Power and City Governance

Comparative Perspectives on Urban Development

1999
Authors:

Alan DiGaetano and John S. Klemanski

Case studies of four major cities reveal the politics of governing today.

This book develops a new way of comparing and understanding urban politics across national borders. The authors’ approach, called “modes of governance,” emphasizes governing alignments and their agendas. Applying this perspective to Boston and Detroit in the United States and Birmingham and Bristol in England, the authors compare the effects of postindustrial and urban political transformations, and link these to trends in the wider political economy.

This comparative and longitudinal analysis of local political change is a singular achievement. It reaches beyond an urbanist audience.

The Journal of Politics

Case studies of four major cities reveal the politics of governing today.

This book develops a new way of comparing and understanding urban politics across national borders. The authors’ approach, called “modes of governance,” emphasizes governing alignments and their agendas. Applying this perspective to four cities in England and the United States, Alan DiGaetano and John S. Klemanski compare the effects of postindustrial and urban political transformations, and link these to trends in the wider political economy.

Economics, demographics, and state structure influence the choices that ruling alliances face in urban politics. Power and City Governance examines the role of these forces, then evaluates urban development in Boston and Detroit and in the English cities Birmingham and Bristol. The book compares the origins and development of pro-growth, growth-management, and social-reform governing alignments and, drawing on over 200 interviews with local leaders, provides a clear perspective on the power structure in each city.

Unusual in its integration of comparative theory and practical analysis, Power and City Governance contributes significantly to the long-standing debate over the structure of community power.

ISBN 0-8166-3218-9 £40.00 $57.95xx
ISBN 0-8166-3219-7 £16.00 $22.95x
256 Pages 7 black-and-white photos, 8 charts, 18 tables 5 7/8 x 9 November
Globalization and Community Series, volume 4
Translation inquiries: University of Minnesota Press

Alan DiGaetano is associate professor of political science at Baruch College-CUNY. John S. Klemanski is professor of political science at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan.

This comparative and longitudinal analysis of local political change is a singular achievement. It reaches beyond an urbanist audience.

The Journal of Politics

“An impressive, very readable book. It will encourage U.S. urban studies to look beyond national boundaries and challenge some of the more insular U.K. commentators.” Alan Harding, European Institute for Urban Affairs, Liverpool

“With sound scholarship and a clear, engaging writing style, this ambitious project makes a sizable contribution to the literature. It lays a strong foundation for others to undertake similar comparative studies.” Barbara Ferman, Temple University

The literature on the political economy of urban development has focused heavily on the larger metropolitan areas of the U.S., and its concepts and findings understandably reflect the decentralized governing settings of those places. Political scientists DiGaetano and Kelmanski asked questions about the relationship of markets and governance in two cities in Britain-Birmingham and Bristo

as well as in Boston and Detroit. All four have undergone extensive economic restructuring, and the authors sought to learn how that has reshaped their political power structures and the agendas for change that the power holders pursued. They learned that the widest variety of policy choices are generated when there is a high degree of competition for power, but that stable governing arrangements are most likely to emerge from relatively unitary alliances.” Choice

Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I: Comparing Urban Governance in the United Kingdom and the United States

1. Modes of Governance in Comparative Perspective
2. Urban Structuring and Restructuring
3. State Structuring and Restructuring
4. Urban Governing Alignments and Realignments

Part II: Progrowth Politics

5. The Politics of Regional Primacy
6. Coping with Industrial Decline
Part III: The Dilemmas of Progressive Urban Politics
7. The Politics of Social Reform
8. The Dilemmas of Growth Management Politics
Part IV: Modes of Governance as Explanation
9. Explaining Modes of Governance

Notes
References
Index