In this paper I examine the public sphere as it has come to be theoretically framed in city politics. My focus is on the distinction between citizen and bureaucrat. Working from ethnography and oral histories of individuals involved in AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) issues in Vancouver, I explore the social processes through which citizenship is structured and expressed. Identity politics and the politics of urban services are found to overlap considerably. Specifically, people's paid employment in the state and shadow state is relayed in several ways as one channel for their citizenship. Social and political restructurings in British Columbia concurrent with the AIDS crisis are traced to show how and why some people have come to exercise their politics through their work. The political and theoretical implications of (shadow-)state employment as a location of citizenship are then considered.
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