Conclusion: From Conflict to Transformation

Abstract

Abstract Black mayors, like other big-city mayors, are confronted with revenue shortfalls needed to improve schools, deliver social and health services, and maintain and develop infrastructure. Part of their fiscal problems stem from reductions in federal aid to cities over the last two decades; another part comes from the fiscal isolation of wealthy suburbs from the urban poor and innercity problems. Big-city fiscal problems are traceable, above all, to the political isolation of the inner-city poor in the larger body politic. Because the suburbs are mostly populated by whites and most big cities are predominantly black and Latino, overcoming the political isolation of big cities requires the formation of multiracial coalitions that span current city-suburban boundaries.