"Philadelphia Battlefields" with John Kromer

John Kromer's "Philadelphia Battlefields" considers key local campaigns undertaken from 1951 to 2019 that were extraordinarily successful despite the opposition of the city's political establishment. Kromer draws on election data and data-mapping tools that explain these upset elections as well as the social, economic, and demographic trends that influenced them to tell the story of why these campaign strategies were successful. He analyzes urban political dynamics through case studies of newcomer Rebecca Rhynhart's landslide victory over a veteran incumbent for Philadelphia City Controller; activist Chaka Fattah's effective use of grassroots organizing skills to win a seat in Congress; and Maria Quiñones-Sánchez's hard-fought struggle to become the first Hispanic woman to win a City Council seat, among others. "Philadelphia Battlefields" shows how these candidates' efforts to increase civic engagement, improve municipal governance, and become part of a new generation of political leadership at the local and state level were critical to their successes. John Kromer is a planning and development consultant, an instructor in urban development policy at the University of Pennsylvania, former Director of Housing for the city of Philadelphia under Mayor Edward G. Rendell, and a participant in local political campaigns and elections. He is the author of "Fixing Broken Cities: The Implementation of Urban Development Strategies" and has written extensively on downtown and neighborhood development issues. Description courtesy of Temple University Press.