Download or read book Political Monopolies in American Cities written by Jessica Trounstine and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-09-15 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Around the same time that Richard J. Daley governed Chicago, greasing the wheels of his notorious political machine during a tenure that lasted from 1955 to his death in 1976, Anthony “Dutch” Hamann’s “reform” government centralized authority to similar effect in San Jose. In light of their equally exclusive governing arrangements—a similarity that seems to defy their reputations—Jessica Trounstine asks whether so-called bosses and reformers are more alike than we might have realized. Situating her in-depth studies of Chicago and San Jose in the broad context of data drawn from more than 240 cities over the course of a century, she finds that the answer—a resounding yes—illuminates the nature of political power. Both political machines and reform governments, she reveals, bias the system in favor of incumbents, effectively establishing monopolies that free governing coalitions from dependence on the support of their broader communities. Ironically, Trounstine goes on to show, the resulting loss of democratic responsiveness eventually mobilizes residents to vote monopolistic regimes out of office. Envisioning an alternative future for American cities, Trounstine concludes by suggesting solutions designed to free urban politics from this damaging cycle.
Download or read book City Politics written by Annika M. Hinze and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-09-03 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praised for the clarity of its writing, careful research, and distinctive theme – that urban politics in the United States has evolved as a dynamic interaction between governmental power, private actors, and a politics of identity – City Politics remains a classic study of urban politics. Its enduring appeal lies in its persuasive explanation, careful attention to historical detail, and accessible and elegant way of teaching the complexity and breadth of urban and regional politics which unfold at the intersection of spatial, cultural, economic, and policy dynamics. Now in a thoroughly revised tenth edition, this comprehensive resource for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as well-established researchers in the discipline, retains the effective structure of past editions while offering important updates, including: All-new sections on immigration, the Black Lives Matter Movement, the downtown condo boom, and the impact of the sharing economy on urban neighborhoods (especially the rise of Airbnb). Individual chapters introducing students to pressing urban issues such as gentrification, sustainability, metropolitanization, urban crises, the creative class, shrinking cities, racial politics, and suburbanization. The most recent census data integrated throughout to provide current figures for analysis, discussion, and a more nuanced understanding of current trends. Taught on its own, or supplemented with the optional reader American Urban Politics in a Global Age for more advanced readers, City Politics remains the definitive text on urban politics – and how they have evolved in the US over time – for a new generation of students and researchers.
Download or read book Whose Detroit written by Heather Ann Thompson and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America's urbanites have engaged in many tumultuous struggles for civil and worker rights since the Second World War. Heather Ann Thompson focuses in detail on the struggles of Motor City residents during the 1960s and early 1970s and finds that conflict continued to plague the inner city and its workplaces even after Great Society liberals committed themselves to improving conditions. Using the contested urban center of Detroit as a model, Thompson assesses the role of such upheaval in shaping the future of America's cities. She argues that the glaring persistence of injustice and inequality led directly to explosions of unrest in this period. Thompson finds that unrest as dramatic as that witnessed during Detroit's infamous riot of 1967 by no means doomed the inner city, nor in any way sealed its fate. The politics of liberalism continued to serve as a catalyst for both polarization and radical new possibilities and Detroit remained a contested, and thus politically vibrant, urban center. Thompson's account of the post-World War II fate of Detroit casts new light on contemporary urban issues, including white flight, police brutality, civic and shop floor rebellion, labor decline, and the dramatic reshaping of the American political order. Throughout, the author tells the stories of real events and individuals, including James Johnson, Jr., who, after years of suffering racial discrimination in Detroit's auto industry, went on trial in 1971 for the shooting deaths of two foremen and another worker at a Chrysler plant. Whose Detroit? brings the labor movement into the context of the literature of Sixties radicalism and integrates the history of the 1960s into the broader political history of the postwar period. Urban, labor, political, and African-American history are blended into Thompson's comprehensive portrayal of Detroit's reaction to pressures felt throughout the nation. With deft attention to the historical background and preoccupations of Detroit's residents, Thompson has written a biography of an entire city at a time of crisis.
Download or read book Segregation by Design written by Jessica Trounstine and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-15 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Segregation by Design draws on more than 100 years of quantitative and qualitative data from thousands of American cities to explore how local governments generate race and class segregation. Starting in the early twentieth century, cities have used their power of land use control to determine the location and availability of housing, amenities (such as parks), and negative land uses (such as garbage dumps). The result has been segregation - first within cities and more recently between them. Documenting changing patterns of segregation and their political mechanisms, Trounstine argues that city governments have pursued these policies to enhance the wealth and resources of white property owners at the expense of people of color and the poor. Contrary to leading theories of urban politics, local democracy has not functioned to represent all residents. The result is unequal access to fundamental local services - from schools, to safe neighborhoods, to clean water.
