Reforming the City, by Ariane Liazos (introduction)

REFORMING THE CITY The Contested Origins of Urban Government, 1890–1930

ARIANE LIAZOS

Introduction Urban!Reform"!Coalitions"!and!American!

Political!Development

W

hen most Americans think of Ferguson, Missouri, they remember the events of August 9, 2014, when a white police o cer fatally shot Michael Brown, an unarmed African American teenager. This incident ignited protests in Ferguson over police brutality, drew attention to the Black Lives Matter movement, and sparked national conversations about race and policing that continue to this day.

Far fewer Americans, however, remember the role that the city manager and structures of Ferguson’s government played in creating the conditions that led to the shooting. In the aftermath of the protests, the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice undertook a detailed investigation of Ferguson’s government. Its report highlighted systematic racial bias in law enforcement procedures that were designed primarily to generate revenue for the city rather than to secure public safety. It also emphasized the role of the city manager and other o cials in promoting these procedures. For these and other practices, the report concluded that the city violated the constitutional rights of African American residents.1 Soon after the report’s publication, the chief of police, a municipal judge, and the city manager resigned, but Ferguson did not change its form of government.2 On one level, the implication was that individuals and not institutions were the root of the problem. And yet in another example, an external investigatory body examining Norfolk, irginia’s government

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concluded the opposite. One hundred years earlier, with World War I looming, Norfolk was poised to become a major naval center. Boosters envisioned a period of rapid expansion but were concerned that the city would be unable to meet demands for new services. They called in specialists from the New York Bureau of Municipal Research to diagnose aws in the city’s organization and administration and propose solutions.3 The resulting report of over ve hundred pages provided a detailed description of nearly every facet of the city’s government, noting ine ciencies in every department. In a striking parallel to the Department of Justice’s report, it highlighted de ciencies of the police department, the police court, and the justices of the peace, concluding that their approach to raising revenues by imposing fees led them to issue groundless warrants.4 Despite this parallel, there are also essential di erences in these two reports. In 1915, the New York Bureau of Municipal Research did not identify racism as a central concern. In fact, despite the fact that Norfolk’s population was over one-third African American, the report largely avoided mentioning race. One of the rare moments when it did so was telling, claiming that “colored children were jailed in deplorable conditions, much worse than those of white children.5 Yet despite this silence, other sources from the time provide clear evidence of racially motivated police intimidation, spurious arrests, and unequal enforcement of laws in Norfolk and other cities in irginia.6 In 2015, in contrast, the Justice Department focused on race throughout its report, and some of its key recommendations to improve policing included training to reduce racial stereotyping and bias and e orts to promote more diversity in hiring.7 While in 1915 the investigators avoided addressing institutional racism, in 2015 the Department of Justice addressed it directly and extensively.

Another key di erence stemmed from the proposed solutions. While both reports recommended abolishing policing and judicial practices designed to generate revenue, the 1915 report went much further in proposing structural reforms, calling for a new charter to remake the city’s organization and administration. It maintained that centralizing responsibility and authority under an individual such as a city manager would ensure a more e cient and impartial administration that would bene t the entire community.8 The report’s authors and many of their contemporaries promoted the view that structural reforms, particularly the establishment of city manager forms of government, would enable experts, above political

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and personal motivations, to create what many called “good city government. Yet while the investigators of 1915 believed that a city manager form of government would promote impartiality and e ciency, the Justice Department characterized the manager in Ferguson as exactly the opposite: partial and ine cient.9 This book tells the story of how the forms of city government that now dominate the urban landscape came to be. In doing so, it examines the silences and paradoxes of the movement that led to their creation. In roughly thirty years, city government in the United States underwent a massive transformation. An organ ization called the National Municipal League (NML) and reform groups across the country spearheaded campaigns to restructure the governments of American cities, and in local elections voters rati ed charters that created new forms of representation and systems of administration. In 1900, the sphere of self-government in cities was circumscribed. The use of the initiative and referendum in local elections was rare, and most cities were only allowed to undertake activities expressly permitted by state laws. By the 1930s, the initiative and referendum were widespread, and roughly one-third of states had passed laws allowing “home rule for cities.10 Even more starkly, in 1900 city manager government did not exist. Urban areas were largely governed by elected mayors and large, bicameral councils elected in partisan, wardbased elections.11 By the 1930s, nearly half of American cities were governed by small commissions and often administered by appointed city managers, and over half of all commissions and councils were elected in at-large, nonpartisan elections.12 These features provisions for direct democracy, nonpartisan elections, at-large elections (or a mix of wardbased and at-large elections), and appointed city managers continue to be the most common elements of city government today.13 How were reformers able to change the governments of American cities so dramatically in only a few short decades Equally puzzling is the fact that many of these reforms did not achieve what their original architects intended. Initially, promoters of city manager government, shorter ballots, and nonpartisan elections claimed that these tools would increase interest in local government and make democracy workable in growing cities. In 1899, the NML issued an o cial program of reform focused on a variety of means to eliminate the in uence of parties in local a airs. One leader of the NML summarized this program

