Urban Politics

Urban Politics brings together the classic and contemporary literature on urban politics and history with today’s pressing urban issues.

This book’s central theme is “power”—going beyond the formal institutions and structures of city and suburban government to explain who defines the urban agenda and who benefits from local services and investments. This book also presents a number of subthemes, including the impact of globalization, the dominant place of economic development concerns in the urban agenda, and the continuing importance of race and poverty in big city and suburban politics. It also places cities in the larger context of state and federal government politics and policies and discusses the impact of those policies. Urban Politics seeks to engage students with photographs, real-world case studies, and boxed material that employs films, video, television shows, and popular music to illustrate how urban politics “works.” Urban Politics has been updated and revised to reflect the complex circumstances of both urban “success stories” and the difficult realities of “cities left behind” and to add new material on concentrated poverty, climate change, and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 11th edition of Urban Politics is an ideal introductory text for students of urban, suburban, and regional politics and policy. This book’s coverage of contemporary issues, urban bureaucracy, policy analysis, and intergovernmental relations also makes it an effective textbook for classes in urban administration and planning.

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