This dissertation contributes to the literature on urban development politics. It takes a normative ideal, democratic urban governance, out of the esoteric realm of academic debate and applies it to a critical case study which concerns the most financially consequential area of urban policy, that of urban economic development. The principal elements of democratic urban governance are described, examined, and reconstructed as a framework for evaluating the policy making potentials in the present case. Beyond its academic contribution, this dissertation provides developmental policy makers with an intellectually sound basis for considering, more candidly and more directly, issues concerning democracy and governance. / Ph. D.