Culture Wars and City Politics

The author focuses on morals-based controversies, or culture wars, that have engulfed U.S. cities over issues such as gay rights, pornography, the operation of abortion clinics, hate-group activity, and judicial handling of sexual assault. Explanation of the importance of such social controversies to urban scholarship and reasons for neglect of the topic to date are offered. Drawing upon a variety of case studies of culture-war controversy, the author develops a typology of local government's roles in such controversies. That typology includes relatively familiar concepts such as responsiveness, evasion, and entrepreneurial instigation and less known or neglected concepts such as hyperactive responsiveness, repression, and unintentional instigation.