ABSTRACT
The short-term, general hospital is generally viewed as a "community" institution as opposed to, say, a labor union, a fraternal group, or a professional association that has a more limited and specialized clientele group. As far as the community power structure is concerned, there are different though related measures that have been employed to date to identify this phenomenon in studies of community leadership. Hospitals find themselves directly in competition with each other as well as with other community organizations for a share of the limited financial resources available, and one hospital's gain is another's loss. A brief summary of the hospital developments in Urban Center in the past decade or so should help to put some of these findings in perspective and aid in drawing conclusions about the relationship between a hospital's ties to the power and its success in receiving community support.
