1. LOCAL ROOTS OF BLACK ALIENATION.
- Author
-
Rossi, Peter H. and Berk, Richard A.
- Subjects
- *
URBAN research , *MUNICIPAL government , *BLACK people , *PUBLIC welfare policy , *EMPLOYMENT - Abstract
The article presents a paper that addresses the ways in which black citizens from 15 large American cities broadly assess the performance of their local economies and municipal administrations. These findings about black perceptions are part of a much larger study using a rather unique set of data and reflect the critical impact of five aspects of institutional urban life--police practices, welfare policies, employment, retail merchandising, and public education. The initial purpose of the research was to detect critical political differences between "riot" and "non-riot" cities, a task which was aborted in the spring of 1968 when three of the five "non-riot" cities experienced some of the most severe civil disorders of the entire 1960's period. The findings indicate that it is possible to uncover connections between political regimes, the behavior of municipal delivery systems, and citizen responses of confidence or despair in local political regimes. The crucial point is that the actions of city officials and delivery system personnel have substantial consequences for local residents.
- Published
- 1974