In the Loop: A Political and Economic History of San Antonio

by David R. Johnson

In the A Political and Economic History of San Antonio, is the culmination of urban historian David Johnson’s extensive research into the development of Texas’s oldest city. Beginning with San Antonio’s formation more than three hundred years ago, Johnson lays out the factors that drove the largely uneven and unplanned distribution of resources and amenities and analyzes the demographics that transformed the city from a frontier settlement into a diverse and complex modern metropolis.Following the shift from military interests to more diverse industries and punctuated by evocative descriptions and historical quotations, this urban biography reveals how city mayors balanced constituents’ push for amenities with the pull of business interests such as tourism and the military. Deep dives into city archives fuel the story and round out portraits of Sam Maverick, Henry B. Gonzales, Lila Cockrell, and other political figures.Johnson reveals the interplay of business interests, economic attractiveness, and political goals that spurred San Antonio’s historic tenacity and continuing growth and highlights individual agendas that influenced its development. He focuses on the crucial link between urban development and booster coalitions, outlining how politicians and business owners everywhere work side by side, although not necessarily together, to shape the future of any metropolitan area, including geographical disparities. Three photo galleries illustrate boosterism’s impact on San Antonio’s public and private space and highlight its tangible results.In the Loop recounts each stage of San Antonio’s economic development with logic and care, building a rich story to contextualize our understanding of the current state of the city and our notions of how an American city can form.

468 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 6, 2020

Reviews

[Rohit · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty okay sweeping look at the history of San Antonio's politics and economy, from the early days of colonization up through the 1980s. Kind of drags on at times and jumps around in odd ways, which can make some sections tedious, but the writing is still overall clear and concise.

The analytical framework of the book is around analyzing "boosterism", aka efforts by certain elite cliques to develop the city, particularly by attracting certain industries and firms to invest. This leads to a feeling of tunnel vision at times, as it often turns into a history of San Antonio's Chamber(s) of Commerce and related business and political elites. There is virtually no information in the book about the socio-economic dynamics of the general San Antonio population, how wages and class stratifications changed over time, etc, aside from a few high-level descriptions of civil rights battles and how city council politics was affected at times. There is also not a lot of broader context given, i.e. how San Antonio's economy was affected by wider national and international trends - its very hyper-focused on San Antonio.

Overall, well worth reading if you want a fairly detailed but high-level look at how economic development was shaped over the centuries in San Antonio, and have the background knowledge to read between the lines and fill in missing context.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

A valuable contribution to scholarship on the forces impacting the development of San Antonio over time. But the writing is often dense to the point of having “blink and you miss it” aspects of the narrative. It also seems to am times focus on lots of micro issues but then suddenly zoom out and get quite macro.

[Gaby Treviño · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dense, not very well laid out, and EXTREMELY detailed to the point of almost being too detailed - but good background for how SA has developed, and was v informative

[Jacob Alonso · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was looking for something that would help me answer a question that I find myself asking about San Antonio quite a bit: how did we get here? I mean that both in terms of the often completely inscrutable urban planning, to the unique culture and political environment. Does this book answer that question? While I don't really think the author intended on it, in a roundabout way I think it did. I finished with many sections highlighted, and a much better sense of the long historical arc, as well as more recent events, that led to the San Antonio that we know today.

But this is an often tedious 3-star political history of San Antonio made into a 4 to 5 star book due to the lack of anything even remotely comparable. Most chapters extended on into pages upon pages of a linear list of the various accomplishments and activities of political and business leaders. Other times the chapters jump and meander. At the same time, I ended up enjoying the little tidbits of historical asides that are scattered around, which along with excellent footnotes and heavy reliance on primary sources (again, there is pretty much nothing outside of dissertations that cover San Antonio's history with this amount of depth, and none of those, by their nature, are as broad as this) together show a pretty good amount of research went into this.

I guess what I would say is don't expect this to be anything other than what it is: a political history of San Antonio focusing on the actions of local elites towards economic development in the region. There is a little here and there about class struggles, for instance, except when they manifest as organized elite political movements, but that's not a priority and the author doesn't say it will be. I really enjoyed it and I hope it leads to more popular audience books about San Antonio's urban development.