The Left In The City

Stefan Epp-Koop’s "We’re Going to Run This City: Winnipeg’s Political Left After the General Strike" explores the dynamic political movement that came out of the largest labour protest in Canadian history and the ramifications for Winnipeg throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Few have studied the political Left at the municipal level—even though it is at this grassroots level that many people participate in political activity. Winnipeg was a deeply divided city. On one side, the conservative political descendants of the General Strike’s Citizen’s Committee of 1000 advocated for minimal government and low taxes. On the other side were the Independent Labour Party and the Communist Party of Canada, two parties rooted in the city’s working class, though often in conflict with each other. The political strength of the Left would ebb and flow throughout the 1920s and 1930s but peaked in the mid-1930s when the ILP’s John Queen became mayor and the two parties on the Left combined to hold a majority of council seats. Astonishingly, Winnipeg was governed by a mayor who had served jail time for his role in the General Strike.

This book provides insight into how San Francisco's progressive coalition developed between 1975 and 1991, what stresses emerged to cause splintering within the coalition, and how it fell apart in the 1991 mayoral campaign. DeLeon analyzes the success and failures of the progressive movement as it toppled the business-dominated pro-growth regime, imposed stringent controls on growth and development, and achieved political control of city hall.

Stepping Left simultaneously unveils the radical roots of modern dance and recalls the excitement and energy of New York City in the 1930s. Ellen Graff explores the relationship between the modern dance movement and leftist political activism in this period, describing the moment in American dance history when the revolutionary fervor of "dancing modern" was joined with the revolutionary vision promised by the Soviet Union. This account reveals the major contribution of Communist and left-wing politics to modern dance during its formative years in New York City. From Communist Party pageants to union hall performances to benefits for the Spanish Civil War, Graff documents the passionate involvement of American dancers in the political and social controversies that raged throughout the Depression era. Dancers formed collectives and experimented with collaborative methods of composition at the same time that they were marching in May Day parades, demonstrating for workers' rights, and protesting the rise of fascism in Europe. Graff records the explosion of choreographic activity that accompanied this lively period--when modern dance was trying to establish legitimacy and its own audience. Stepping Left restores a missing legacy to the history of American dance, a vibrant moment that was supressed in the McCarthy era and almost lost to memory. Revisiting debates among writers and dancers about the place of political content and ethnicity in new dance forms, Stepping Left is a landmark work of dance history.

The Shame of the Cities is a book written by Lincoln Steffens. It accounts for the workings of corrupt political procedures in several major U.S. cities, along with a few attempts to fight against them.

A prizewinning political scientist traces the origins of urban-rural political conflict and shows how geography shapes elections in America and beyond Why is it so much easier for the Democratic Party to win the national popular vote than to build and maintain a majority in Congress? Why can Democrats sweep statewide offices in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan yet fail to take control of the same states' legislatures? Many place exclusive blame on partisan gerrymandering and voter suppression. But as political scientist Jonathan A. Rodden demonstrates in Why Cities Lose, the left's electoral challenges have deeper roots in economic and political geography. In the late nineteenth century, support for the left began to cluster in cities among the industrial working class. Today, left-wing parties have become coalitions of diverse urban interest groups, from racial minorities to the creative class. These parties win big in urban districts but struggle to capture the suburban and rural seats necessary for legislative majorities. A bold new interpretation of today's urban-rural political conflict, Why Cities Lose also points to electoral reforms that could address the left's under-representation while reducing urban-rural polarization.

This paper deals with the Broken Windows theories. It first presents the different versions and after analyses the criminal policy consequences. It explains the discussion surrounding the decline in crime in New York as a case study for the verification of these theories. After it introduces briefly the Antisocial Behaviour Orders existing in England. It ends with a presentation of the civic order passed by the City Hall of Barcelona in 2005 and tries to draw some similarities between these different developments.

This edited collection will examine the way in which cities are imagined, experienced and shaped by those who reside within them, those who manage or govern them, and those who, as visitor, tourist or traveller, pass through them. Attention will be paid to the influence that these various inhabitants have on city life and living and the dialectic that exists between their sometimes collective and sometimes divergent, perceptions and uses of city space. In conjunction with this, the collection will explore the ways in which local culture and cultural policy are used by public and private interests as the framework for changing the image and amenity of the city in order to raise its profile and attract tourists. The book contributes to discussions of the increasingly high profile place that cultural programs have in urban regeneration initiatives and explore the tensions, conflicts and negotiations that emerge in urban spaces as a result of policy and culture coming together. Papers will be sought from researchers around the world with a view to examining the nexus between tourism, leisure and cultural programming from a number of perspectives and with reference to a range of international case studies. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events.

“Harrowing and emotional . . . A tribute to the enduring power of family. The story of the disaster’s widows uplifts and devastates in equal measure.” —Gareth Russell, author of The Ship of Dreams When the Titanic foundered in April 1912, the world’s focus was on the tragedy of the passengers who lost their lives. Ever since, in films, dramatizations, adaptations and books, the focus has mostly continued to be on the ones who died. The Titanic and the City of Widows It Left Behind focuses on another group of people—the widows and children of the crew who perished on board. Author Julie Cook’s great-grandfather was a stoker who died on the Titanic. Her great-grandmother had to raise five children with no breadwinner. This book focuses on Emily and the widows like her who had to fight for survival through great hardship, while still grieving for the men they loved who’d died on the ship. Using original archive sources and with accounts from descendants of crew who also lost their lives, the book asks how these women survived through abject poverty and grief—and why their voices have been silent for so long. “The sinking of the Titanic has produced a wealth of books, articles, films and TV documentaries, all of which have given very little thought to the dependents and friends of those who lost their lives in this ocean tragedy. A moving and involving story that corrects this neglect, told by a descendant of a Titanic widow . . . How most of them survived the grief and grinding hardship is a story worth the telling, as are the stories of those who did not survive the crushing pressures.” —Firetrench