The City Manager and the Policy Process

Abstract

WTHEN the nation's city managers assembled in Dallas last October for their annual conference, the atmosphere was one of enthusiasm and optimism. The conference theme was the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the appointment of the first manager, and the delegates who gathered for the occasion could justifiably look back over the years with a feeling of pride and accomplishment. The facts could not be disputed. In the short span of half a century, the councilmanager plan had spread so rapidly that it was on the verge of becoming the most prevalent form of municipal government in the United States. In the past twelve years alone it had displaced nearly a thousand mayorcouncil and commission governments, and the widespread trend of public acceptance showed no signs of abating. Increasing steadily at the rate of seventy to eighty cities each year, council-manager government was already firmly implanted in nearly half of all cities over 25,000 population. To the managers and to thoughtful observers of public administration alike, it seemed abundantly clear that the next few decades would see council-manager government become the rule and other local governmental forms the exception. Considering the slowness with which traditional governmental institutions give way to substantive changes, the rapid growth of council-manager government seemed little short of phenomenal. Of even greater signifi>Several recent Review authors have wrestled with questions of political-administrative relationships at all levels of government. Each recognized that policy questions do not end at the boundary between political officials and career administrators. They differ somewhat on how the career administrator's decisions are to be kept responsive to public will and the political official's decisions kept properly informed by the experts. Here, two experienced and successful city managers place their current thinking alongside views expressed in the Summer 1958 issue. They explain why the amount and flourish of political debate has declined in most cities and why managers have moved into leadership on policy development. For further debate are such questions as these: Do city councils air public questions sufficiently for reasoned consideration by the public? Are managers or councils raising the important questions of urban policy at all (for example those suggested by Coleman Woodbury in the Autumn 1958 Review)? John Pfiffner raises related questions in a book review in this issue.