Hendrick provides a path-breaking examination of the financial health and fiscal decision-making strategies of suburban governments competing in a thriving metropolis. From front-page stories of government finance to many cursory academic studies, the common practice is to draw conclusions from a grab bag of indicators with weak theoretical connections. Tomorrow's students and serious researchers should build their work on the comprehensive framework offered here if the goal is to truly diagnose and understand the fiscal heartbeat of local government finance. -- W. Bartley Hildreth, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University

"Managing the Fiscal Metropolis: The Financial Policies, Practices, and Health of Suburban Municipalities" is an important book. This first comprehensive analysis of the financial condition, management, and policy making of local governments in a metropolitan region offers local governments currently dealing with the Great Recession a better understanding of what affects them financially and how to operate with less revenue. Hendrick's groundbreaking study covers 264 Chicago suburban municipalities from the late 1990s to the present. In it she identifies and describes the primary factors and events that affect municipal financial decisions and financial conditions, explores the strategies these governments use to manage financial conditions and solve financial problems, and looks at the impact of contextual factors and stresses on government financial decisions. "Managing the Fiscal Metropolis" offers new evidence about the role of contextual factors- including other local governments-in the financial condition of municipalities and how municipal financial decisions and practices alter these effects. The wide economic and social diversity of the municipalities studied make its findings relevant on a national scale.