In the second part of City of Ambition, there is much focus on the New Deal and Roosevelt’s plan to emerge from the Great Depression. It’s interesting to note the way in which La Guardia wove his administrative ideas into the projects involved with the New Deal. Similarly, the situation created by Roosevelt’s plans enabled La Guardia to “expand the organizational bases of his coalition beyond the fusion movement.” It seems that were it not for the tragedy of the Great Depression, progressive ideas posed by those such as La Guardia or Roosevelt would have fallen on deaf ears. Though it’s no secret that the Depression devastated the country, it may have also bettered the country in the long term (or rather, it allowed for progressive thought to be heard and seriously considered). I wonder if any other times in history have allowed for such progressive ideas to be considered – or if any other situations in history allowed for thoughts that usually wouldn’t be considered to be so.

Also, it was very intriguing that La Guardia appealed to multiple minority groups (Jewish community, Italian immigrants, black men and women, etc) instead of trying to appeal to the white male majority. I wonder if this caused him to have many enemies in the political pool; also, I wonder if this was partially the reason for such tension amongst party lines and the challenges he faced in that vein (being that he wasn’t only a democrat but also a more liberal democrat than others in his political party).