Engaging Strangers Civil Rites, Civic Capitalism, and Public Order in Boston

Observers of urban sociology and politics have long lamented the disorder and alienation that prevails in US cities. Monti (public policy, Saint Louis Univ.) challenges this view in his study of "civil rites" and "civic capitalism" in contemporary Boston. Traditionally, Boston's Brahmins, the wealthy and well-educated white upper class, took the lead in civic projects, and other residents simply followed the Brahmins, if they paid attention at all. While traditional conflicts continue to resound in the city's politics, other actors, notably the business community and institutions like the Catholic Church, have steadily cultivated a civic culture in which residents of varied income levels and ethnic identities focus on what they have in common more than on what divides them. Businesses, in particular, are more inclined to treat all citizens as actual or potential customers, and those citizens learn to conduct themselves in credible and credit-worthy ways. Monti thus holds that the civil culture has become more "bourgeois" in the full span of the interactions. Whether this is also occurring in other cities is outside his research, and this offers an agenda for other urbanists to explore and critique. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate, graduate, research, and professional collections. -- W. C. Johnson, George Fox University CHOICE