Mailer Quote - The Not-So-Great Cities of America

"Chicago is the great American city. New York is one of the capitals of the world and Los Angeles is a constellation of plastic, San Francisco is a lady, Boston has become Urban Renewal, Philadelphia and Baltimore and Washington wink like dull diamonds in the smog of Eastern Megalopolis, and New Orleans is unremarkable past the French Quarter. Detroit is a one-trade town, Pittsburgh has lost its golden triangle, St. Louis has become the golden arch of the corporation, and nights in Kansas City close early. The oil depletion allowance makes Houston and Dallas nought but checkerboards for this sort of game. But Chicago is a great American city. Perhaps it is the last of the great American cities." - opening paragraph, The Siege of Chicago

Cities have always been the bastions of support for the Democratic party. By attacking each of the "great American cities," Mailer does more than show off his own new-journalistic poeticism. He articulates the feelings and ideology of the New Left as well, it's disillusion with the Democratic elite and the structures of the Democratic Party. He's attacking everything traditional about the Democrats - their most cherished areas of support within the country.

Yet Chicago is where hope remains, and it's probably where hope remained for alot of Democrats going into the 1968 convention, hope that a new Democratic consensus could emerge and continue the Deomcrats' hold on the White House and the Great Society policies of LBJ, combined with the more direct action and politics the New Left demanded. As Mailer goes on to describe the darker underbelly of Chicago along with the greatness of the city, he foreshadows the violence and contention to come at the Democratic National Convention, and the accompanying disillusionment and crushing of hope it brought.

Beyond all this, I just found this particular quote very readable and entertaining. In several instances, he manages to completely encapsulate and enunciate the inadequacies of several major American cities in a mere few words. His assertions are thought-provoking, and as a Midwesterner, I'd like to think Chicago IS the last great American city. With every city's mention, you get a picture of that city, through Mailer's eyes, with just a few words - New York as an international capital, the fakeness of LA, how Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington just aren't quite great enough. Mailer seems to think New Orleans and Detriot are nothing beyond their stereotypes - Mardi Gras and automobiles. Kansas City is too sleepy and slow-paced.

I only wish he included a reference/shout-out to Milwaukee in there somewhere! ;)

- Joy Tesensky