Rebuilding The Inner City

Neighborhood-based initiatives -ranging from settlement houses in the nineteenth century to the Community Action and Model Cities program of the Great Society to the Empowerment and Enterprise Zones of the 1990s -have been called on to help solve a variety of poverty-related problems. This book examines the history of these initiatives.

This handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the rebuilding of America's urban areas. Beginning with an introduction into the condition of our nation's metropolitan cities and their urban problems, as they exist today, the book also discusses some 14 different practical tools available for public officials to use for inner city renewal. Sixteen case studies have been included to show real-life examples of the efforts of public officials to revitalize their inner city commercial areas and residential neighborhoods. This valuable tool for city planners, business people, and private citizens provides critical thinking about how our urban economic development programs are, and should be, designed and conducted.

Michael Porter has argued that a sustainable economic base can be created in the inner city only if it has been created elsewhere: through private, for-profit, initiatives and investment based on economic self-interest and genuine competitive advantage-not through artificial inducements, charity, or government. Porter's ideas have prompted endorsement as well as criticism. More importantly, they have inspired a search for new solutions to inner city distress as well as a reassessment of current approaches. The Inner City defines a core debate in the United States over the future of a racially divided urban America. It is of inestimable importance to policy analysts, government officials, African American studies scholars, urban studies specialists, sociologists, and all those concerned with inner city revitalization.

Includes papers presented at the 24th International Air Transportation Conference in Louisville, Kentucky, June 5-7, 1996. This volume discusses the issues involved with the redevelopment of inner city airports. It covers such topics as: airport planning, financing, airfield pavements, airport security, terminal planning and accessibility.

Dr. Patricia Seawell describes a religious 12-step program found in the account of the rebuilding of the gates in God's model city of Jerusalem. Each gate reflects on a major experience, concentrating on "recycling" by making something new out of the original materials.