Official Leadership in the City: Patterns of Conflict and Cooperation

The burden of addressing the problems of urban society fall increasingly on cities as the federal government cuts back domestic spending. This book examines the roles of mayors, councils, and administrators in governing and managing their cities. Positing that the internal dynamics of city governments are largely shaped by their structures, the author shows how council-manager governmental structures often foster more cooperation than do mayor-council structures. Svara provides contrasting models of interaction among officials in the two forms and shows how conflict and cooperation affect the performance of officials in the two structures; he contends that proper understanding of the roles and behavior appropriate to each will lead to equal effectiveness between the two.

James H. Svara is at University of North Carolina.