The City at Stake

The City at Stake tells the dramatic story of how the nation's second-largest city completed a major reform of its government in the face of a deeply threatening movement for secession by the San Fernando Valley. How did Los Angeles, a diverse city with an image of unstructured politics and fragmented government, find a way to unify itself around a controversial set of reforms?





Los Angeles government nearly collapsed in political bickering over charter reform, which generated the remarkable phenomenon of two competing charter reform commissions. Out of this nearly impossible tangle, reformers managed to knit a new city charter that greatly expanded institutions for citizen participation and addressed long-standing weaknesses in the role of the mayor. The new charter, pursued by a Republican mayor, won its greatest support from liberal whites who had long favored reform measures.





Written by an urban scholar who played a key role in the charter reform process, the book offers both a theoretical perspective on the process of institutional reform in an age of diversity, and a firsthand, inside-the-box look at how major reform works.





The new afterword by the author analyzes the 2005 election of Los Angeles's first modern Latino mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, a milestone in the development of urban reform coalitions in an age of immigration and ethnic diversity.

List of Maps ix List of Tables xi Preface: Reform under the Gun xiii Acknowledgments xix PART ONE: The Dynamics of Urban Reform CHAPTER ONE The Politics of Reform: The New Institutionalism Meets the New Diversity 3 CHAPTER TWO Studying Los Angeles Politics 14 PART TWO: The Roots of Los Angeles Charter Reform CHAPTER THREE Reform, Los Angeles Style 29 CHAPTER FOUR Richard Riordan and Conservative Reform 57 CHAPTER FIVE Valley Secession and the Suburban Revolt 72 CHAPTER SIX Charter Reform: The Cure for Secession? 84 PART THREE: The Battle over the Charter CHAPTER SEVEN The 1997 Municipal Elections and the Politics of Charter Reform 95 CHAPTER EIGHT The Charter Reform Commissions 104 CHAPTER NINE The Inside Game: Mayoral Authority 110 CHAPTER TEN The Inside Game: Police Reform 123 CHAPTER ELEVEN The Outside Game: The Politics of Participation 130 PART FOUR: The Unified Charter CHAPTER TWELVE The Creation of the Unified Charter 151 CHAPTER THIRTEEN The Fall and Rise of the Unified Charter 163 CHAPTER FOURTEEN The Campaign for the Unified Charter 185 PART FIVE: The Battle over Secession CHAPTER FIFTEEN Implementation 209 CHAPTER SIXTEEN The 2001 Municipal Elections 215 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN The Vote on Secession 227 PART SIX: The Future of Urban Reform CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Toward a Reform Regime: Governing Postsecession Los Angeles 241 CHAPTER NINETEEN Conclusions and Implications: Reform, Twenty-First-Century Style 251 APPENDIX ONE Summary of the Charter Proposal 267 APPENDIX TWO Using Ecological Inference Model to Verify Results 275 Bibliography 279 Index 293