The Birth of Modern Urban Governance

Abstract

Although there is little dispute that modern urban governance was born in the nineteenth century in Britain and the United States, several questions have been left unanswered by past and current inquiries into the formation of modern urban governing institutions. For example, what specifically in the historical context of the early nineteenth century convinced political leaders that new forms of urban governance were warranted? How did the first efforts at urban political modernization proceed? Finally, did the early nineteenth-century formation and development of urban governing institutions follow similar paths cross-nationally, or did patterns of modernization diverge sharply across nations? In this article, the author attempts to answer these questions about the birth of modern forms of governance in Boston, Massachusetts, and Bristol, England.