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Title: The Cities on the Hill: Urban Politics in National Institutions

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2011

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Abstract: Much is made of the contemporary Red States-Blue States partisan divide and of the importance of race and income for defining partisan conflict. Less scholarly attention has been paid to place-character as a defining and dividing principle of American politics. This essay links literatures on urban politics and American political development to argue that a distinctly urban perspective is at the core of the current Blue alignment, and proposes a city delegation theory to explain how a cohesive urban bloc grew out of the local politics of the New Deals urban wing and has solidified steadily since. Empirical tests of the theorys implications, employing cohesion and likeness scores and multivariate regression, provide support for the importance of local parties in national legislative behavior. Initially concentrated in Northeastern and Midwestern industrial centers, this progressive urban bloc has nationalized and emerged as a dually liberal partisan pole in national political conflict, representing the full articulation of the New Deal realignment even as the original industrial core upon which it was built continues to wane.

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Authors: Ogorzalek, Thomas

Publisher: Columbia University

Data Collections: IPUMS NHGIS

Topics: Housing and Segregation, Race and Ethnicity

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