ABSTRACT
Do women city managers view their role differently than their male counterparts? Do women offer a style of city management different from men? Does the inclusion of women in the highest positions of administrative power alter the nature of representation in city government? These questions have been largely overlooked in explorations of the local government landscape. In this chapter we address these questions by presenting the results of a national survey of over 500 men and women city managers in the United States. Our central finding in this investigation is that women managers are more likely than their male counterparts to embrace a style of management that relies on citizen input. This finding may have broad implications for the development of local public policy and for the type of representation that exists in city-level bureaucracies.