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as an attempt to “organize municipal government to bring about “the perfection of democracy. Another promised that it would ensure that citizens would control “public policy in cities and “work out their own local destiny. 14 Twenty years later, Richard Childs, the principal architect of city manager government, promoted this plan as one that would enable democracy to ourish in the modern age. If citizens elected only small councils and did not have to vote for administrators, who would now be appointed by city managers, they would be informed about all candidates. Childs claimed that this system would make sure that councillors would not be beholden to special interests but rather “deal solely and directly with a free people. 15 Today, political scientists continue to debate the overall impact of such changes, but there is a general consensus that many of these reforms lead to lower turnout in local elections, which in turn creates unrepresentative councils that pass policies that favor some residents over others. Removing parties from local politics, separating local from state and national elections, and delegating powers to appointed o cials (such as city managers) rather than elected mayors all make citizens less likely to vote.16 In recent years, participation in local elections reached a historic low, with less than one-quarter of registered voters showing up to the polls.17 This state of a airs is not what Childs and many others envisioned. Why were these reformers so successful in altering the structures of local government but so wrong in predicting what these changes would accomplish We might also ask how much it really matters that turnout is low and local councils are often unrepresentative. While scholars continue to debate this issue, the story of Ferguson o ers compelling evidence that it matters hugely. Ferguson was one of the rst cities to adopt a city manager form of government in Missouri, with a small, nonpartisan council chosen in local elections held apart from national ones. In 2014, the population was 67 percent African American, but the mayor, ve of six council members, the city manager, and the chief of police were all white, as were fty of fty-three police o cers.18 Ferguson, in short, provides a stark example of why we need to care about the institutions of city government.

They determine who gets elected and how power is distributed among elected and appointed o cials. They can also make it more or less likely for citizens to want to participate in local governance and feel that their voices matter.19 The central question of this book is how reforms originally

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intended to make city government more accountable to voters ended up contributing to the creation of the systems in Ferguson and cities like it across the country. The answer lies in the story of the urban reform movement that swept through the country in the early twentieth century, particularly the diversity of its coalitions, the compromises made to maintain these coalitions, and the unintended consequences that resulted.20

Investigating!Urban!Reform'!Sources"!

Scope"!and!Methods Some of the earliest attempts to understand the motivations of these reformers argued for a near conspiracy. In the 1960s, historians claimed that there was a sharp di erence between the professed ideology and actual practices of proponents of urban reform, suggesting that businessmen and professionals used seemingly democratic rhetoric to mask their real goals.

For example, reformers attacked ward-based elections and party patronage as inherently corrupting, claiming that they prevented city government from representing the people’s will and providing e cient services. In reality, this view claims, elites simply wanted to eliminate the ward system because it provided a voice for the largely immigrant working class in local politics.21 This earlier scholarship has continued to be cited by major works in history and political science in recent years.22 It also dominates accounts of early twentieth-century reform in political science textbooks today.23 Unquestionably, there is some accuracy in these arguments, but studies of individual cities suggest that the full story was far more complicated, demonstrating notable local and regional variations and o ering examples of charter reform campaigns supported by diverse urban residents.

In one instance, leaders of the African American community in Cincinnati, Ohio, joined with white reformers calling for a new charter. Both groups wanted to replace ward-based elections with a system of proportional representation. In another, ward politicians in New Brunswick, New Jersey, were leading proponents of a new reform known as the commission plan of government. And in the Southwest, reformers in many cities and towns secured the adoption of new charters by presenting urban reform as a way for residents to unite in support of local economic development.

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Highlighting the complexity of urban reform, political scientist Amy Bridges characterizes it as developing from a “mixed assortment of motivations and goals, of e ciency and elitism, clean government and racism, the common good and exclusion. 24 Such accounts help us better understand the dynamics of Progressive urban reform in cities across the country, forcing us to ask why ward politicians and African American leaders supported reforms that eventually contributed to the e ective disfranchisement of the working class and minorities.

This book is an attempt to answer this and other puzzling questions. In part, the answer may be that charters were more likely to be adopted when su rage restrictions were in place, reducing the voting power of poor and minority residents.25 But such restrictions cannot fully explain outcomes, because, as the accounts of reform in this book demonstrate, business leaders and suburbanites sometimes opposed new charters, and women’s groups, union leaders, and African Americans sometimes supported them.

