A Prayer for the City Vintage Mobi Ð 448 pages Download ´ Gwairsoft

Kindle A Prayer for the City Vintage

A Prayer for the City Vintage Mobi Ð 448 pages Download ´ Gwairsoft ñ ❮EPUB❯ ❄ A Prayer for the City Vintage ✿ Author H.G. Bissinger – Gwairsoft.co.uk A Prayer for the City is Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Buzz Bissinger's true epic of Philadelphia mayor Ed RendellA Prayer for the City for the PDFEPUB #10003 is Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Buzz Bissinger's true epic of Philadelphia mayor Ed Rendell an utterly uniue unorthodox and idiosyncratic leader who will do anything to save his city take unions head on personally lobby President A Prayer MO If you loved the West Wing TV series there are good chances that you’ll like this book The author somehow finagled permission to be a fly on the wall during the Ed Rendell’s first term as Philadelphia’s Mayor 1992 – 1995 embedding himself in the Chief of Staff’s office sitting in the shadows during executive meetings even listening outside the door during tense confidential negotiations over navy yard reuse proposals Readers are granted shockingly unfettered access to the internal workings of city government at the highest level – we are spectators at the Administration’s finest hours and most cringe worthy stumbles I’m still amazed at what Bissinger was allowed to witness What makes the narrative even interesting is that the 1990s was a pivotal turning point for American cities in a way that some guessed at in the moment but really became apparent only a decade or so later White flight the crack epidemic race riots Cabrini Green like public housing projects and de industrialization had culminated in horrific conditions that left cities broke crime ridden and plagued with poverty related issues Everything peaked in the 1990s Administrations that realized that they were the last best chance to “save a dying and obsolete city” took radical measures capitalized on the economic boom of the 1990s and entered the 21st century with enough economic momentum and attractive assets to lure in urbanophile Millennials See Philadelphia thanks to Rendell The alternative was complete collapse of the city following by the total implosion of the economy in nearby suburbs see Detroit Gary Flint So not only does A Prayer for The City deliver a fascinating insider view but what we’re watching is a desperate Administration try everything it can think of to pull a City back from the brink “We’re shameless” the Chief of Staff told the author “We’ll play every card”The book offers thoughtful poignant portraits of two men Mayor Ed Rendell and his Chief of Staff David Cohen – and in so doing it offers insights into what it takes in terms of temperament and time allocation to excel at those jobs We vote for Mayors but do we actually know what they do what they can do to “create change” Bissinger makes a compelling case that one of the Mayor’s key contributions was his relentless cheerleading Rendell’s optimism “ changed the entire feel of the city to the point where the perpetual focus wasn’t on the litany of problems but on what maybe just maybe could be done As if by constantly talking about all that might be coming and planning for it as if it were already here it somehow was already here In a way he wasn’t America’s Mayor but America’s first publicly elected cult leader winning hearts and minds of hundreds of thousands on the basis of blind faith” Even if he did have to do it by wrestling with six foot pig mascots to promote a local hot dog business or undertake any number of ridiculous shticks to market the city as an entertainment destination for suburbanites with money to burn Of course I also ate up the fact that both my employer and my boss were mentioned by name in the section about the 5 year financial plan that brought city government back from near bankruptcy “A manifesto for dramatic and radical and unprecedented change in an American city” – yeah I think I’ll tell my Mom that that’s what I do for a living My only reservation is that the narrative flow can feel like learning to drive a manual transmission – the adrenaline rush of union stand downs and navy yard sale negotiations screech to a halt for a profile of a Philadelphia resident I understand that the author included these profiles to give the reader a visceral image of the people whose lives hang in the balance people like a soon to be laid off welder an African American grandma raising her great grandkids in a crack neighborhood a yuppie couple who are driven from their Center City townhouse after one too many violent crimes etc It’s all good content it’s just awkwardly shoe horned into the Rendall Administration story in a way that’s distracting at best and deflating at worst All in all I can’t believe this isn’t standard reading among urbanists