The Managerial City

The managerial city is shorthand for urban governance dominated by non-elected officials, particularly senior-level administrators and managers. The managerial city has its intellectual roots in the perennial debate about the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats and also in the pervasive model of administrative reform in a large number of countries since the 1980s known as the New Public Management (NPM). Among UK cities, Birmingham might be a good example of a city where managers and a managerial philosophy shape urban governance. Managerial governance is probably more common in America than in Europe; indeed, a large number of cities and towns in the United States display urban governance where the city manager plays a leading role (Moore 1995). During the past couple of decades the notion of the professional city manager has become a role model for city governance and public management in the US. Since political and managerial leadership are to some extent communicating vessels, in order to understand managerial governance we must also look at the kind of political leadership which this models stipulates.