Why did these latter groups support urban reform Was the disempowerment of voters the real motivation of the original architects and most vocal proponents of urban reform In other words, were they in fact conspirators, attempting to mislead working-class voters with false promises of democratic empowerment Or were they instead political novices who did not understand what the true outcomes of their e orts would be Did their reforms produce the intended results, at least in the short term These are not easy questions to answer. This study, like all works of historical scholarship, necessarily draws on the fragmentary records left by historical actors, and it must grapple with the silences and incomplete nature of these records. By examining academic debates about urban democracy, political battles over structural reform, and the resulting institutions created, this book o ers an intellectual, political, and institutional history of urban reform. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, I combine political history and the history of ideas with the insights of institutionalism and American political development in the social sciences. As a historian, I embrace the complex, contingent, and particular forces that shaped this unique historical moment, but I also draw on social scientists’ insights regarding the importance of institutions and other forces that constrain and empower historical actors.26 I draw from a diverse body of original source materials to trace the shifting alliances and complicated interactions among leading reformers in the NML, political scientists

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active in reform circles, and local political actors working for charter revision over a roughly forty-year period. I combine accounts of reform in ve cities, a history of the NML, analyses of the works of the leading political scientists who were active in the NML, and quantitative data on changes in the structures of city government in over three hundred cities.

On the national level, by examining the NML’s archival papers and publications and in uential works of municipal political science, this book focuses on the NML and the bureaus of municipal research that were founded in cities as venues for applied social science. These organizations brought together leading reformers and political scientists who, despite their many di erences of opinion, largely set the agenda for urban reform.

These men (and a few women) met at yearly meetings, and their vast publications reached interested parties in cities throughout the United States.

My account touches on the e orts of dozens of active o cers and focuses more closely on the e orts of a few key leaders and political scientists who decisively shaped the NML’s work.

On the local level, this book incorporates accounts of charter reform in ve cities, detailing the interactions between local and national levels whenever possible. I rely heavily on local newspapers. Reformers, journalists, and editors often used urban newspapers as vehicles for the dissemination of “facts to educate residents. Most residents, in turn, learned about local politics primarily through newspapers. As a result, newspapers partly set the political agendas of American cities.27 The pages of local newspapers provide detailed accounts of campaigns to revise charters.

Urban reform occurred within the context of broader discussions during the Progressive Era about the meaning of democracy and purpose of government. These discussions took place not only among political scientists and leading reformers at the NML’s annual meetings but also among local reformers, politicians, and urban residents. Meetings to formulate new charters were akin to local constitutional conventions in which participants worked to create political institutions that embodied their understandings of democracy. They provide examples of a type of discourse that later scholars have termed a “public sphere and a “community of discourse. 28 At meetings hosted by civic associations, on street corners, and in the pages of local newspapers, reformers (usually middle-class professionals), union leaders and members, o cers of women’s groups, business leaders, and politicians came together and discussed the meaning of

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democratic politics and government, as well as other matters of common concern.

Only by combining a variety of methodological approaches and diverse evidence including local case studies, national debates, and quantitative data can we come closer to understanding the full history of urban reform. The NML and other municipal organizations launched some of the rst systematic investigations to gather data on American cities. Their efforts, combined with those of the Census Bureau, created records regarding state laws regulating cities, forms of city government (mayor-council, commission, or manager), electoral structures (partisan or nonpartisan elections, by ward or at large), public ownership of utilities and transit, spending on infrastructure, and much more.29 Several political scientists and economists have made use of this type of data to o er conclusions regarding how and why reforms were adopted, sometimes making claims about the motivations of political actors based largely on statistical analyses.30 In places I draw on their work, but at the same time I proceed from the conviction that quantitative studies alone cannot fully answer questions about human motivation and how and why structural reforms were adopted.

I began my research with national data to gain a sense of the broad patterns of reform, and my analysis of the forms of government in the 310 largest cities in 1930 con rms that regional variations were key: broadly speaking, most structural reforms were more likely to be adopted in the South and West and were less likely to be adopted in the Midwest and Northeast.31 I then read historical accounts of many cities across the country to identify cities that followed the patterns most typical of their region. I discovered examples not only of campaigns in the South, Southwest, and West that led to the adoption of new charters but also of campaigns in the Northeast and Midwest where voters questioned the need for proposed changes. I selected ve medium-size cities: Worcester, Massachusetts; Norfolk, irginia; Toledo, Ohio; Fort Worth, Texas; and Oakland, California.32 By the end of the 1920s, residents in Norfolk, Fort Worth, and Oakland adopted city manager charters with at-large elections, while residents of Toledo and Worcester had not, despite the e orts of reformers.33 Detailed accounts of campaigns to revise charters in these cities are essential to understanding the broader movement for urban reform.

