validate a point of Latimer's: sometimes what is best for local communities is not just more localism, but "extensive planning and oversight from higher-level governments or nongovernmental organizations" as well (Latimer,83).
In depicting the rise of hyperlocal organizations and institutions-and the localist solutions they engender-against the backdrop of long-term federal neglect, Hyperlocal shows us why these organizations and institutions must be understood both as a "symptom of late-twentieth-century American political economy and a constitutive part of it" (Vey and Storring, 226).In analyzing how particular local conditions and arrangements can create urban renewal while others exacerbate local inequality, Hyperlocal contributes to research on place governance by delineating the factors which enable some PPPs and BIDs, as examples of hyperlocal place governance organizations, to generate productive urban innovations while others to worsen local agency, institutional accountability, public participation, and the sustainability of services (Dilworth 2010;Erie, Kogan and MacKenzie 2010;Kudla 2022;Lewis 2010).More specifically, in highlighting the need for place governance organizations to be embedded into, and coordinated through, city, state, and federal government agencies, Vey and Storring's collection advances research on the challenges that society-centered place governance organizations face and what they can do to govern effectively for their local communities (Clarke 2017).These are all significant contributions that Hyerlocal makes to the literature.

Conclusions
Now having read Vey and Storring's book through Latimer's, I want to end this essay by reading these two books together.Doing so, I believe, provides us with two specific and two broad takeaways.The first specific takeaway is that all the hyperlocal institutions and organizations in Vey and Storring's collection count, to use Latimer's classification, as local development.But while some count as "hyperlocal 'laboratories of democracy'" or as community builders, others are "capricious regimes that lead to wild inequalities" (Vey and Storring,228).Given this, it is important not just to rely on the mistaken claim that all developmental policies are good, from a localist perspective.It is also necessary to make a further distinction: between developmental policies and initiatives that actually confer some broad benefit to most local stakeholders and those that divide and destroy communities in practice.To Latimer's credit, he does make this distinction when noting that some developmental policies are wasteful while others are zero-sum.Indeed, he writes that "[d]espite spending millions of dollars, uprooting families, and effacing history, many communities were no better off than before" (Latimer, 80); the key case in point Latimer provides is the immense economic incentives and tax breaks that numerous states and localities offered to Amazon-and other multinational corporations like it-to try to secure the company's second headquarters.But what Latimer's book does less well is provide a framework which helps us categorically assess what types of developmental policies benefit the public and what types do not.This is where the discussions of PPPs and BIDs, as two examples of the "alphabet soup of place governance organizations" Vey and Storring's (226) collection examines, come in-providing more concrete empirical measures and considerations that can help determine whether and how prioritizing the local can confer the greatest benefit in a particular case.
This leads to the second specific takeaway: using these measures and considerations mean that Latimer's one exception might become even more exceptional.We can take his exemplar of DRWC and their work at Spruce Street Harbor Park for instance.Although Latimer sees this as a model of a public space that benefits a diverse population, a more detailed assessment drawing on some of the considerations outlined by Vey and Storring would likely have exposed how this integrative public space principally advances "the aims of powerful market actors" and is actually anathema to the creation of something more important: "integrative neighborhoods" that lessen racial and economic segregation in the surrounding area (Schaller and Guinand 2018, 69).Ultimately, then, this shows that Latimer might have done better to heed his own call to carefully scrutinize "the circumstances, the policy area, its scope, and so on" (Latimer, 14).
The, then, leads us to the first of the two broad takeaways: although going local may be appealing or even necessary under certain circumstances, it does not preclude the need to weigh the benefits against the costs.For Latimer, this is the point underpinning his intervention against relying on blunt principles like localism."It's true that prioritizing the local by making decisions, exercising authority, or implementing policy locally or more locally could improve efficiency," as Latimer (p.228) writes.But there is only one way to find out for certain-and that is to gather the evidence and do a cost-benefit analysis.This is what Latimer's book tries to do generally, and what Vey and Storring's book does specifically in assessing the virtues of place governance organizations.The second broad takeaway is something that may follow the first: sometimes the evidence might point away from localism towards centralization.This is a possibility that both books discuss.Indeed, even when localist solutions seem appropriate or enough, there is often need for greater city, state, and federal coordination to create a more centralized and synchronized place governance structure.Although this comes with its own complexities and problems, it would, for Loh and Storring, go some way to addressing "the Achilles heel of American place governance" (Vey and Storring, 251).

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The author would like to acknowledge the support by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council's Discovery funding scheme (project DP230100001).

-Mark Chou
Associate Professor of Politics, Australian Catholic University, mark.chou@acu.edu.au