000			01618pab a2200181 454500
008			180718b2005 xxu||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
100			_aMain, Thomas J.
245			_aNonincremental change in an urban environment: the case of New York city's human resource administration
260			_c2005
300			_ap.483-503.
362			_aSep
520			_aMust change in urban politics be incremental, as structuralist analysts have claimed? Welfare policy in New York City under Giuliani suggests not. The city's welfare policy has undergone the following major changes: a sharp reduction in the PA caseloads; creation of the country's largest work experience program; striking organizational restructuring; and the introduction of a new information management system. The key factors that made these dramatic changes possible were New York City's highly competititve political environment in the early 1990s; the development of a popular set of public ideas related to reciprocal obligations; a policy feedback effect of welfare policy of the Dinkins years; and the emergence of Giuliani as a skillful policy entrepreneur. Another crucial factor was the unforeseen effect of the 1989 city charter revision that eliminated the only institution that had historically been a counterbalance to the mayor's power. The result suggests that a nonincrementalist theory of political change can be useful applied at the local level of American politics. -Reproduced.
650			_aUrban environment
650			_aBureaucracy
650			_aHuman resources development
773			_aAdministration and Society
909			_a67740
999			_c67740 _d67740