City Government

What does a city mayor do? Learn about the duties of a city mayor and how the mayor serves people in the city. Descriptive main text, fast facts, and callout definitions work together to support understanding.

A group of children go on a field trip for a guided tour of city hall, where they learn about the roles of the city council, the mayor, and other city departments.

From four-term Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett, a hopeful and illuminating look at the dynamic and inventive urban centers that will lead the United States in coming years. Oklahoma City. Indianapolis. Charleston. Des Moines. What do these cities have in common? They are cities of modest size...

“For more than forty years Roger Cohen has ventured to every corner of the earth to chronicle the great upheavals of our age, but he’s never lost sight of what really matters: love, hope, and all the mysteries of the human heart. Here, in this collection of columns that will take you from...

'Jonnie made me see London through new eyes.' James Corden 'A charming and surprising alternative tour of London. We loved this book' Map Men Jonnie 'is a conduit for the city's soul, distilling its chaotic history into digestible, engaging narratives' The Times Have you ever tried to find a...

In the early morning of April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh drove into downtown Oklahoma City in a rented Ryder truck containing a deadly fertilizer bomb that he and his army buddy Terry Nichols had made the previous day. He parked in a handicapped-parking zone, hopped out of the truck, and walked...

With a new afterword covering the two decades since its first publication, two of Washington, D.C.'s most respected journalists expose one of America's most tragic ironies: How the nation's capital, often a gleaming symbol of peace and hope, is the setting for vicious contradictions and devastating conflicts over race, class, and power. Jaffe and Sherwood have chillingly chronicled the descent of the District of Columbia.

Two political titans forge a modern city and a vibrant public sector in this history of strong leadership at a time of national crisis. City of Ambition is a brilliant history of the New Deal and its role in the making of modern New York City. The story of a remarkable collaboration between Franklin Roosevelt and Fiorello La Guardia, this is a case study in creative political leadership in the midst of a devastating depression.

Four Alchemists. One book. A constellation of ideas. The third annual Alchemy Lecture took place in October 2024 at York University to a sold-out in-person audience and online viewers from multiple continents. Four Alchemists—thinkers and practitioners working across disciplines and...

To the charity workers, Dadaab refugee camp is a humanitarian crisis; to the Kenyan government, it is a 'nursery for terrorists'; to the Western media, it is a dangerous no-go area; but to its half a million residents, it is their last resort. Situated hundreds of miles from any other settlement, in the midst of the inhospitable desert of Northern Kenya where only thorn bushes grow, Dadaab is a city like no other.

Baltimore, 2015. Riots are erupting across the city as citizens demand justice for Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Black man who has died under suspicious circumstances while in police custody. Drug and violent crime are surging and Baltimore will reach its highest murder count in more than two decades: 342 homicides in a single year, in a city of just 600,000 people.

In this brilliant, gracefully written, and important new book, former Secretary of the Interior and Governor of Arizona Bruce Babbitt brings fresh thought to questions of how we can build a future we want to live in.

The Agile City engages the fundamental question: what to do about it? Journalist and urban analyst James S. Russell argues that we'll more quickly slow global warming - and blunt its effects - by retrofitting cities, suburbs, and towns. The Agile City shows that change undertaken at the building and community level can reach carbon-reduction goals rapidly. Adapting buildings (39 percent of greenhouse-gas emission) and communities (slashing the 33 percent of transportation related emissions) offers numerous other benefits that tax gimmicks and massive alternative-energy investments can't match.

A pioneering exploration of four cities where East meets West and past becomes future: St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Mumbai, and Dubai. Every month, five million people move from the past to the future. Pouring into developing-world “instant cities” like Dubai and Shenzhen, these urban newcomers confront a modern world cobbled together from fragments of a West they have never seen. Do these fantastical boomtowns, where blueprints spring to life overnight on virgin land, represent the dawning of a brave new world? Or is their vaunted newness a mirage?

An epic struggle over land, water, and power is erupting in the American West and the halls of Washington, DC. It began when a 4,000-square-mile area of Arizona desert called Black Mesa was divided between the Hopi and Navajo tribes. To the outside world, it was a land struggle between two fractious Indian tribes; to political insiders and energy corporations, it was a divide-and-conquer play for the 21 billion tons of coal beneath Black Mesa. Today, that coal powers cheap electricity for Los Angeles, a new water aqueduct into Phoenix, and the neon dazzle of Las Vegas.

'A brutally honest account of power, politics race and class, written by a politician with a remarkable backstory and destined for bigger things.' - David Olusoga, author Black and British In 2016, Marvin Rees was elected as Mayor of Bristol, the first time a major European city had elected a...

Winner of the 2024 George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language, given by the National Council of Teachers of English "Making Americans shines a light on the barriers that immigrant students in the US face—and shares some inspiring stories about...

As white supremacy, ultra-nationalism, rabid misogyny, and anti-immigrant fervor coalesce, a new and uniquely American form of fascism looms. Could our current moment actually bring about the end of democracy in the United States? Are Americans willing to surrender their freedom and dignity, along with their ongoing struggle for equality, justice, and mutual respect in the face of the rising tide of political and ideological extremism?

WINNER,STANFORD DOLMAN TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR WINNER, TATA LITERATURE LIVE! FIRST BOOK AWARD 2020 - NON-FICTION 'A fabulous piece of writing . . . I recommend it unreservedly' - William Dalrymple 'A brilliant book' - Christina Lamb When Taran N. Khan first arrived in Kabul in the spring of...

In this sure to be controversial book in the vein of The Forgotten Man, a political analyst argues that conservative icon Ronald Reagan was not an enemy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal, but his true heir and the popular program’s ultimate savior. Conventional political wisdom...