Urban politics? For us, we’ll mean the politics at the local level of cities (i.e., municipalities), be they big or small, in the United States. Such politics involve contests among individuals and groups to acquire influence over the priorities and decisions of cities, where cities for us will equal official “municipal governments,” “special purpose governments,” or “consolidated city-county governments” of the 50 states. To understand urban politics requires us to identify, describe, and explain political institutions, behavior, and representation at the local level that influence the lives and opportunities of cities’ denizens, inclusive of residents, civil society organizations, and commercial businesses. In short, urban politics is about “who gets what when and how” from city governments.

Together, we’ll use our course to think about how the political behavior and representation of various groups and interests relate to the institutional choices of city governments (e.g., local taxes) and how institutional choices of city governments relate to the political behavior (e.g., protest and voting) and representation of groups and interests. We’ll also think and share about scholarship on local political institutions, behavior, representation, key theories about the consistently powerful groups at the local level, and practical implications of urban politics, inclusive of intergroup conflict, in the United States.