Morning Glories – Municipal Reform in the Southwest (Princeton Studies in American Politics: Historical, International, and Comparative Perspectives) - Hardcover

Bridges, Amy

3.1

10 ratings by Goodreads

9780691027807: Morning Glories – Municipal Reform in the Southwest (Princeton Studies in American Politics: Historical, International, and Comparative Perspectives)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691027803 ISBN 13: 9780691027807

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1997

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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.

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Review:

Winner of the 1998 Best Book Award, Urban Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association
Winner of the 1997 Best Book in North American Urban History Award, Urban History Association
"What makes Morning Glories a compelling account is the sophistication of the political understanding that guides it.... In short, Morning Glories is a major contribution to the fields of urban politics and urban political history and a model of how to do a sophisticated analysis of urban political development."--Clarence N. Stone, Political Science Quarterly

"[An] excellent comparative study of municipal reform in the large cities of the Southwest.... Bridges's work is especially valuable for what it tells us of Southwestern patterns and how regional forms modify growth-centered approaches to city politics."--Patricia Evridge Hill, H-Urban, H-Net Reviews

"A rich and detailed picture of city governance. . . . This book has been recognized by awards from both urban historians and scholars of urban politics. It is indeed a model of meticulous research and nuanced analysis within a broad interpretive framework."--Carl Abbott, American Historical Review

Synopsis:

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 of fluorishin' forever, like fine old oaks." Although this remark may ring true for the Northeast US, municipal reformers have governed the big cities of the Southwest for most of the 20th century. Many accounts of municipal reform have focused on small towns and suburbs as the only locations where reformers achieved their goals, but this book aims to give a more complete account of municipal reform, tracing the reform politics and government in large Southwestern cities since 1901.

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