immigrant groups all growing. The major differences are that New York attracts black immigrants while
LA does not and LA gets even more Hispanic migration than New York.
While the economies and populations of the two cities are roughly comparable, their political
cultures and structures are quite different. Los Angeles is the quintessential “fragmented” and
suburbanized metropolis. The City of Los Angeles is but one of 88 municipalities within the County of Los
Angeles, which provides a wide range of social and other services that the City does not. (There is, of
course, some overlap in functions between the two levels of government, but the City generally provides
property-related services, including police, fire, zoning, and planning, while the County provides health
and welfare services. Water and power are provided by a semi- independent authority heavily influenced
by the city government, while the public schools at present also remain independent, at least until Mayor
Antonio Villaraigosa, negotiates with the state legislature to take significant control over the system.) Los
Angeles city politics is formally non-partisan. It has relatively few city council members – 15 for a
population of almost 4 million people – who are elected for staggered four year terms. Since most
candidates for city office are Democrats, the Democratic party, which is at best weakly organized at the
county level, does not play a major role in deciding the outcomes of the non-partisan primaries for elected
office. In any case, no significant party organization operates at the city level. Many city agencies are
overseen by commissions whose members are appointed for relatively lengthy terms, thus buffering direct
mayoral control. A new city charter in 1999 began to erode some of that independence, giving mayors
the authority to unilaterally remove most city commissioners (Sonenshein 2004). LA’s city budget for the
year ending in 2006 was just under $6 billion, or about $1,500 per resident. (Other levels of government,
such as the LA Water and Power, the Harbor, or the LA Unified School District, not to mention LA County
government, also spend comparable amounts of money. When the proprietary departments are included,
the city budget doubles.)
New York, on the other hand, is highly centralized and politicized, with a persistent “machine
politics” style. New York City government covers five counties, whose top political officials, borough
presidents, have only residual and largely symbolic powers. It has a strong mayor who exercises virtually
Convention