Staten Island is New York City’s smallest yet fastest growing borough: a conservative, suburban community of nearly a half a million on the fringe of the nation’s most liberal, global city. Staten Island: Conservative Bastion in a Liberal City chronicles how this “forgotten borough” has grappled with its uneasy relationship with the rest of the City of New York since the 1920s. Daniel C. Kramer and Richard M. Flanagan analyze the politics behind events that have shaped the borough, such as the opening of the Verrazano Bridge and the closure of the Fresh Kills Landfill. Lost opportunities are discussed, including the failure to construct a rail link to the other boroughs of New York, to adequately plan for the explosive housing boom in recent decades and, some say, to create an independent City of Staten Island.
Unlike much of New York City, Staten Island is a place with robust party competition and lively democratic politics with hard-fought campaigns, bitter feuds, and career-ending scandals. Staten Island’s two most successful politicians of the twentieth century—Republicans John Marchi and Guy Molinari—defended the borough’s interests while defining an urban conservativism that would influence politics elsewhere. In fact, Staten Island has played a pivotal role in the winning electoral coalitions of Republican mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg and continues to spark the imaginations of New Yorkers on a scale that is disproportionate to the borough’s relatively small size.
Staten Island: Conservative Bastion in a Liberal City will allow readers to gain access to the borough-based roots of New York City’s politics. This book will be of special interest to anyone who wishes to understand the dynamics of middle-class life and democratic representation in a global city.
