ABSTRACT
Chicago and its city council express aspects of American society in a visible and stark form not seen in other parts of the country. A study of history reveals that the story of the Chicago City Council, as well as American politics generally, is not simply a reflection of a particular regime or power structure. It is more fundamentally the story of the struggle for justice and democracy. Thus an ideal philosophical model of what urban politics should be needs to be considered, not just an empirical urban politics model. A regime in Stone's formulation is thus a stable informal group with access to institutional resources that enable it to have a sustained role in making government decisions over different city administrations. Stone also developed a general typology of regimes and power structures in cities. Each regime is composed at least of business and some government members.
