As I've lived and worked in New York for eight years, I've observed a little bit about urban politics. Sam Roberts wrote an article in today's Times on the decline of the Harlem based old gaurd of black political power that was puntuated by the disgrace of David Paterson, here. It's a great article that sketches the history of demographic shifts and old-style urban machine politics centered around powerful county leaders.

Reading this article also inspired me to collect a few old posts from Changing the Court under a label, "Learning about large public bureaucracies and urban politics."