Roaring Metropolis

The elusive dream of progressives has been to get business on their side. Doesn't business have an interest in healthy, well-educated workers not distracted by economic anxiety? Shouldn't businesspeople therefore be interested in health care, education, and economic security for everyone? Over the last decades, scholars have explored in various ways the shifting positions of business on the welfare state in this country and others, and at national and state levels. Daniel Amsterdam promises a close examination of the welfare state at an even lower level, that of individual American cities. He argues that business interests in 1920s Detroit, Philadelphia, and Atlanta sought to build a “civic welfare state,” which he defines as programs to improve “schooling, recreation, public health, urban decentralization, and city planning” (p. 7). Amsterdam argues that this shows the 1920s were not the high-water mark of conservative economic policy, which a focus on the national level would lead one to think

Atlanta · Decentralization · Economic growth · Economics · Metropolitan area · New Deal · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Recreation · Sociology · State (computer science · Welfare · Welfare state · History · Labor Movements and Unions · Law · Public Administration