Book Reviews : City Politics. By EDWARD C. BANFIELD AND JAMES Q. WILSON. (Cambridge, Massa chusetts: Harvard University Press and the M.I.T. Press, for the Joint Center for Urban Studies of M.I.T. and Harvard, 1963. Pp. 362. $6.95.)

• Date: 01 March 1964
• Published date: 01 March 1964
• Author: Stephen L. Wasby
• DOI: 10.1177/106591296401700119
• Subject Matter: Articles

140

or

less

continuing

anti-Hume

leadership

(or

&dquo;local

power

structure,&dquo;

if

you

will)

against

which

Hume

and

his

agents

presumably

contended

certainly

merits

extended

comment

now

lacking.

Professor

Dodds

may

well

rebut

that

such

are

not

questions

raised

by

the

eco-

nomic

historian.

Yet,

he

does

raise

them;

his

error

is

in

letting

them

go

unanswered.

No

scholar

of

the

past

-

economic

or

otherwise

-

has

any

business

these

days

deal-

ing

in

local

history

as

if

sociology

had

never

been

invented.

State

University

of

Iowa

ROBERT

DYKSTRA

City

Politics.

By

EDWARD

C.

BANFIELD

AND

JAMES

Q.

WILSON.

(Cambridge,

Massa-

chusetts:

Harvard

University

Press

and

the

M.I.T.

Press,

for

the

Joint

Center

for

Urban

Studies

of

M.I.T.

and

Harvard,

1963.

Pp.

362.

$6.95.)

City

Politics

is

perhaps

the

best

general

treatment

of

municipal

politics

appear-

ing

in

recent

years.

Politics

is

heavily

emphasized;

attention

to

formal

arrangements

is

secondary,

and

municipal

functions

are

not

treated

independently.

The

authors

claim

initially

that

everything

in

city

governance

can

be

treated

as

political,

that

virtually

no

decisions

are

made

&dquo;according

to

rule

and

without

regard

to

persons.&dquo;

This

extreme

position

is

not

followed,

and

is

contradicted,

e.g.,

by

saying

that

&dquo;prob-

ably

a

large

majority&dquo;

of

city

employees

&dquo;play

no

political

roles

at

all.&dquo;

The

authors

claim

most

obstacles

to

solving

&dquo;social

evils&dquo;

to

be

political.

This

assumes

too

opti-

mistically

that

sure

methods

for

solving

these

problems

do

exist,

to

be

applied

once

political

conflict

abates.

Important

as

their

subject

is,

the

authors

feel

that

&dquo;the

most

important

ques-

.

tions ...

do

not

arise

in

city

politics....&dquo;

They

consider

war

and

peace

to

be

among

the

most

important

questions;

however,

many

urban

residents

may,

to

the

contrary,

consider

&dquo;bread

and

butter&dquo;

items

of

highest

import.

As

politics

in

cities

of

500,000

+

population

dominates

the

volume,

it

would

be

more

appropriately

entitled,

Big

City

Politics.

Whether

the

generalizations

devel-

’

oped

apply

to

medium-size

and

smaller

cities

is

often

unclear.

The

greater

visibility

of

conditions

in

large

cities

may

result

from

more

active

political

conflict

there,

rather

than

from

a

style

of

politics

completely

different

from

that

in

smaller

municipalities.

Banfield’s

and

Wilson’s

underlying

emphasis

is

on

ideologies,

treated

through

attention

to

&dquo;reform&dquo;

and

various

political

roles.

The

major

competing

outlooks

are

a

&dquo;community-regarding&dquo;

conception

of

the

&dquo;public

interest,&dquo;

held

by

the

middle

class,

and

one

&dquo;that

politics

is

a

struggle

for

personal,

neighborhood,

or

other

special

advantages ... ,&dquo;

to

which

the

lower

classes

adhere.

Perhaps

it

would

be

more

accu-

rate

to

speak

of

different

publics

supported

by

the

two

outlooks,

rather

than

of

&dquo;pub-

lic

interest&dquo;

against

&dquo;personal

interest.&dquo;

The

Joint

Center’s

earlier

reports

on

city

politics

have

been

well

utilized,

but

this

is

not

simply

a

summary

volume.

The

authors

have

integrated

insights

of

others

with

material

from

their

own

research

to

present

a

meaningful

over-all

picture

of

city

politics.

Several

typologies

are

developed,

and

short

case

studies

presented

to

clarify,

and

to

illustrate

exceptions

to

generalizations.

Emphasis

is

on

valid

gen-

eralizations,

not

portrayal

of

idiosyncratic

instances.