Making Life Work in Crowded Places

In: Urban affairs review, Band 41, Heft 3, S. 271-291

Abstract

The author of City: Urbanism and its End (2003) recounts his stint as Chief Administrative Officer of New Haven, Connecticut under that city's first Black mayor and during one of its toughest fiscal crises. The piece seeks, first, to interpret the failure of Black political succession, which is increasingly evident in many American cities, and to chart the changing features of urban regimes such as New Haven's. Among the regime changes to which the paper gives special attention are: (1) the decline and delocalization of business, (2) the shift of labor politics from private to public (and nonprofit) institutions, (3) the rising importance of well-capitalized nonprofits such as hospitals and universities, (4) the declining significance of political parties, and (5) the expanding importance of state government in local governance.