A Seat at the Table: Organizations, Legitimacy, and Power in Urban Governance

• In Event: 254 - Section on Community and Urban Sociology Paper Session. Transformations in Contemporary Urban Governance: New Theoretical and Empirical Directions

Abstract

The title of this project—Slow Train Coming—is a metaphor for redevelopment politics in
disadvantaged neighborhoods. The train is outwardly visible but mysterious; we can see it coming
down the tracks, but its contents and mechanics are unknown. Similarly, we can see shovels hitting
the ground or cranes lifting steel beams, but the politics of redevelopment planning remain a black
box of hidden conversations. This book opens the black box. By focusing on the day-to-day grind of
governance, this project reveals overlooked actors and new processes of urban political power. It is a
unique urban ethnography that takes readers off of the street corner and into the conference rooms
of government agencies and private development organizations—a move forcing readers to rethink
our understanding of power, political representation, and inequality in poor neighborhoods.

Author

• Jeremy R. Levine, University of Michigan