The Parameters of Urban Fiscal Policy: Socioeconomic Change and Political Culture in San Francisco, 1860-1906

by Terrence J. McDonald

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1986.

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

Reviews

[David Bates · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terrence McDonald’s work The Parameters of Urban Fiscal Policy, published in 1986, developed a substantial challenge to Hofstadter’s interpretation of urban politics. The study began as an attempt to demonstrate that the sweeping tidal forces of industrialization and urbanization, rather than political struggle of free spending bosses and tight fisted reformers, were the main determinant of local government spending. Taking fiscal policy as the symbol which displayed the aims and scope of government, McDonald attempted to understand which forces within society were most influential upon it by apply careful statistical analysis of taxation and expenditures. In the process of his analysis however, McDonald realized that it was impossible to account for changes in the city’s finances without reference to the nature of the political forces which shaped fiscal policy. Rather than the policies of municipal government passively reflecting the changing society, political ideas and tactics mattered.
Examining the city budget, taxation, assessed valuation, along with the class and ethnic background of office holders, McDonald found that a culture of low taxation and expenditure forced politicians of all parties and ethnic groups to compete to keep budgets down and services minimal until the late 1890s. Tellingly, this was especially true of the period when the city government was most directly controlled by the Democratic Party machine lead by boss Christopher Buckley. Increases in taxation and service provision waited on a political reformation engineered by the Progressive Mayor Phelan around the turn of the century, when he mobilized a coalition of businesses and neighborhood improvement associations by promising more improvements, services and honest administration via the expansion of the public sector.

[Frank Stein · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read the title.

I'll have to say that even for me this was a little dry. Apparently the San Francisco fire of 1906 burned up any records that might contribute anything of interest to a story, sparing only budget charts. McDonald does some good work with them but really, would a little description hurt so much?