The Promise of Urban Democracy

Abstract

Black mayoral fortunes across America’s big cities improved dramatically in the 1990s. There is speculation on how to explain this shift—whether the factors known to affect black mayoral success have seen wholesale changes or whether this shift derived from marginal changes occurring within these known factors. The author examines pooled cross-sectional data. Black mayoral service was positively associated with black composition in the electorate, city size, and white education; black service was negatively associated with southern location. Marginal changes in factors known to affect black mayoral service accounted for big-city black mayoral success in the early 1990s.