ABSTRACT
Santa Cruz, California, a picturesque city of fifty-eight thousand people on the Pacific coast seventy-five miles south of San Francisco, is not paradise by any stretch of the imagination, but it's an attractive and easy place to live compared with many American cities. The city enjoys an invigorating climate characterized by moderate temperatures year-round, with average high temperatures in the mid seventies throughout the summer months and in the low sixties through the winter. The control of Santa Cruz city government by progressives makes the city a good place for comparing four theories of urban power developed in the 1970s. This chapter begins with a thorough account of the theory that will serve as their main starting point, growth coalition theory, and then turn to briefer accounts of three competing theories—Marxist urban theory, public choice theory, and regime theory. The chapter also presents an overview of key concepts discussed in this book.
