Race, Performance, and Approval of Mayors


Book Description

Please note this is a 'Palgrave to Order' title (PTO). Stock of this book requires shipment from an overseas supplier. It will be delivered to you within 12 weeks. This book is a study of why people approve and disapprove of the mayor in four cities with long histories of racial conflict: New Orleans, Detroit, Chicago and Charlotte NC. It examines the relative influence of race, racial factors, racial environment, and perceptions of the quality of life in determining mayoral approval.




African-American Mayors


Book Description

On November 7, 1967, the voters of Cleveland, Ohio, and Gary, Indiana, elected the nation's first African-American mayors to govern their cities. Ten years later more than two hundred black mayors held office, and by 1993 sixty-seven major urban centers, most with majority-white populations, were headed by African Americans.Once in office, African-American mayors faced vexing challenges. In large and small cities from the Sunbelt to the Rustbelt, black mayors assumed office during economic downturns and confronted the intractable problems of decaying inner cities, white flight, a dwindling tax base, violent crime, and diminishing federal support for social programs. Many encountered hostility from their own parties, city councils, and police departments; others worked against long-established power structures dominated by local business owners or politicians. Still others, while trying to respond to multiple demands from a diverse constituency, were viewed as traitors by blacks expecting special attention from a leader of their own race. All struggled with the contradictory mandate of meeting the increasing needs of poor inner-city residents while keeping white businesses from fleeing to the suburbs.This is the first comprehensive treatment of the complex phenomenon of African-American mayors in the nation's major urban centers. Offering a diverse portrait of leadership, conflict, and almost insurmountable obstacles, this volume assesses the political alliances that brought black mayors to office as well as their accomplishments--notably, increased minority hiring and funding for minority businesses--and the challenges that marked their careers. Mayors profiled include Carl B. Stokes (Cleveland), Richard G. Hatcher (Gary), "Dutch" Morial (New Orleans), Harold Washington (Chicago), Tom Bradley (Los Angeles), Marion Barry (Washington, D.C.), David Dinkins (New York City), Coleman Young (Detroit), and a succession of black mayors in Atlanta (Maynard Jackson, Andrew Young, and Bill Campbell).Probing the elusive economic dimension of black power, African-American Mayors demonstrates how the same circumstances that set the stage for the victories of black mayors exaggerated the obstacles they faced.




Race Rules


Book Description

Race Rules: Electoral Politics in New Orleans, 1965-2006 examines one of the innumerable ramifications of Hurricane Katrina: a reversal in the decades-long process of racial transition, from white dominant to black dominant. The electoral consequences of such a racial change - in a city where race has historically played a pronounced social, economic, and political role - are potentially dramatic. In light of the 2006 New Orleans mayoral election, the following emerges as a significant question: Does a change in the population's racial composition mean a reversal in the political status of African Americans in New Orleans? To address this question, Liu and Vanderleeuw investigate racial voting patterns in New Orleans' municipal elections over a forty year span from 1965 to 2006.Race Rules argues that as an enduring influence in urban politics race manifests as either electoral conflict or electoral accommodation, but not as acceptance of the political empowerment of 'other race' members.




Black and Multiracial Politics in America


Book Description

America is currently in the midst of a major racial and ethnic demographic shift. By the twenty-first century, the population of Hispanics and Asians will increase significantly, while the black population is expected to remain relatively stable. Non-Hispanic Whites will decrease to just over half of the nation's population. How will the changing ethnic and racial composition of American society affect the long struggle for black political power and inclusion? To what extent will these racial and ethnic shifts affect the already tenuous nature of racial politics in American society? Using the literature on black politics as an analytical springboard, Black and Multiracial Politics in America brings together a broad demography of scholars from various racial and ethnic groups to assess how urban political institutions, political coalitions, group identity, media portrayal of minorities, racial consciousness, support for affirmative action policy, political behavior, partisanship, and other crucial issues are impacted by America's multiracial landscape. Contributors include Dianne Pinderhughes, M. Margaret Conway, Pei-te Lein, Susan Howell, Mack Jones, Brigitte L. Nacos, Natasha Hritzuk, Marion Orr, Michael Jones-Correa, A.B. Assensoh, Joseph McCormick, Sekou Franklin, Jose Cruz, Erroll Henderson, Mamie Locke, Reuel Rogers, James Endersby, Charles Menifield and Lawrence J. Hanks.




