JOINING CITY HALL: Political Activism and Library Budgets

California's Proposition 13 and Proposition 2½ in Massachusetts were warning signs to libraries that a new era of competition for public funds had begun. Since then, fiscal support of public libraries has been steadily declining; even the strength of urban libraries, which have generally gained the greatest support in the past, is being sapped by the major problem facing their host cities—an eroding tax base as first people and then businesses leave for the suburbs.