If Cohen and Rendell had any plan for Philadelphia (they must have) beyond busting the unions, Bissinger does not tell what it was. Bissinger reveals the seemingly well-intentioned, hard-working, honest Mayor Rendell to be a self-indulgent, out-of-control, reporter-assaulting, sexual-harassing, frat boy, with precious few accomplishments since his first year as mayor. I finished it depressed and disillusioned with them all. I started this book determined to like Rendell, like Bissinger, like their story, and learn from Philadelphia. Yet Cohen and Rendell took on the unions, balanced the budget, and restored the faith of Wall Street in a place that had been a laughingstock. Most people think that cities like Philadelphia haven't got a prayer.

So Bissinger set himself up in a corner of Cohen's office in City Hall, with a note pad and a picture of his children, and began to report A Prayer for the City. Journalist Buzz Bissinger decided to find out, and begged newly elected Philadelphia mayor Ed Rendell's campaign manager (later chief of staff), David Cohen, to let him follow the mayor around through one full four-year term of office, from January 1992 to January 1996. $25.95 WHAT IS it like to live in a city with a well-intentioned, hard-working, honest mayor? Washingtonians wonder. Bissinger's writing, sparse and urgent, always shines.A PRAYER FOR THE CITY By Buzz Bissinger Random House. This is actually more of a novel than it is current history, filled with insight and anecdotes that make you feel good about politics and people, too.' - The Boston Globe 'There has never been a better portrait of how a big city functions and how one mayor operates to push, pull, and prod the cement of bureaucracy as well as the souls of individual citizens toward a better place. A Prayer for the City movingly captures the poignancy-the hope and heartbreak-of urban government in America.' -Robert A. Anthony Lukas's Common Ground and Nicholas Lemann's The Promised Land.' - The N ew York Times Book Review 'A full-scale portrait of a struggling American metropolis that brings to mind such classics of urban reportage and analysis as J. 'A fascinating, humane portrait of the ills of urban America.' - The New Yorker 'An extraordinary book, an insider's account of the daily workings of a big-city administration.' - The New York Review of Books

Praise for Buzz Bissinger's A Prayer for the CityĪ New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Yearįinalist for the New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Book Award

A Prayer for the City by H.G. Bissinger