this is probably my favorite book i ever had to read for school.yes, i gave it 4 stars, because it is sometimes bonkers hard to get through, but hard to think of even a runner up for Book That Changed My Thinking The Most And Also Gave Me The Most Opportunities To Insert Pretentious Factoids Into Polite Conversation. which is a major award.honestly, i don't think there's another book like this anywhere. i was getting a little cynical about politics at the ripe old age of 18 when i read this (lit...

This was certainly an odd choice for me to read while on vacation, i.e. not in Philadelphia, but such is the library hold queue. The author spent four years embedded in the first administration of Ed Rendell as Philadelphia mayor (1992-95) and wrote about all the highs (rescuing the budget) and lows (losing the Navy Yard). He had total access to Rendell and his chief of staff David Cohen, whom I liked better after reading this book because I've only heard of him as the the chief lobbyist of Comc...

first and foremost i think this book sucks because it does not perfectly synthesize an account of philadelphia politics in the nineties grounded in my own personal political opinions and value system. bissinger spends roughly 23% of his time sucking david cohen off and another 12-15% cramming as many metaphors as he can into each and every paragraph. he does a mediocre job of humanizing ed rendell (but not for lack of trying) and condescends to labor movements and minority advocates throughout.

If you loved the West Wing TV series, there are good chances that you’ll like this book. The author somehow finagled permission to be a fly on the wall during the Ed Rendell’s first term as Philadelphia’s Mayor (1992 – 1995), embedding himself in the Chief of Staff’s office, sitting in the shadows during executive meetings, even listening outside the door during tense confidential negotiations over navy yard reuse proposals. Readers are granted shockingly unfettered access to the internal workin...

What Bissinger has written is both paean and elegy to the once grand, once thriving American city. The focus is Philadelphia, but the story represents the plight of all the large urban centers across the country - cities whose "revitalized" downtowns are deceptive, "a brocade curtain hiding a crumbling stage set."It's hard to believe that Ed Rendell, newly elected mayor of Philadelphia, would allow Bissinger to follow him around for four years, giving him access to meetings, policy debates, and

I don't know if a better book has been written about local politics. This book may be one of the best ones I've read about politics, period. It's a dizzying portrayal of a big city mayor trying to navigate the shark-infested waters of public employee unions, the media, state and federal government, job loss, white flight, and more. It's both engrossing and deeply depressing. Not perfect (Bissinger lays it on a bit thick sometimes), but overall I loved it.

I quote here a recent column from George Will (not my cup of tea, but whatever) talking about L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti - Although presidents Andrew Johnson , Grover Cleveland and Calvin Coolidge had been mayors of Greeneville, Tenn., Buffalo and Northampton, Mass., respectively, no mayor has gone directly from a city hall to the White House. But the 44th president came from eight years in the nation’s most docile and least admirable state legislature (Barack Obama effectively began running for p...

There's a good book to be found in the text of this book; the political chess-playing on its own would make a three-, maybe four-star book. But as it's presented, Bissinger's too fundamentally dishonest and crowd-pleasing in his presentation for this to merit serious consideration as meaningful nonfiction. He seems to lack all respect for his presumed audience, between his narrative gimmicks and the sheer transparency of his emotional manipulation; it comes across as an insecurity in the strengt...

Give a great nonfiction writer like Buzz Bissinger unfettered access to a colorful and complicated politician like Ed Rendell and you’re going to get an amazing book.I don’t hand out five stars too often but “A Prayer for the City” probably deserves six.This inside look at Rendell’s first term as mayor of Philadelphia is much, much more than a biography of a politician, although it’s a darn good biography. More than anything else, “A Prayer” is a heart-wrenching lamentation about our country’s b...

I grew up in Philly, spent 16 years of schooling there, and now live in South Jersey and still work in Philly. I learned more about the city during the 1.5 weeks I was reading this book than I did in all that other time combined. The depth of the reporting, the range of stories covered, the ability to sort through reams of information-- it's all really impressive. But it's not just a Philly book-- it's a book about the slow decay of the American city and the ways people have tried to combat that...

I liked the intimacy of the account. A bit like watching 'The Wire' if not as well executed. At times I felt like the treatment of the city's racial dynamics was fairly one sided but never dishonest or disingenuous. He gave an honest account of the Rendell years in Philly from the perspective of the Rendell administration, and he did spend time on the history of cities in the 20th century and how race played a huge role in outcomes (federal housing policy/redlining/etc). That was a high point. I...

