Book Reviews : Improving the Quality of Urban Management. Edited by WILLIS D. HAWLEY AND DAVID ROGERS. (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1974. Pp. 639. $20.00.)

• Author: David Mars
• Published date: 01 March 1975
• Date: 01 March 1975
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/106591297502800121
• Subject Matter: Articles

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jobs were handled through patronage, with outside professionals filling all the posi-
tions in the redevelopment agency. Lee was able to recruit many upper-income
representatives to serve on the Citizens Action Commission, in large part a public
relations vehicle for approval of redevelopment decisions.
Wolfinger discusses the major renewal projects in considerable detail. For
those not familiar with New Haven geography, maps would have been helpful.
The omission of a bibliography is also disconcerting. Wolfinger’s rather brief treat-
ment of Black involvement in the renewal process can be understood in terms of
the period of his research, almost a decade before the &dquo;disturbances&dquo; of 1967. The
failure of the renewal program to respond adequately to the desires of Black
citizens can also be explained in part by the fact of its beginning in 1953, almost
a decade before extensive activitism.
Despite Mayor Lee’s success both at the polls and in achieving program objec-
tives, Wolfinger finds in his remarkable longevity in office and in his accomplish-
ments an inadequate model for other cities. Too few men of Lee’s exceptional
talents exploit them in the office of mayor, and serve long enough, to achieve ex-
tensive redesign and rebuilding of cities.
The Politics of Progress is a useful addition to the literature on New Haven
under Mayor Lee, and to studies of community power. Students of urban politics
and administration will find it rich in comparisons with other locales. But its sober-
ing conclusion that a Richard Lee is almost a mutation among the general run
of mayors should reinforce exploration of other possible municipal leadership
structures, of which the manager plan is presumably only one.
JOHN J. HEBAL
Western Washington State College
Improving the Quality of Urban Management. Edited by WILLIS D. HAWLEY AND
DAVID ROGERS. (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1974. Pp. 639. $20.00.)
Improving the Quality of Urban Management ranges very...