Abstract

Winning City Hall

The article presents information on two books. The books are: "Middle Class Radicalism in Santa Monica," by Mark E. Kann; "The Progressive City: Planning and Participation, 1969-1984," by Pierre Clavel. Both books raise important questions about the possibilities for democratic change in American cities and about the relevance of these progressive or "radical" cities to the rest of urban America. Both are relatively free of academic jargon and add to knowledge of the terrain on which activists struggle for reform. Mark Kann, a professor of political science at the University of Southern California, uses the election of an insurgent government in Santa Monica, California, in 1981 as the basis for a theoretical discussion of American radicalism.