African-American (and other minority) mayors clearly confront problems that white mayors do not face...in their initial election campaigns, they usually win a small minority of the white vote, which means they rely on overwhelming support from black communities...but to initiate economic development activities that are needed to increase employment for the cities' minority populations, black mayors have to make alliances with upper class and upper- middle strata whites who hold economic power...
consider Young, as likely as any big city mayor to have pushed for distributive programs...in the 1950s he was a marxist labor organizer blacklisted by both the auto companies and UAW...but during his 20 year tenure as Detroit's mayor he aggressively pursued corporate investment... he presided over a conventional, old-style downtown growth politics...
minority mayors are, however, offered certain opportunities to increase employment and business prospects for minority populations...Peter Eisinger's study of black mayors shows that they are indeed able to increase the number of African-Americans by municipal gov't at all levels ("Black Mayors and the Politics of Racial Advancement," in _Culture, Ethnicity, & Identity_, 1983)
Michael Hoover