University Press Copublishing Division / Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
Pages: 302
•
Trim: 6 x 9¼
978-1-61147-591-3 • Hardback • December 2012 • $128.00 • (£98.00)
Dr. Monti is professor of public policy studies at Saint Louis University. He is the author of over 50 scholarly articles and six books on subjects ranging from educational reform and inner-city redevelopment to youth gangs, and American urban history and civic culture. He currently is working on a textbook dealing with urban life, an edited book on the culture of entrepreneurship, and a book detailing the redevelopment of Saint Louis that will constitute the longest ongoing study of inner-city redevelopment ever undertaken. His earlier research on business and civic ties led to his creation of two technical assistance programs for small businesses that are attempting to grow: InnerCity Entrepreneurs in Boston and Entry in St. Louis. A former Woodrow Wilson Fellow and member of the Missouri State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, Professor Monti has consulted with private companies and agencies of the federal government.
Table of Contents
Foreword: “Engaging Strangers and the Banality of Civility” by Zane Miller
Preface
Chapter 1: “Lost in Boston”
Chapter 2: Boston by the Numbers
Chapter 3: Brahmins Don’t Eat Here Anymore
Chapter 4: Ritualized Crises and Institutional Strangers
Chapter 5: Neighbors Make Good Fences
Chapter 6: The Enchanted Trolley Tour
Chapter 7: “At First We Were Just Civic Friends”
Chapter 8: A Crowded Mother’s Day on the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge
Chapter 9: Boston’s Tribes
Chapter 10: The Leisure of the Theory Class
Observers of urban sociology and politics have long lamented the disorder and alienation that prevails in US cities. Monti challenges this view in his study of "civil rites" and "civic capitalism" in contemporary Boston. Traditionally, Boston's Brahmins, the wealthy and well-educated white upper class, took the lead in civic projects, and other residents simply followed the Brahmins, if they paid attention at all. While traditional conflicts continue to resound in the city's politics, other actors, notably the business community and institutions like the Catholic Church, have steadily cultivated a civic culture in which residents of varied income levels and ethnic identities focus on what they have in common more than on what divides them. Businesses, in particular, are more inclined to treat all citizens as actual or potential customers, and those citizens learn to conduct themselves in credible and credit-worthy ways. Monti thus holds that the civil culture has become more "bourgeois" in the full span of the interactions. Whether this is also occurring in other cities is outside his research, and this offers an agenda for other urbanists to explore and critique. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate, graduate, research, and professional collections.
— Choice Reviews