Governance is defined as creating conditions for ordered rule and collective action but is not limited to the formal institutions and actors defined by government (Stoker 1998). Exercising governance requires governing capacity, the formal and factual capability of public or private actors to define the content, delivery, and consumption of public goods and to shape the social, economic, and political processes by which these goods are provided (Knill and Lehmkuhl 2002). American local governance noticeably changed in the early 1960's with the emergence of Homeowners Associations (HOAs). HOAs are established by developers when property is subdivided and become governing bodies responsible for upholding restrictions, providing services, and maintaining the commons after properties are sold (McKenzie 2005; McCabe 2011). HOAs are automatic, mandatory membership organizations, chartered under state law, and have a corporate structure and purpose (McKenzie 2005; McCabe 2011). Infrastructure, amenities, and aesthetic standards are legally governed by HOAs but enforced by state authorities. This dissertation focuses on urban change and governance transformations while recognizing that cultural, economic, and political globalization processes are embedded and institutionalized realities of urban life in a global capitalist system. Understanding how development and governance transformations can affect a metropolis requires examination of a metropolitan area that has experienced such transitions. Residential governance associations have had a strong presence in Detroit, neighborhood associations and deed restrictions have been documented long before HOAs emerged (Sugrue 2014). I explore spatial social inequality in metropolitan Detroit utilizing a governance commodification framework and by analyzing census and governance association data for Detroit and nearby suburb Troy, Michigan. Specifically, I ask what is the relationship between population characteristics and association development in Metropolitan Detroit? Since association governance structures are designed to protect property maintenance and values, what spatial relationships exist between population characteristics, and association development? Analyzing governance commodification through residential governance associations facilitates an in-depth understanding of governance and is worthy of sociological inquiry because governance commodification side-steps democracy while creating and defending inequality. Residential governance associations have the ability to create exclusive benefits and provide traditionally public services creating hierarchical classes of citizenship expressed spatially. Simply, residential governance associations are an additional level of governance created to provide exclusive benefits and subsequently create class differences between those with associations and those without.
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