Course Catalog

This course examines the possibility and desirability of decentralization of power in America. In the process of doing so, it focuses on issues such as federal and state control of city decision-making, the conflict between central cities and suburbs and among the suburbs themselves, alternatives to city-delivered services and to city taxation as a source of local revenue, and the ways in which racial and ethnic division fracture American metropolitan areas. Above all, this is a course about local democracy. For that reason, among others, active class participation is an integral part of the course and will be expected of every student enrolled in it.

Text: Frug, Ford and Barron, Local Government Law (5th ed. 2009/10).