As municipal governments in the US struggle under austerity, philanthropic elites have seemingly come to the rescue. Their money has not come without strings attached, however. By leveraging political contributions and donations to non-profits, philanthropists have moved beyond funding services and into the promotion of their preferred policies to cash-strapped municipalities. This has meant that the super-wealthy can now set the terrain of urban policy debates in cities struggling under austerity, ignoring democratic processes and often working to actively co-opt or stifle dissent. Through a study of the politics surrounding an impending bankruptcy of the Detroit public school system in the mid-2010s, this article provides crucial insights into the nature of elite-led urban policymaking under conditions of racialized austerity. Specifically, it focuses on how competing coalitions of liberal and conservative philanthropists used their wealth and influence to define the parameters of the policy debate over the future of Detroit’s schools. In doing so, these coalitions constrained the ability of residents with alternative visions to participate in decision-making processes and promoted a market-based system of schooling that served Detroit students poorly. This result must be understood as facilitated by the city’s context of racialized austerity, as manifested both through the financial crisis facing Detroit’s schools and through the system of emergency management used to take over Michigan’s majority-Black municipal institutions. These findings highlight that as philanthropic funding and influence have grown under conditions of racialized austerity, we must critically examine their effects on policymaking and on systems of democratic accountability.

随着美国市政府在紧缩政策下苦苦挣扎，慈善精英们似乎出手相救。然而，他们的钱并非没有附带条件。通过利用政治捐款和对非营利组织的捐赠，慈善家已经超越了资助服务，而是向资金短缺的市政当局推广他们偏爱的政策。这意味着超级富豪现在可以在紧缩政策下苦苦挣扎的城市设定城市政策辩论的领域，无视民主进程，并经常积极地拉拢或扼杀异议。通过对 2010 年代中期底特律公立学校系统即将破产的政治研究，本文提供了对种族紧缩条件下精英主导的城市政策制定性质的重要见解。具体来说，它侧重于自由派和保守派慈善家的竞争联盟如何利用他们的财富和影响力来定义关于底特律学校未来的政策辩论的参数。在这样做的过程中，这些联盟限制了具有不同愿景的居民参与决策过程的能力，并促进了以市场为基础的教育体系，这种体系对底特律学生的服务很差。这一结果必须被理解为该市种族紧缩的背景促成的，这通过底特律学校面临的金融危机和用于接管密歇根州占多数的黑人市政机构的应急管理系统来体现。这些调查结果强调，随着慈善资金和影响在种族紧缩的条件下增长，