Book Reviews : Urban Lobbying: Mayors in the Federal Arena. By SUZANNE FARKAS. (New York: New York University Press, 1971. Pp. 334. $8.50.)

Published date01 December 1971
AuthorHeinz Eulau
Date01 December 1971
DOI10.1177/106591297102400414
Subject MatterArticles
807
BOOK
REVIEWS
Urban
Lobbying:
Mayors
in
the
Federal
Arena.
By
SUZANNE
FARKAS.
(New
York:
New
York
University
Press,
1971.
Pp.
334.
$8.50.)
There
are
any
number
of
reasons
why
this
well-researched
and
well-executed
study
of
&dquo;urban
lobbying&dquo;
deserves
wide
professional
attention.
For
this
is
more
than
just
a
case
study
of
one
interest
group,
the
United
States
Conference
of
Mayor,
or
even
of
lobbying
in
behalf
of
urban
interests
as
a
generic
political
process.
It
is
a
deft
and
subtle
inquiry
into
the
American
federal
system
as
it
has
been
evolving
in
the
last
forty
years,
ever
since
the
first
gingerly
responses
of
the
New
Deal
to
the
&dquo;urban
crisis,&dquo;
but
especially
in
the
sixties
when
federal
urban
programs
rose
from
28
to
435.
The
study
cuts
through
the
polemical
rhetoric
of
pluralists,
anti-pluralists,
radicals
and
establishmentarians
by
confronting
all
sides
with
some
&dquo;hard
facts&dquo;
that
are
the
bane
of
ideological
thinking,
as
well
as
with
some
truly
&dquo;urbane&dquo;
observations
about
the
state
of
urban
affairs,
if
not
their
prospective
state.
Farkas
is
no
political
hillbilly
or
middle-class
bumpkin
who
suddenly
discovers
that
not
all
is
well
with
urban
America
and,
on
discovering
it,
demands
&dquo;action,&dquo;
whatever
that
means
to
the
generation
that
reached
physiologi-
cal,
though
not
cerebral,
maturity
in
the
middle
and
late
sixties.
She
is
evidently
a
city
dweller
who
knows
what
it
is
all
about.
Alas,
adept
as
Farkas
is
in
winding
her
way
through
the
incredibly
complex
jungle
of
governmental
and
non-governmental
structures
involved
in
urban
policy-
making,
I
think
she
does
her
findings
an
injustice
by
trying
to
harness
them
in
what
she
calls
the
&dquo;urban
policy
subsystem.&dquo;
As
it
turns
out,
this
system
is
variously
characterized
as
multi-centered,
loose,
fluid
or
porous
-
in
other
words,
the
system
is
not
very
systemic.
Fortunately,
the
system
metaphor
neither
helps
nor
hinders
the
meaningful
organization
of
the
material,
so
that
if
not
much
is
gained
not
much
is
lost
in
using
it.
Actually,
Farkas
also
uses
other,
more
suitable
metaphors
to
capture
the
complexities
as
well
as
the
perplexities
of
the
urban
policy
process.
In
a
characteristically
sophisticated
paragraph
she
points
out,
for
instance,
that
&dquo;the
nebulae
of
’urban
interests’
are
refined,
directed,
shaped,
explained,
packaged
as
a
cohesive
plan,
and
only
then
delivered
to
the
appropriate
formal
policy
institution.
Getting
proposals
to
this
point,
and
working
for
their
passage,
is
the
job
of
the
USCM
and
its
allies.
Thus
the
function
of
this
labyrinth
of
consensus-weaving
for
urban
lobbying
is
to
produce
politically
meaningful
results.&dquo;
The
two
words
I
have
italicized
seem
to
me
more
expressive
of
what
is
being
observed
here
than
is
the
system
metaphor.
A
more
pessimistic
analyst
might
even
want
to
speak
of
&dquo;chaos&dquo;
in
referring
to
the
urban
policy
jungle,
as
the
late
Morton
Grodzins
indeed
did
in
his
attempt
to
bring
some
order
into
the
emergent
multi-layer
American
federal
system.
Had
Farkas
begun
with
the
chaos
notion,
she
might
not
have
ignored
Grodzins’
&dquo;marble
cake&dquo;
model
which,
admittedly,
is
not
very
neat,
but
which
has
a
better
&dquo;fit&dquo;
with
the
facts
than
the
system
model,
and
besides
is
capable
of
generating
falsifiable
hypotheses,
something
abstract
systems
theory
has
yet
to
demonstrate.

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