(Paperback, Revised edition)

Tracing the evolution of an extraordinary biracial coalition in Los Angeles behind Mayor Tom Bradley, this book shows how 'crossover' politics and racial violence coexist in urban America. Challenging the pessimism about biracial coalitions in general, it compares their relative successes in Los Angeles to their disheartening failures in New York.

(Paperback, Revised edition)

Tells the dramatic story of how the nation's second-largest city completed a major reform of its government in the face of a deeply threatening movement for secession by the San Fernando Valley. The afterword by the author analyzes the 2005 election of Los Angeles's first modern Latino mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa.