Sublime
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As the reformers read the law, the law that they had helped pass, they realized that they had helped turn over the parks that were the priceless heritage of the city to the whim of one man.
Robert A. Caro • The Power Broker
One of the principal vices of the elective system is that it always introduces a certain degree of instability into the internal and external policy of the State.
Alexis de Tocqueville • Democracy in America, Volume I and II (Optimized for Kindle)
The process of city administration is invisible to the citizen who sees little evidence of its human components but feels the sharp pain of taxation. With increasingly poor public service, his desires and needs are more insistently expressed. Yet his expressions of need seem to issue into thin air, for government does not appear attentive to his de
... See moreChristopher Alexander • A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series)

Election Economics
Leo Guinan • 1 card
social controls to preserve “democracy”,
Balaji Srinivasan • The Network State: How To Start a New Country
It is a fact that the Third Avenue Transit Company secretly told Moses it was very anxious not to have the terminal condemned, for its location was strategic for its buses. And it is also a fact that for twenty years it was considered an open secret in Bronx political circles that key borough politicians held large but carefully hidden interests in
... See moreRobert A. Caro • The Power Broker
Angelenos nervously wondered who really ran their city: Mayor Bradley or the megalomaniac Chief of Police, Daryl Gates?
Robert Morrow • City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (Essential Mike Davis)
Democracy, peace, & deliberation
Sam Liebeskind • 21 cards