Download or read book Urban Politics written by Bernard H. Ross and published by M.E. Sharpe. This book was released on 2011-08-10 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This popular text mixes the best classic theory and research on urban politics with the most recent developments in urban and metropolitan affairs. Its very balanced and realistic approach helps students to understand the nature of urban politics and the difficulty of finding effective solutions in a suburban and global age. The eighth edition provides a comprehensive review and analysis of urban policy under the Obama administration and brand new coverage of sustainable urban development. A new chapter on globalization and its impact on cities brings the history of urban development up to date, and a focus on the politics of local economic development underscores how questions of economic development have come to dominate the local arena. The book traces the changing style of community participation, including the emergence of CDCs, BIDs, and other new-style service organizations. It analyzes the impacts of the New Regionalism, the New Urbanism, and much more at an approachable level. The eighth edition is significantly shorter and more affordable than previous editions, and the entire text has been thoroughly rewritten to engage students. Boxed case studies of prominent recent and current urban development efforts provide material for class discussion, and concluding material demonstrates the tradeoff between more ideal and more pragmatic urban politics. Source material provides Internet addresses for further research.
Download or read book Mapping Decline written by Colin Gordon and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2014-09-12 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once a thriving metropolis on the banks of the Mississippi, St. Louis, Missouri, is now a ghostly landscape of vacant houses, boarded-up storefronts, and abandoned factories. The Gateway City is, by any measure, one of the most depopulated, deindustrialized, and deeply segregated examples of American urban decay. "Not a typical city," as one observer noted in the late 1970s, "but, like a Eugene O'Neill play, it shows a general condition in a stark and dramatic form." Mapping Decline examines the causes and consequences of St. Louis's urban crisis. It traces the complicity of private real estate restrictions, local planning and zoning, and federal housing policies in the "white flight" of people and wealth from the central city. And it traces the inadequacy—and often sheer folly—of a generation of urban renewal, in which even programs and resources aimed at eradicating blight in the city ended up encouraging flight to the suburbs. The urban crisis, as this study of St. Louis makes clear, is not just a consequence of economic and demographic change; it is also the most profound political failure of our recent history. Mapping Decline is the first history of a modern American city to combine extensive local archival research with the latest geographic information system (GIS) digital mapping techniques. More than 75 full-color maps—rendered from census data, archival sources, case law, and local planning and property records—illustrate, in often stark and dramatic ways, the still-unfolding political history of our neglected cities.
Download or read book Women in Politics in the American City written by Mirya Holman and published by Temple University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do female municipal leaders influence policymaking in American cities? Can gender determine who gets a say in local politics or what programs cities fund? These are some of the questions raised and answered in Mirya Holman's provocative Women in Politics in the American City. This book provides the first comprehensive evaluation of the influence of gender on the behavior of mayors and city council members in the United States. Holman considers the effects of gender in local, urban politics and analyzes how a leader's gender does-and does not-influence policy preferences, processes, behavior, and outcomes. Holman effectively uses original survey data to evaluate policy attitudes, combined with observations of city council meetings and interviews with leaders and community members. In doing so, she demonstrates the importance of considering the gender of leaders in local office. Women in Politics in the American City emphasizes that the involvement of women in local politics does matter and that it has significant consequences for urban policy as well as state and local democracy.
Download or read book Why Cities Lose written by Jonathan A. Rodden and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A prizewinning political scientist traces the origins of urban-rural political conflict and shows how geography shapes elections in America and beyond Why is it so much easier for the Democratic Party to win the national popular vote than to build and maintain a majority in Congress? Why can Democrats sweep statewide offices in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan yet fail to take control of the same states' legislatures? Many place exclusive blame on partisan gerrymandering and voter suppression. But as political scientist Jonathan A. Rodden demonstrates in Why Cities Lose, the left's electoral challenges have deeper roots in economic and political geography. In the late nineteenth century, support for the left began to cluster in cities among the industrial working class. Today, left-wing parties have become coalitions of diverse urban interest groups, from racial minorities to the creative class. These parties win big in urban districts but struggle to capture the suburban and rural seats necessary for legislative majorities. A bold new interpretation of today's urban-rural political conflict, Why Cities Lose also points to electoral reforms that could address the left's under-representation while reducing urban-rural polarization.
Download or read book Careers in City Politics written by Timothy Bledsoe and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2010-10-12 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Careers in City Politics provides an in-depth view of the vital aspects of local politics-access to political office, individual office holder's accountability to the public, the performance of councils as collective political bodies, and the often high turnover of personnel.Timothy Bledsoe bases his findings on the political careers of more than eight-hundred city council members representing cities with large and medium populations. Tracing how some officials' careers unfolded over five years, Bledsoe studies their reasons for seeking office and examines how successful they were in adapting to their jobs. He evaluates office-holders whose council careers were cut short and those whose lengthy service qualified them as "careerists," paying special attention to first-term officials and to those who used their seats as stepping-stones to higher political offices. In this first-of-its-kind study, Bledsoe offers specific recommendations for restoring some of the lost vigor to local politics.
