The Seamless City: A Conservative Mayor's Approach to Urban Revitalization that Can Work Anywhere

by Rick Baker, Jeb Bush (Foreword)

HOW DO WE KEEP AMERICA GREAT?

Rick Baker, former mayor of St. Petersburg, Florida, provides a compelling—and challenging— by making American cities great. And great cities are built first of all through strong leadership.

During his two terms in office, Rick Baker worked toward a clear, uncompromising to make St. Petersburg the best city in America. He led a downtown renaissance, rebuilt the most economically depressed area of the city, attracted businesses, worked to reduce violent crime, and made public schools a city priority—all with measurable results. The Seamless City offers practical advice, based on his nine years of experience in City Hall, to show how every mayor and city council can make their city dramatically better.

In The Seamless City you’ll step behind the scenes of city government to

How maintaining basic amenities, like running water, requires constant vigilance—and sometimes tough decisions on the part of city leadership
Why a vibrant downtown is essential to attract businesses and create jobs
Why the most effective leadership is servant leadership
How to find and implement the most effective solutions to a city’s most challenging problems
Why city government needs to regard the city as a seamless whole, with no section under-served or overlooked

350 pages, Hardcover

First published April 5, 2011

Reviews

[Marya · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love me some bullet points, and this book is full of them! Mayor Rick Baker clearly and concisely presents his plans for running the city of St. Petersburg, FL in chapters broken into glorious bullet points. What did he do to improve the police department? Raise salaries and benefits to be competitive with nearby cities, allow suitable military or police experience to replace an expected college degree, and create a task force that monitored about 40 or so members of a gang that were breaking into foreclosed homes. How do you know that worked? Because he created a scorecard for evaluating police actions via crime statistics. In the same way, Mayor Baker takes on the schools, the downtown, the economically depressed midtown, and even public works. It is so nice to see a city official not give the tired old line of "well, the schools are the school board's responsibility". Mayor Baker understands that no, schools are the city's responsibility, and he can bring the city's considerable resources to bear on the issue for the better. In the interest of being brief, he isn't as comprehensive as one might like (tell me how exactly the schools improved their scores), but it's worth it to get all these ideas that your own community might implement. Best of all, the book holds out hope that there are things that the city (and even its citizens) can do to make things better.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book should be required reading for every mayor, city council member, business owner, and citizen who wants to see the eduational system improved in their city at NO cost to taxpayers and who wants to see their city attract good business, become safer, and reduce crime. Anyone can learn outstanding leadership techniques by reading this book, and I believe Mayor Rick Baker's methods could inspire city and business leaders throughout the world to help their constituents create strong cities and communities. I highly recommend this book.

[Jeramey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book didn't blow me away in terms of the author's thoughts on cities, but it did make me think "this guy gets it" when it comes to how cities function. It was encouraging to read a book by a conservative politician that talked about things like walkability and urban development.

[Nancy Wenande · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting book about the previous Mayor of St. Petersburg, Florida. It had some interesting ideas that can be implemented on our local level. This is certainly not a "read" for everyone, but for my friends in elected or governmental positions, you may find it worth the time.

[residentoddball]

I heard the author speak on CSPAN recently. I am quite impressed and look forward to reading the book.