SIMMONS, James R.; SIMMONS, Solon J <br/><br/>
Structural conflict in contemporary cities 

 - Thousand Oaks :  Sage Publications,  December 2004 
<br/><br/> A surprising number of modern American cities are experiencing efforts to drastically alter or even abandon their forms of local government. We discuss the major perspectives on municipal structural choice and then use both survey and census data in an attempt to explain this contemporary urban conflict over governance structure. Our findings demonstrate that no single institutional, political, social, or contextual theory satisfactorily explains this envolvings struggle over governing arrangement in U.S. cities. Rather, a complex arrays of factors such as race, ethnicity, education, economic change, governmental composition, and specific municipal design features seem to be driving these movements fot institutional change. 
<br/><br/><label>Subjects--Topical Terms: </label><br/>Municipal Reform; City Government; Form Change; Racial Conflict