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A City on the Edge: Pandemic, Protest, and Polarization
Some years change the course of history. 2020 was one of those years.
As a pandemic, lockdowns, and an economic downturn convulsed America, police shootings of George Floyd and other African Americans touched off the largest protest movement in U.S. history. At the same time, mass shootings soared; many states saw unprecedented increases in gun-related incidents. Churning in the background were a bitter presidential election campaign and counterprotests opposing public health measures and the election result itself.
Mayors of cities big and small struggled with some of these challenges, but Dennis McBride, the new mayor of a mid-sized, mostly-White suburb bordered by the majority-minority City of Milwaukee—called the "heartland of the heartland"—faced them all. His city, a microcosm of a troubled America, teetered on the verge of anarchy while playing a crucial role in the presidential election. A City on the Edge is the gripping story of how he and other mayors have steered America's hometowns through a storm of personal and political divisions.
Though the chaos of 2020 has gradually subsided, it is still reverberating in the nation's economy, politics, and psyche. The changes sparked by the events of that historic year continue to vex mayors and their communities. Americans and their leaders are searching for a new equilibrium. That balance will be found first in our hometowns. A City on the Edge offers a path forward.
As a pandemic, lockdowns, and an economic downturn convulsed America, police shootings of George Floyd and other African Americans touched off the largest protest movement in U.S. history. At the same time, mass shootings soared; many states saw unprecedented increases in gun-related incidents. Churning in the background were a bitter presidential election campaign and counterprotests opposing public health measures and the election result itself.
Mayors of cities big and small struggled with some of these challenges, but Dennis McBride, the new mayor of a mid-sized, mostly-White suburb bordered by the majority-minority City of Milwaukee—called the "heartland of the heartland"—faced them all. His city, a microcosm of a troubled America, teetered on the verge of anarchy while playing a crucial role in the presidential election. A City on the Edge is the gripping story of how he and other mayors have steered America's hometowns through a storm of personal and political divisions.
Though the chaos of 2020 has gradually subsided, it is still reverberating in the nation's economy, politics, and psyche. The changes sparked by the events of that historic year continue to vex mayors and their communities. Americans and their leaders are searching for a new equilibrium. That balance will be found first in our hometowns. A City on the Edge offers a path forward.
314 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 30, 2025
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January 27, 2026The mayor of Wauwatosa reflects on his first term in office, so the book covers early 2020 through the end of 2024. We start with a high-level view of general trends in the country during those years (most importantly Covid and Black Lives Matters), then see how those trends manifested in Wauwatosa.
The book is slow to start. The author presents background methodically, like a fact pattern in a legal brief, with heavy citations. 100 of the book's 300 pages are endnote citations. You can tell the author was a lawyer even before he explains the details of some legal cases (including some that are filed against him. I felt like some of these first pages were written for posterity, or maybe for people who just did not pay any attention to the news in 2020-2024. Then we get into the mayor's actions in Wauwatosa.
The author makes the case for the decisions he made, and they all seem very reasonable and correct. He is fair to those who disagreed with him. To support his narrative, he is lucky to have some very unappealing antagonists, like the criminal Khalil Coleman from The People's Revolution (a far-left group of opportunists that unfortunately became the public face of BLM for many casual followers of the protests). The mayor also sustains attacks from inside the police force: a detective distributes a PowerPoint among the force calling the mayor as a "high value target." I found this part to be an interesting case study on how a progressive mayor has to deal with disgruntled police officers protected by their union.
I'd recommend this to residents of Wauwatosa who want to understand what was going on in the city from the mayor's point of view, or anyone trying to write the broader story about the pandemic or protests and needs a good case study. In the author's conclusion, he writes, "In 2020, our humanity [revealed] itself. It was not pretty." Hopefully we look back at this period as a time of great anxiety before a much calmer era. The book reminds us of a few places where things got ugly.
The book is slow to start. The author presents background methodically, like a fact pattern in a legal brief, with heavy citations. 100 of the book's 300 pages are endnote citations. You can tell the author was a lawyer even before he explains the details of some legal cases (including some that are filed against him. I felt like some of these first pages were written for posterity, or maybe for people who just did not pay any attention to the news in 2020-2024. Then we get into the mayor's actions in Wauwatosa.
The author makes the case for the decisions he made, and they all seem very reasonable and correct. He is fair to those who disagreed with him. To support his narrative, he is lucky to have some very unappealing antagonists, like the criminal Khalil Coleman from The People's Revolution (a far-left group of opportunists that unfortunately became the public face of BLM for many casual followers of the protests). The mayor also sustains attacks from inside the police force: a detective distributes a PowerPoint among the force calling the mayor as a "high value target." I found this part to be an interesting case study on how a progressive mayor has to deal with disgruntled police officers protected by their union.
I'd recommend this to residents of Wauwatosa who want to understand what was going on in the city from the mayor's point of view, or anyone trying to write the broader story about the pandemic or protests and needs a good case study. In the author's conclusion, he writes, "In 2020, our humanity [revealed] itself. It was not pretty." Hopefully we look back at this period as a time of great anxiety before a much calmer era. The book reminds us of a few places where things got ugly.
Displaying 1 of 1 review