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Title: A Prayer for the City by Buzz Bissinger ISBN: 0-679-74494-0 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 29 December, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.65 (26 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: a remarkable and incisive book about urban dilemmas
Comment: In many ways, Buzz Bissinger's "A Prayer for the City" is one of the most remarkable books ever written about an American city.
In stark and sometimes shocking detail, Bissinger lays out the crises assailing the modern urban core: violence, poverty, economic development, poor public educational systems and so on. What's truly wonderful about Bissinger's book is that he leaves so many questions open. He isn't shallow or dismissive about these urban dilemmas; Bissinger doesn't give pat answers or bromides about how these problems can be solved.
And that's a remarkable achievement on the author's part, particularly given the manner in which he structures this book. Though he sketches the lives of several Philadelphia citizens, there are undeniably two central characters in this book: Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell and his Chief of Staff David Cohen. In some ways -- and I think Bissinger purposefully and effectively conveys this image - Rendell and Cohen should be seen as two sides of the same coin.
Both Rendell and Cohen possess essential characteristics that will be needed in the fight to save the city, but the skills of each are different and, as such, they need each other to do what must be done. Rendell is the affable, easy-mannered, though sometimes short-tempered old politician who is out front. Cohen is the workaholic lawyer whose ruthless attention to the minutiae and detail of public policy brings him 17-hour days and little public glory. The highly public role Rendell plays is layed out in one particularly moving section toward the beginning of the book. Bissinger details a funereal November, 1994 car ride that Rendell took to a city hospital where a police patrolman who had been shot was being treated. Bissinger describes Rendell's interaction with the policeman's family, as well as his palpable anger that a patrolman could be so senselessly cut down in the line of duty. In moving language, Bissinger shows the depth of the problem confronting Rendell and Cohen.
In addition to the generic problems besetting Philadelphia, Bissinger also details those specific to Pennsylvania's largest city. Throughout the book, Bissinger writes of Rendell's and Cohen's attempts to save the Philadelphia Naval Ship Yard from closure by the U.S. Department of the Navy. The story of the struggle for the shipyard, which means the difference between Philadelphia losing or keeping thousands of crucial jobs, provides a penetrating insight into how the municipal and federal governments often move in disparate directions, and how that can have staggering consequences for the local level.
Bissinger's tone in this book is somber, without veering into the maudlin. The author provides great detail about urban problems, but not in a voyeuristic or exploitative way. Though he is clearly rooting for Rendell, Bissinger does not become fawning or mawkish. Indeed, Bissinger's reporting is impeccable, due no doubt to the wide-open access to Rendell he was clearly granted. Primarily, "A Prayer for the City" succeeds because Bissinger set out to tell a great story, and that essential goal is something that far too many journalistic treatments miss these days.
Rating: 5
Summary: wonderful serenade to the city
Comment: As a student at Philadelphia's University of Pennsylvania, I'm an immigrant to Philadelphia from Los Angeles. I came here with a deep hatred of the place. Everything seemed worse: the weather, the harsh edge of West Philadephia, and the clamor of urban life.
Two years later I still held many of these feelings -- until I read this book. I finished it in about three sittings. Bissinger is a journalist, but this book really isn't a history of the city (although my knowledge of historic and present Philadelphia was greatly supplemented by reading it). It's an homage to former Mayor Rendell, his aides, and many of the working-class characters in the city. Bissinger has a remarkable penchant for creating heroes out of normal people. Truly a beautiful book.
If anyone knows similar books about Los Angeles or New York, please e-mail me, I'd love to hear from you: [email protected]
Rating: 4
Summary: An honest view
Comment: It is often that governement is displayed as flawed (as it is here) but rare that the dramatic and negative repercussions of unions that have grown selfish over time are shown. The Rendell (brilliant but with emotional loose ends) /Cohen (brilliant but a control junkie) combo slowed Philadelphia's death. But problems of this magnitude cannot be resolved in four years. What they were able to accomplish is both encouraging and inspirational, while at the same time ultimately futile. Their very human sides are presented as well which makes the book read like a novel. The only drawback is the someitmes overly lengthy passages related to population declines and other urban historical data. I have never been to Philly. Reading this book makes me want to go there, if only to see what it looks like now.
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Title: Agendas and Instability in American Politics (American Politics and Political Economy Series) by Frank R. Baumgartner, Bryan D. Jones ISBN: 0226039390 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: July, 1993 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: Private City: Philadelphia in Three Periods of Its Growth by Sam Bass, Jr. Warner ISBN: 0812212436 Publisher: Olympic Marketing Corporation Pub. Date: July, 1987 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Politics and Public Policy by Carl E. Van Horn, Donald C. Baumer, William T. Gormley ISBN: 1568024835 Publisher: CQ Press Pub. Date: February, 2001 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: Uncovering the Dome by Amy Klobuchar ISBN: 0881332186 Publisher: Waveland Press Pub. Date: April, 1986 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Uncle Tom's Children by Richard A. Wright ISBN: 0060812516 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 14 April, 1993 List Price(USD): $7.00 |
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