Brian Anderson, the new editor of City Journal, the Manhattan Institute quarterly considered a laboratory of ideas for policy makers, is bringing to the helm scholarship, quiet humor, and even an impressive command of popular culture.

A City Journal writer and Manhattan Institute senior fellow, Heather Mac Donald, said that during a recent exchange with Mr. Anderson regarding her upcoming story on opera, she suggested classical operas performed in modern dress would be as anachronistic as rock stars and rappers wearing 18th century brocaded silk.

Trying to push her on the point, Mr. Anderson sent her an e-mail message saying he had seen his share of rock videos with singers in breeches and waistcoats. He explained that he was thinking, embarrassingly, of Jethro Tull’s singer, Ian Anderson, “who used to prance around in a codpiece and jodhpurs, playing his flute.”

“He’s a wonderfully unpredictable character,” Ms. Mac Donald said of Mr. Anderson. “It’s not what you would expect when you first come across him.”

Mr. Anderson, 45, is the author, most recently, of “South Park Conservatives: The Revolt Against Liberal Media Bias,” a book published in 2005 about the Internet’s liberating effect on public debate and ideas. He served as the senior editor of City Journal for nine years, before taking over the top position.

He told The New York Sun he is no longer a Jethro Tull fan, that his music tastes have matured. He emphasized that beyond the “obligatory black leather jacket,” he didn’t sport other punk-era accoutrements such as body piercings or green hair.

Mr. Anderson in January took the seat held by Myron Magnet for 12 years. The spring 2007 issue of City Journal, the first published under the new editor, reflects Mr. Anderson’s desire to recruit new writers and reach more readers over the Internet.

It features stories by three new writers: Guy Sorman on China, Stephen Presser on Clarence Thomas, and Adam Thierer on the press. Andrew Klavan and Christopher Hitchens also have pieces in the issue, their second each for City Journal.

“I’m looking around for people who can do interesting reported stories that might bring a perspective to bear that we haven’t familiarized ourselves with too much,” he said. “The idea is to expand our roster a bit without downplaying the great writers who write for us every issue or nearly every issue.”

Mr. Magnet will write for the magazine and serve as its editor-at-large. His first piece in his new role, to be published this summer, is about fired radio host Don Imus and free speech.

“Myron is a larger-than-life figure, a wonderful mentor, the most brilliant conversationalist I’ve ever met, and an editor of genius,” Mr. Anderson wrote the Sun. “Working with him for nine years has been a pure joy.”

Mr. Anderson said the journal would continue promoting limited government, personal responsibility, and a flourishing civic life. Future editions will focus on counterterrorism, school choice, and crime, and he said he wants the magazine to feature illustrations from more contemporary artists. He would also like to see it expand its coverage of cities outside New York, he said.

Ten thousand copies of the journal are printed for each issue and traffic on the Internet is growing. Between January 1 and May 15, there were 1,604,235 unique visits to City Journal’s Web site. During the same period in 2005, there were about 850,000 visits to the site.

The dean at Baruch College’s school of public affairs, David Birdsell, said City Journal plays an important role in the policy conversation in New York. He said it derives its positions from the Manhattan Institute, but takes care to argue its points in a nuanced way.

“It is certainly a serious participant,” he said. “It is well regarded. Not as a neutral source of information, but a thoughtful center-right voice on policies affecting New York City.”

Although City Journal focuses on urban life, Mr. Anderson lives in Ossining in Westchester County with his wife, Amy Anderson, and two sons, ages 9 and 6. He said he cares deeply about the city and spends most of his waking hours there, but can’t afford to live in it.

Before joining City Journal in 1997, Mr. Anderson was a research assistant to the theologian and author Michael Novak at the American Enterprise Institute. He also was the literary editor of Crisis, a Catholic intellectual monthly founded by Mr. Novak.

He has a Ph.D. in political philosophy from the University of Ottawa, writing his dissertation on the French social thinker Raymond Aron. In 1998, it was published as a book, “Raymond Aron: The Recovery of the Political.”

As an undergraduate at Boston College, Mr. Anderson said, he was “broadly on the left,” thrilled to be taking classes on postmodern theorists. Studying Raymond Aron, whom Mr. Anderson calls one of the great 20th-century critics of the left, was the beginning of his transformation into a conservative, he said.

“I’m broadly a cultural conservative, but a somewhat chastened one,” he wrote in an e-mail message. “I’ve become skeptical of government efforts to impose virtue.”

He supports maintaining order in cities through smart, aggressive policing, and is a strong defender of welfare reform. He also favors lower taxes, limited government, and federalism, and said he thinks public education, especially in cities, must be revolutionized.

“And,” he wrote, “I think we need to think creatively, day and night, about how to deal with the existential challenge of our time: the very real people out there, Islamists, Islamo-fascists—whatever you want to call these nihilists—who hate freedom, hate women, hate Jews, and who plot day and night on how to destroy the United States.”