Word: mayors
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...fortune is what Atlantic City, in its newest incarnation, is all about. Shrine of the shill, hometown of hucksterism, municipal embodiment of the motto "Ocean, emotion and constant promotion," the city has reinvented itself time and time again for the sake of a new hustle. In 1936 its mayor claimed that the Miss America Pageant was a "cultural event." (True, a contestant in last week's pageant -- the 63rd -- did sing an aria from Die Fledermaus, but the event is still more about swimwear than opera.) During the Prohibition era, it was the East Coast Babylon for bootlegging, brothels...
Most of the time, however, Atlantic City leaders seem content with cash. Four of the past six mayors were charged with some kind of official misconduct. In July the incumbent, James Usry, and 13 other officials, including three council members, were charged with taking bribes. In a place where millions of dollars change hands every day, the mayor is accused of accepting a paltry $6,000 from an undercover agent to let electric passenger carts run along the Boardwalk. "This town is like an aging whore," says Carver. "Disrespect me, but give me something -- just give me something...
Carver compares the standoff between the casinos and the city to the "British army in Belfast," but a metaphor from neocolonial Africa might be more apt. For in a city headed by its first black mayor, with a gambling economy run largely by white accountants and business school graduates, most of the civic tensions are circumscribed by race. Two years ago, a suggestion by Carver that the city's black administrator be replaced by "the best municipal manager" was met at city hall with charges of "Ku Klux Klan" tactics...
Even when they presided over healthy local economies, some black mayors became preoccupied by the needs of the middle class, black and white, at the expense of poorer constituents. During Maynard Jackson's two terms as mayor, from 1974 to 1982, Atlanta became a symbol of New South prosperity. In the 1970s, however, the number of black households in the city classified as poor actually increased by almost a fourth, to 31%. But Jackson jolted the local white establishment by aggressively demanding that black businesses get a share of city contracts. As a result, his tenure is so fondly remembered...
...classic battle between old and new is the one shaping up in Detroit. Last week four-term Mayor Coleman Young, 71, finished first in the city's nonpartisan primary in a campaign in which opponents hammered at Detroit's drug and crime problems. (The mayor's image was also tarnished when paternity tests forced him to acknowledge having fathered a child out of wedlock six years ago.) If Young is getting on in years, it has not cramped his boisterous style. At a victory rally last week, he urged his jubilant supporters to "go home, get some rest and come...