George Washington Plunkitt once dismissed municipal reformers as morning glories who looked lovely in the mornin' and withered up in a short time, while the regular machines went on flourishin' forever, like fine old oaks. Although this remark rings true for the Northeast in the days when Tammany Hall ruled New York City, municipal reformers have governed the big cities of the Southwest for most of this century. Obscuring this fact and ignoring the Southwest in general, familiar accounts of municipal reform have focused on small towns and suburbs as the only locations where reformers achieved their goals. Amy Bridges redresses this neglect by tracing the reform politics and government in large Southwestern cities since 1901, thereby giving a more complete account of municipal reform. In the Southwest, municipal reformers got everything they wanted: nonpartisanship, city managers, citywide elections, civil service, and a government with few social service responsibilities. Successful at limiting popular participation and at carefully targeting amenities to their core supporters, incumbents in big cities counted on re-election as confidently as could any machine politician.Urban leaders were aggressive in their pursuit of urban growth and very popular with the people who did vote, but the political community remained small. Not until the 1970s did growth and exclusionary practices combine to uproot the vigorous morning glories of the Southwest.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Princeton University Press
ISBN-13
9780691010090
eBay Product ID (ePID)
105246182
Product Key Features
Subject Area
Political Science
Author
Amy Bridges
Publication Name
Morning Glories: Municipal Reform in the Southwest
Format
Paperback
Language
English
Publication Year
1999
Type
Textbook
Number of Pages
264 Pages
Dimensions
Item Height
254mm
Item Width
197mm
Item Weight
369g
Additional Product Features
Title_Author
Amy Bridges
Series Title
Princeton Studies in American Politics: Historical, International, and Comparative Perspectives