Change and Renewal in America’s Cities
Reviews and Recommendations
In this upbeat appraisal of modern city management by the former mayor of San Jose, Tom McEnery not only illuminates the role of the city-state in our culture, but also brings his experience to bear in offering a prescription to the many ills that currently beset our cities. Using San Jose as his prime example – a city larger than Boston, Atlanta, Washington, Seattle, or Miami, yet having the lowest crime rate of America’s top 50 cities – the author challenges the negativity in the press and elsewhere that condemns our cities to hopeless despair. Replete with sidebars, anecdotes, and profiles of such big-city mayors as David Dinkins, Tom Bradley, Richard Daley, and Marion Barry, this lively but serious book calls on everyone from Don Corleone to Rodney King in dispensing advice on how to improve our cities. The end result, however, is a thoughtful consideration of our present urban conundra, and a hopeful look at the future of the city-state.