Quote of the day

"It is inadequate to assert that the machines had no alternative [to a politics of individual support vs. structural reform]. The truth is that the machines were instrumental in limiting the alternatives that were available. By manipulating immigrants and lower-class communities for their own narrow advantage, they materially contributed to a politics that disproportionately benefited a few."

-- Dennis Judd--Politics of American Cities: Private Power and Public Policy, 3rd ed., p. 79-80.
------------------
The more things don't change the more they remain the same... This was written to describe the rise of urban machine politics beginning in the 1870s. It sounds like a pretty good description of lot of cities today.

Index Keywords: civic-engagement; good-government