As an inside look at how politics gets done in a big city, this is pretty much unparallelled, and all of its observations about how cities have been abandoned and screwed over are pretty much right on the money. So why didn't I like this? I think Bissinger's writing is pretty unimpressive - the whole thing has these weird macho New Journalism airs about it, which I recognize as an attempt to spice things up but feels a little overcompensating. Nevertheless, it's 100% necessary reading for unders...

If you love cities read this. To understand how the American city has been methodically undermined by public policy throughout the 20th century and to see an exceptional pair of men fight the good fight through their own flaws, read this. Very well-written book about the first term of Mayor Rendell in Philadelphia. I live in the city and love the city and this broke my heart, but left me hopeful that there are still people in public service who want cities to survive and maybe, someday, thrive a...

details of the operations of a unique city and it's unique mayor. details the life and times of ed rendell (then mayor, now governor) and makes you idolize the man- if your a hard working liberal that is. even if you don't like rendell, you'll learn a lot about him and a lot about what has happened to make philadelphia the way it is today.

The author was given complete access to Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell during his first term and the book shows the inner workings, both the good and the bad, of running a big city.

One of my all-time favorites

This was a fascinating book - the author (I'm not quite sure how he blagged his way into it and I highly doubt you would ever get this level of access today) managed to get privileged insider access to the first term of the Philadelphia mayoralty of Ed Rendell in the years 1992-95. He utilised this front row seat to produce a compelling history of the struggle to save a city that many had already given up on and riven by the familiar American urban themes of decay - drugs, violence, debt, racism...

It's difficult to imagine how a writer could capture the rich, complex, heartbreaking tapestry of urban crisis as eloquently and memorably as Buzz Bissinger does here. Despite the setting - an era I was too young to remember and a city I don't know well - I was immediately drawn in by the urgency of the problems and the tenacity of its protagonists. Chief among the countless things Bissinger does exceptionally well is his ability to paint the tightly woven threads of urban decay, never taking hi...

Prayer for the City is a fantastic political biography. Bissinger draws you very close to Ed Rendell during his first administration as Mayor of Philadelphia. The writing is captivating and one can really feel the pull of various political forces in a City experiencing strife. In addition to the Mayor, his Chief of Staff David L. Cohen gets due credit for fantastic work. Bissinger paints all the big challenges that the administration faces with personal color and heart-wrenching tragedy (especia...

The characterization of this book as “outdated” is beyond generous.I was taken aback by the racist, classist, anti-union sympathies that the author revealed at every turn. He essentially glosses over two separate incidents of violence against women at the hands of Mayor Rendell, which in today’s world would be grounds to demand his resignation. He puts an assistant DA—who clearly gets off on condemning young Black men to life sentences—on a pedestal. And to make matters worse, the writing itself...

My son (who lived in Philadelphia for two years while attending graduate school at Temple) gave me this book because he wanted me to understand more about what had happened to the city in the nineties, after it hit rock bottom. Mayor Ed Rendell and his chief of staff, David Cohen, did some pretty remarkable stuff to turn things around in a city that was a mess--crime, debit, you name it. I liked reading about these very different men and their ways of attacking problems and serving their city. I...

This is not only an engaging and thorough look at the state of American cities in the 20th century, but a revealing look at one of America’s most overlooked cities, Philadelphia. Rereading this book in 2020 while living in Philadelphia, I wonder how much of the issues highlighted by the book have been addressed? The city is way more gentrified, Queen Village is now a true Yuppie Paradise as is Graduate Hospital. Is that all it takes? To have the neighborhoods that were underserved and poor, be f...

"The bedrock attribute of a successful city district is that a person must feel personally safe and secure among all these strangers. He must not feel automatically menaced by them." -Jane Jacobs It is a shame that a book like couldn't be written today. No book that revealed this much sympathy towards an Assistant District Attorney who ardently seeks life sentences or a white, libertarian woman who leaves the city after a man robs her at gunpoint, would be given any mainstream time in our new de...

Fascinating look at city administration. A book that would be very different if written today, particularly in (a) some discussions about policing and criminal justice and (b) the over-casual attitude towards sexual harassment and other inappropriate workplace behaviors. Recommend for people interested in Philly or in local government as long as you keep that in mind.

Such a 90s book. My goodness.

Really interesting look at how difficult it is to run a major city, though the racist and classist views of both the author and those he profiles are readily apparent.

Required reading for anyone doing impactful work in the city.

Great read, great writing

Buzz Bissinger had extreme access to Rendell's office during a term that happened to become a landmark term for Philadelphia.

NF - Account of Rendell's turnaround of Philadelphia as Mayor