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Seeking Effective Power: Why Mayors Need Community Organizations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 June 2005

J. Phillip Thompson
J. Phillip Thompson
Affiliation:
Department of Urban Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology ([email protected])
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Extract

To many, mayors are the most familiar elected officials. Unlike federal representatives, mayors often directly coordinate community services like trash removal, policing, and in some cases oversight of public schools. Despite the seeming transparency of mayoral duties, bottom-line judgments about mayors' performance are political, and, unlike profit margins in business, essentially aesthetic. The public does not evaluate mayoral performance in accordance with “objective” or “rational” criteria; rather, its judgment has more do with values than “facts.” In addition, mayors' performances, including their credibility and ability to implement agendas, has as much (if not more) to do with local politics as with their political orientation. I will address these two points in turn.J. Phillip Thompson is associate professor in the Department of Urban Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology ([email protected]). He is author of a forthcoming book on black mayors (Oxford University Press). He was director of Mayor's Office of Housing Coordination and deputy general manager of the New York Housing Authority in the administration of Mayor David Dinkins (1990–93).

Type
PERSPECTIVES
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , June 2005 , pp. 301 - 308
Copyright
© 2005 American Political Science Association

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