Download or read book New York City Politics written by Bruce F. Berg and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2007-11-12 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most experts consider economic development to be the dominant factor influencing urban politics. They point to the importance of the finance and real estate industries, the need to improve the tax base, and the push to create jobs. Bruce F. Berg maintains that there are three forces which are equally important in explaining New York City politics: economic development; the city’s relationships with the state and federal governments, which influence taxation, revenue and public policy responsibilities; and New York City’s racial and ethnic diversity, resulting in demands for more equitable representation and greater equity in the delivery of public goods and services. New York City Politics focuses on the impact of these three forces on the governance of New York City’s political system including the need to promote democratic accountability, service delivery equity, as well as the maintenance of civil harmony. This second edition updates the discussion with examples from the Bloomberg and de Blasio administrations as well as current public policy issues including infrastructure, housing and homelessness, land use regulations, and education.
Download or read book The American Political Economy written by Jacob S. Hacker and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-11-11 with total page 487 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing together leading scholars, the book provides a revealing new map of the US political economy in cross-national perspective.
Download or read book Our Towns written by James Fallows and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2018-05-08 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • "James and Deborah Fallows have always moved to where history is being made.... They have an excellent sense of where world-shaping events are taking place at any moment" —The New York Times • The basis for the HBO documentary streaming on HBO Max For five years, James and Deborah Fallows have travelled across America in a single-engine prop airplane. Visiting dozens of towns, the America they saw is acutely conscious of its problems—from economic dislocation to the opioid scourge—but it is also crafting solutions, with a practical-minded determination at dramatic odds with the bitter paralysis of national politics. At times of dysfunction on a national level, reform possibilities have often arisen from the local level. The Fallowses describe America in the middle of one of these creative waves. Their view of the country is as complex and contradictory as America itself, but it also reflects the energy, the generosity and compassion, the dreams, and the determination of many who are in the midst of making things better. Our Towns is the story of their journey—and an account of a country busy remaking itself.
Download or read book The Politics of Park Design written by Galen Cranz and published by MIT Press (MA). This book was released on 1982 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Galen Cranz surveys the rise of the park system from 1850 to the present through 4 stages - the pleasure ground, the reform park, the recreation facility and the open space system.
Download or read book Convention Center Follies written by Heywood T. Sanders and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2014-06-16 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American cities have experienced a remarkable surge in convention center development over the last two decades, with exhibit hall space growing from 40 million square feet in 1990 to 70 million in 2011—an increase of almost 75 percent. Proponents of these projects promised new jobs, new private development, and new tax revenues. Yet even as cities from Boston and Orlando to Phoenix and Seattle have invested in more convention center space, the return on that investment has proven limited and elusive. Why, then, do cities keep building them? Written by one of the nation's foremost urban development experts, Convention Center Follies exposes the forces behind convention center development and the revolution in local government finance that has privileged convention centers over alternative public investments. Through wide-ranging examples from cities across the country as well as in-depth case studies of Chicago, Atlanta, and St. Louis, Heywood T. Sanders examines the genesis of center projects, the dealmaking, and the circular logic of convention center development. Using a robust set of archival resources—including internal minutes of business consultants and the personal papers of big city mayors—Sanders offers a systematic analysis of the consultant forecasts and promises that have sustained center development and the ways those forecasts have been manipulated and proven false. This record reveals that business leaders sought not community-wide economic benefit or growth but, rather, to reshape land values and development opportunities in the downtown core. A probing look at a so-called economic panacea, Convention Center Follies dissects the inner workings of America's convention center boom and provides valuable lessons in urban government, local business growth, and civic redevelopment.
Download or read book City Politics Pearson eText written by Dennis R. Judd and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-09-16 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text provides a foundation for understanding the politics of America's cities and urban regions. Praised for the clarity of its writing, careful research, and distinctive theme - that urban politics in the United States has evolved as a dynamic interaction among governmental power, private actors, and a politics of identity - City Politics remains a classic study of urban politics.
Download or read book Urban Politics written by Stephen J. McGovern and published by CQ Press. This book was released on 2016-02-16 with total page 1361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Steve McGovern’s Urban Politics: A Reader examines the changing structure of political power in cities through the lens of historical development, accompanied with brief explorations of pertinent public policy issues. Having studied and taught urban politics for over 20 years, McGovern (Haverford College) foregrounds his approach with a discussion of cities in a global era, and then divides the material into five parts, or themes: the formation of city politics; city politics under stress; the politics of urban revitalization; the changing dynamics of urban politics; and visions of contemporary urban politics. He expands the scope of his exploration by integrating literature that is not commonly observed in urban politics texts, i.e. works by journalists as well as scholars, and by including debates about political power in both big and smaller cities.
Download or read book New York and Los Angeles written by David Halle and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2003-08-15 with total page 575 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Capturing much of what is new and vibrant in urban studies today, "New York and Los Angeles" should prove to be valuable reading for scholars in that field, as well as in sociology, political science and government.
