A01=J. Eric Oliver
Activism
African Americans
Americans
At-large
Attendance
Author_J. Eric Oliver
Category=JBS
Category=JPA
Chicago metropolitan area
City council
City manager
Civic engagement
Civil society
Community politics
Council-manager government
Democracy
Direct democracy
Election
Electoral district
Employment
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Follow-up
Governance
Governing (magazine)
Government
Income
Institution
Local community
Local election
Local government
Mayor-council government
Metropolitan area
Municipal services
New Urbanism
Of Education
Organization
Percentage point
Political efficacy
Political machine
Political science
Politician
Politics
Public administration
Public choice
Public interest
Racial segregation
Rates (tax)
Regression analysis
Residence
Residential area
Residential community
Respondent
Rural area
Russell Sage Foundation
Self-governance
Social capital
Social class
Social conflict
Social issue
Standard error
Suburb
Suburbanization
Suggestion
Sun Belt
Tax
United States Census Bureau
Urban decay
Urban politics
Urban sprawl
Urbanism
Voting
Well-being
White flight
Zoning
Product details
- ISBN 9780691088808
- Weight: 425g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 26 Aug 2001
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Suburbanization is often blamed for a loss of civic engagement in contemporary America. How justified is this claim? Just what is a suburb? How do social environments shape civic life? Looking beyond popular stereotypes, Democracy in Suburbia answers these questions by examining how suburbs influence citizen participation in community and public affairs. Eric Oliver offers a rich, engaging account of what suburbia means for American democracy and, in doing so, speaks to the heart of widespread debate on the health of our civil society. Applying an innovative, unusually rigorous mode of statistical analysis to a wealth of unique survey and census data, Oliver argues that suburbs, by institutionalizing class and racial differences with municipal boundaries, transform social conflicts between citizens into ones between political institutions. In reducing the incentives for individual political participation, suburbanization has negated the benefits of "small town" government and deprived metropolitan areas of valuable civic capacity. This ultimately increases prospects of serious social conflict.
Oliver concludes that we must reconfigure suburban governments to allow seemingly intractable issues of common metropolitan concern to surface in local politics rather than be ignored as cross-jurisdictional. And he believes this is possible without sacrifice of local government's advantages. Scholars and students of political science, sociology, and urban affairs will prize this book for its striking findings, its revealing scrutiny of the commonplace, and its insights into how the pursuit of the American dream may be imperiling American democracy.
J. Eric Oliver is a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation and Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago.
