This essay offers a perspective on a new and reinvigorated research agenda for the study of U.S. local governments. It reports on the ideas and reflections of a set of local government scholars with different vantage points and varied substantive interests. Seven paramount themes or directions for a research agenda were identified, all of which contain numerous threads and thrusts: local government finance and economic development, local government management, intergovernmental relations, collaboration, public engagement, social equity, and institutional design. The essay offers some reasons for optimism about the future of U.S. local governments while also identifying cause for concern.

Objective. This article uses social movement theory to explain variation in local support for proposed constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage in 22 states during 2004 and 2006. Methods. The analysis uses OLS regression with county-level data to explain variation in local support for the amendments. Results. Support for the amendments in both years was positively related to the proportion of a county that was evangelical or Republican, but negatively related to its level of education and proportion of Catholics. Amendment support was positively related in only one year to the percentage of a county's population that was professional, young, black, in female-headed households, and Mormon. Amendment support was negatively related to the concentration of gay organizations in 2006, but positively related to the presence of mega-churches in 2006. Conclusions. Community characteristics have a substantial effect on levels of support for same-sex marriage bans, thus reinforcing the utility of cultural explanations of policy decisions.

International Journal of Urban and Regional ResearchVolume 29, Issue 1 p. 211-212 Cities in the International Marketplace: The Political Economy of Urban Development in North America and Western Europe – By H.V. Savitch and Paul Kantor Arnold Fleischmann, Arnold Fleischmann The University of GeorgiaSearch for more papers by this author Arnold Fleischmann, Arnold Fleischmann The University of GeorgiaSearch for more papers by this author First published: 13 April 2005 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2005.00580_5.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Volume29, Issue1March 2005Pages 211-212 RelatedInformation

ABSTRACT:This study focuses on the gay and lesbian rights movement in America’s most conservative region, the South, and its major urban center, Atlanta. Gays and lesbians benefited from a changing political opportunity structure as they overcame severe pressures to develop their own neighborhoods, build a wide range of organizations, and become an important electoral bloc. The movement built upon the city’s civil rights legacy and benefited from the dissipation of it opponents, but it has not posed a major threat to what has been labeled Atlanta’s regime.

CALLS FOR regional approaches to urban problems grew both louder and more diverse during the 1990s. A core belief of New Regionalism is that there are social and economic relationships that extend across any metropolitan area without regard to political boundaries. Indeed, the economic and social fortunes of cities and their suburbs may be very closely linked (Savitch et al. 1993). Recognizing a shared fate is one thing; agreeing on goals, strategies, and processes for shaping an area’s future is quite another. As a growing chorus of scholars, essayists, and policy makers argue that solutions to many of America’s urban problems must be regional in scope, a range of approaches to governing regions has emerged. Within this context, there are still efforts in many areas to merge cities and counties to create a single metropolitan government. This may seem to be the most comprehensive approach to regionalism; it also remains the most radical. It has also proven extremely difficult to achieve, as decades of experience can testify (Savitch and Vogel 1996; Altshuler, Morrill, and Wolman 1999, 3–12). Given the growing emphasis on other approaches to regional problem solving, this article uses a comparative approach to examine the ability of cityRegionalism and City-County Consolidation in Small Metro Areas

This study helps fill a gap in both the urban politics and campaign finance literatures by examining donation patterns for municipal elections in Atlanta and St. Louis. These local campaigns raised substantial amounts of money, much of it from suburban and out-of-state contributors. Businesses were the main contributors, but development interests were not the dominant force portrayed in the urban political economy literature. Like state and federal elections, contributors seemed to pursue an "investment" strategy by targeting incumbents and citywide offices. Multivariate analyses revealed no simple relationship, however, between candidate characteristics and the amount of campaign contributions or between the amount of money a candidate raised and outcomes in city council elections.