Dr. Dana Harsell, Dr. David Flynn, and Dr. Mark Jendrysik paper published in the PS: Political Science & Politics journal.
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Dana Harsell, Associate Professor of Political Science & Public Administration, Dr. David Flynn, Professor of Economics & Finance, and Dr. Mark Jendrysik, Professor of Political Science & Public Administration, for their paper “Park Free or Die: Rural Consciousness, Preemption, and the Perennial North Dakota Parking-Meter Debate,” published as the lead article in January in the PS: Political Science & Politics journal.
Title: Park Free or Die: Rural Consciousness, Preemption, and the Perennial North Dakota Parking-Meter Debate
Journal: PS: Political Science & Politics
Authors: Dr. Dana Harsell, Dr. David Flynn, Dr. Mark Jendrysik
Abstract: North Dakota’s unique statewide parking-meter ban was instituted by initiated measure in 1948. The 2017 legislative session witnessed the most credible effort to repeal the ban in decades. The legislative debate centered on tradition, the state’s long-standing urban–rural split, and its lingering populist roots. The authors place this debate within a larger rural-consciousness literature and examine how the politics of rural resentment contributed to maintaining the parking-meter ban, as well as the willingness of state lawmakers to use preemption as a tool to constrain the authority of larger cities. The authors also examine the complexity surrounding individual place-based identities. The extent to which urban residents in a rural state can simultaneously identify as “urban” relative to state-based policies and politics and “rural” relative to federal-based policies and politics merits further consideration.
Uniquely in the United States, North Dakota statute bans the use of parking meters on public streets. Since the passage of a referendum forbidding their use in 1948, lawmakers from the state’s larger cities periodically have waged unsuccessful efforts to repeal the ban. The authors consider the reasons contributing to the failure of the most recent repeal effort that played out in the 2017–2019 biennial legislative session. The longevity of the North Dakota parking-meter ban is couched in a much larger urban–rural split but also illustrates features of state politics more generally, including rural political culture, a growing prevalence of rural consciousness and resentment, and increasing levels of state preemption of local decision-making authority.