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Scholars of charter revision in the twenty- rst century argue that it is not possible to understand the true nature of impassioned debates about local government, even today, without adopting a case study method that includes careful examination of the positions of both opponents and supporters of charter changes in speci c cities. At the same time, a single case study alone cannot shed light on the national story.

Multiple case studies must be compared in a search for patterns and common themes.34 These methodological points apply not only to the modern study of charter change but also to its historical study, when the feelings involved in local debates reached levels that would surprise most contemporary readers. It is di cult today to understand the passion that animated participants of these debates, many of whom seem to have sincerely believed that the future of democracy was at stake in the formation of city charters. Moreover, my combined examination of local case studies, quantitative data, and national debates contributes not only to the scholarship on urban reform but also to broader questions regarding the development of political institutions in the United States, particularly the complex relationship between representative structures and the scope of activities undertaken by government.

The!Movement!for!Urban!Reform'!

Coalitions"!Compromises"!and!Silences Drawing on these methodologies and bodies of evidence, I begin by distinguishing between intentions and outcomes. Other studies rightly focus on longer-term outcomes of urban reform.35 Yet, following the lead of James Kloppenberg, in this historical account I argue for the importance of unintended consequences and lost opportunities to secure alternative outcomes.36 I also argue that the coalitions that marked this national movement for urban reform are key to understanding these unintended consequences.

To claim that there was a national movement is not to argue that it was neat or uniform but rather that a shared set of concerns drew together diverse individuals in coalitions.37 Focusing on the networks of communication that brought reformers together and shaped the agendas they pursued locally demonstrates the powerful connections between the NML and

How the early twentieth-century urban reform movement shaped today’s city governments “A century ago, progressive reformers o!en thought expertise and nonpartisanship were the solution to extreme polarization and inequality in U.S. politics, as they do now. But Ariane Liazos dramatizes the unintended consequences of changes pursued in hundreds of U.S. cities in the early 1900s. The findings in Reforming the City hold important lessons for today’s democracy reformers, along with all students of American history and politics.”

—THEDA"SKOCPOL#"HARVARD"UNIVERSITY

“This well-researched volume offers an important new perspective on an era of grassroots democratic reform that is highly relevant to our urgent social, political, and economic crises today, including a useful focus on unexpected alliances, unintended consequences, and lost opportunities.”

—ROBERT"D$"PUTNAM#"AUTHOR"OF" THE"UPSWING%"HOW"AMERICA"CAME"TOGETHER"A" CENTURY"AGO"AND"HOW"WE"CAN"DO"IT"AGAIN

“In this comprehensive, provocative, and richly nuanced study, Liazos brilliantly shows how progressive reformers forged coalitions to end corruption, improve efficiency, and inspire civic participation in urban governance. Understanding their aims, the challenges they faced, and the surprising consequences of their efforts is indispensable for historians, political scientists, and activists mobilizing today to address the persistent tensions between administration and democracy.”

—JAMES"T$"KLOPPENBERG#"AUTHOR"OF" TOWARD"DEMOCRACY%"THE"STRUGGLE"FOR"SELF-RULE" IN"EUROPEAN"AND"AMERICAN"THOUGHT

“Why are cities, once the birthplace of Progressive reform, o!en considered undemocratic today? How is it that Americans feel closest to their local governments and yet fail to participate actively in them? These and other puzzles drive Liazos’s important study of how a wide range of actors joined together a century ago to remake how cities were governed and the unintended consequences of their efforts.”

—LIZABETH"COHEN#"AUTHOR"OF" SAVING"AMERICA’S"CITIES%"ED"LOGUE"AND"THE"STRUGGLE" TO"RENEW"URBAN"AMERICA"IN"THE"SUBURBAN"AGE

“Reforming the City is the most thorough and persuasive study of municipal reform in American cities I have ever read. This detailed account is the most important work ever wri$en on the topic.”

—ROBERT"FAIRBANKS#"UNIVERSITY"OF"TEXAS"AT"ARLINGTON

“An ambitious, elegant, and well researched book.”

—AMY"BRIDGES#"UNIVERSITY"OF"CALIFORNIA#"SAN"DIEGO

ARIANE"LIAZOS is a research advisor in the social sciences and lecturer at the Harvard Extension School. With Theda Skocpol and Marshall Ganz, she is coauthor of What a Mighty Power We Can Be: African American Fraternal Groups and the Struggle for Racial Equality (2006).

Cover design: Milenda Nan Ok Lee Cover art: Charles Beard, American City Government: A Survey of Newer Tendencies (New York: The Century Company, 1912)

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