Although political conflict is certainly no stranger to U.S.cities, the contributors to Culture Wars suggest that a newkind of conflict, heavily embued with moral overtones, issurfacing with more frequency on the urban landscape.Battles over abortion, gay and lesbian rights, hate crimes, andthe like, are taking their place along side the more traditionaldisputes associated with service delivery, economic develop-ment, and redistribution of resources. The morality-basednature of these new culture wars has, according to thecontributors, created a new type of politics that is evidencedin the way issues are presented, debated, and resolved. Thesedifferences are a function of the passion associated withmoral claims, the involvement of religious organizations, andthe use of nonconventional protest tactics that can be fairlyaggressive. These differences between how culture wars playout and politics as usual may render existing theories of localpolitics insufficient.