Marked Men


Book Description

"Examines the racial content and effects of Black Americans' suspicion regarding the potential political harassment of Black Elected Officials"--




Understanding Urban Politics


Book Description

In Understanding Urban Politics: Institutions, Representation, and Policies, Timothy B. Krebs and Arnold Fleischmann introduce a framework that focuses on the role of institutions in establishing the political “rules of the game,” the representativeness of city government, the influence of participation in local democracy, and how each of these features influences the adoption and implementation of public policies. Part 1 lays the groundwork for the rest of the book by exploring the many meanings of “urban,” analyzing what local governments do, and providing a history of American urban development. Part 2 examines the organizations and procedures that are central to urban politics and policy making: intergovernmental relations, local legislatures, and the local executive branch. Part 3 looks at elections and voting, local campaigns, and non-voting forms of participation. The four chapters in Part 4 focus on the policy process and the delivery of local services, local government finances, “Building the City” (economic development, land use, and housing), and policies affecting the quality of life (public safety, the environment, “morality” issues, and urban amenities). Krebs and Fleischmann bolster students’ learning and skills with guiding questions at the start of each chapter, which ends with key terms, a summary, discussion questions, and research exercises. The appendix and website aid these efforts, as does a website for instructors.




Majoritarian Cities


Book Description

Popular public policies often fail to address the needs of the disadvantaged in American cities




Sharing the Prize


Book Description

Winner of the Alice Hanson Jones Prize, Economic History Association A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year The civil rights movement was also a struggle for economic justice, one that until now has not had its own history. Sharing the Prize demonstrates the significant material gains black southerners made—in improved job opportunities, quality of education, and health care—from the 1960s to the 1970s and beyond. Because black advances did not come at the expense of southern whites, Gavin Wright argues, the civil rights struggle was that rarest of social revolutions: one that benefits both sides. “Wright argues that government action spurred by the civil-rights movement corrected a misfiring market, generating large economic gains that private companies had been unable to seize on their own.” —The Economist “Written...with the care and imagination [Wright] displayed in his superb work on slavery and the southern economy since the Civil War, this excellent economic history offers the best empirical account to date of the effects the civil rights revolution had on southern labor markets, schools, and other important institutions...With much of the nation persuaded that a post-racial age has begun, Wright’s analytical history...takes on fresh urgency.” —Ira Katznelson, New York Review of Books




Cities, Mayors, and Race Relations


Book Description

Cities, Mayors, and Race Relations analyzes the politics behind improving race relations in local communities through the use of mayoral task forces. By investigating three communities with unique cultural, social, economic, and racial characteristics, author Richard T. Middleton IV provides insight into why some communities are more likely to realize success in influencing policy makers to adopt policy innovations aimed at improving race relations than are others. This book chronicles how political culture, level of racial threat, factors central to task force formation, and staffing affect the likelihood that mayoral leadership and use of government organized nongovernmental organizations will persuade local level actors to adopt policies aimed at improving race relations. To study this phenomenon, Cities, Mayors, and Race Relations focuses on three cities: Madison, Wisconsin, Columbia, Missouri, and Kansas City, Missouri.




Global Urban Justice


Book Description

Cities increasingly base their local policies on human rights. Human rights cities promise to forge new alliances between urban actors and international organizations, to enable the 'translation' of the abstract language of human rights to the local level, and to develop new practices designed to bring about global urban justice. This book brings together academics and practitioners at the forefront of human rights cities and the 'right to the city' movement to critically discuss their history and also the potential that human rights cities hold for global urban justice.




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