A path-breaking investigation of changing patterns of inequality and contestation in America’s metropolises.

Since 1990, a new political geography of winners and losers has emerged in metros across America. This new metropolis looks nothing like the old. In many exurbs, suburban mansions abut declining towns and distressed communities. In historic central cities, African American communities reel from institutional stripping, even as gentrification and immigration revitalize once forgotten neighborhoods. The New Metropolis considers why, despite all the changes over the past four decades, we have recreated a metropolis that makes it harder for low-income Americans—especially low-income Americans of color—to thrive and why some efforts to promote equitable opportunity succeed against the odds.

With a focus on Chicago, Atlanta, and Houston, The New Metropolis shows how multi-level political actors and translocal networks build power across political boundaries to determine the pool of local public resources and the scope of local powers. Weir demonstrates how the timing of urbanization set up distinct conflicts over the public sector in Frostbelt versus Sunbelt metropolises, explaining how partisan divisions now supercharge these conflicts.

The New Metropolis shows why the battle over the metropolis sits at the center of American politics. It determines the shape of the public arenas where we make decisions and, ultimately, the kinds of connections Americans have with one another.