...Evaluates the effect of little city halls on city services and citizens' attitudes toward the city government; analyzes the recruitment, promotion and disciplinary practices of the civil service; examines the underlying rules of behavior that govern its operation; includes comments on individual city officials...

Examines political realities in municipal management Running City Hall studies the history and growth of American cities, their legal status, relationships with other governments, city politics, and financing. From the impact of AIDS to performance zoning, the second edition covers such vital topics as electoral systems, administration, municipal unionism, public safety, social services, and planning. Balanced and thorough, this readable and timely work will be welcomed by practitioners, students, and everyone who seeks to understand the American city.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, and the American Book Award, the bestselling Common Ground is much more than the story of the busing crisis in Boston as told through the experiences of three families. As Studs Terkel remarked, it's "gripping, indelible...a truth about all large American cities." "An epic of American city life...a story of such hypnotic specificity that we re-experience all the shades of hope and anger, pity and fear that living anywhere in late 20th-century America has inevitably provoked." —Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times

Robert Wagner was New York City's true New Deal mayor, killed Tammany Hall. The world Wagner shaped delivers municipal services efficiently at the cost of local democracy. The story of Wagner's mayoralty will be of interest to anyone who cares about New York City, local democracy and the debate about the legacy of the City's important leaders.

So what if Winston Valentine is ninety-two years old? He isn't dead yet! And he's out to prove it. His exuberant show of life—coming to you live from radio dial 1550—revitalizes Valentine, Oklahoma, for its centennial celebration. The townsfolk are determined to make this an anniversary to remember. Except Belinda Blaine, who, at thirty-eight, doesn't feel like celebrating. Suddenly she's carrying a child—and the guilt of an earlier pregnancy nearly twenty years ago. No one in her close-knit community knows of either, including her sweet-mannered husband, Lyle. But disclosing this pregnancy will mean revealing her past and opening her heart. And Belinda's not quite ready for that. As Belinda struggles over what to do, she finds comfort in unexpected places. After all, in Valentine, neighbors are family and strangers are friends. And this small town holds secrets and mysteries, and takes care of its own.