But in the supposed quest for businesslike efficiency, the nonpartisan reform model slights the problem of unequal distribution of benefits among city residents. Moreover, nonpartisan elections are biased toward upper-class candidates. Although states and localities cannot become laboratories for democracy when elites dominate, popular participation is restricted, and competition for corporate investments is intense, there are enough exceptions to these phenomena to encourage popular democrats. States and local governments sometimes are ahead of the federal government in pursuing popular democratic policies. The states have improved their capacities for governance and are often responsive to public opinion and election outcomes.
Some states see the inadequacies of smokestack chasing.
Instead, they promote a better trained and educated workforce and the formation of new clusters of local businesses. Some cities, like Chicago under Mayor Harold Washington, have linked downtown business development with community development. As Tocqueville observed, local politics can be a school for liberty. Elite democrats scoff at local direct democracy, citing the problems of the War on Poverty. But they exaggerate the failures of this experiment, which actually nurtured the creation of community-based organizations.