Urban Economics And Land Use In America The Transformation Of Cities In The Twentieth Century

This is a book about the reality of place in America, the events and influences that led to the America we recognize today. It is a book about the growth of American cities and their suburbs during the twentieth century, about institutions and metropolitan governance, about real estate development and finance, about housing and the lack of it, about the emergence and perhaps the eventual debilitation of cities and suburbs alike. Incorporating the thinking of visionary city planners and land use economists, the author presents a lucid primer on the economics of land, its development and usage, and on how things actually get done in the real estate industry.

This is a work about the growth of American cities and their suburbs during the 20th century, about institutions and metropolitan governance, about real estate development and finance, about housing and the lack of it, and about the emergence and maybe the future debilitation of cities and suburbs.

The aim of the book is to examine the transformation of the city in the late 20th century and explore the ways in which city life is structured. The shift from modern-industrial to information/consumption-based 'post-modern' cities is traced through the text. The focus is not just on America and Europe but also explores cities in other parts of the world as city growth in the twenty first century will be predominantly outside of these regions.

The recent riots in Los Angeles brought the urban crisis back to the center of public policy debates in Washington, D.C., and in urban areas throughout the United States. The contributors to this volume examine the major policy issues--race, housing, transportation, poverty, the changing environment, the effects of the global economy--confronting contemporary American cities. Raymond A. Mohl begins with an extended discussion of the origins, evolution, and current state of Federal involvement in urban centers. Michael B. Katz follows with an insightful look at poverty in turn-of-the-century New York and the attempts to ameliorate the desperate plight of the poor during this period of rapid economic growth. Arnold R. Hirsch, Mohl, and David R. Goldfield then pursue different facets of the racial dilemma confronting American cities. Hirsch discusses historical dimensions of residential segregation and public policy, while Mohl uses Overtown, Miami, as a case study of the social impact of the construction of interstate highways in urban communities. David Goldfield explores the political ramifications and incongruities of contemporary urban race relations. Finally, Carl Abbott and Sam Bass Warner, Jr., examine the impact of global economic developments and the environmental implications of past policy choices. Collectively, the authors show us where we have been, some of the needs that must be addressed, and the urban policy alternatives we face.

In 2013, Detroit filed the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history. That dubious honor marked the end of a long decline, during which city leaders slashed municipal costs and desperately sought to attract private investment. That same year, an economically resurgent New York City elected a progressive mayor intent on reducing income inequality and spurring more equitable economic development. Whether or not Mayor Bill de Blasio realizes his legislative vision, his agenda raises a fundamental question: can American cities govern, or are they powerless in the face of global capital? Conventional economic wisdom asserts that cities cannot do very much. Conventional political wisdom asserts that cities should not do very much. In City Power, Richard Schragger challenges both these claims, arguing that cities can govern, but only if we let them. In the past decade, city leaders across America have raised the minimum wage, expanded social services, put conditions on incoming development, and otherwise engaged in social welfare redistribution. These cities have not suffered from capital flight - in fact, many are experiencing an economic renaissance. Schragger argues that the range of city policies is not limited by the requirements of capital, but instead by a constitutional structure that serves the interests of state and federal officials. Maintaining weak cities is a political choice. City Power shows how cities can govern despite constitutional limitations - and why we should want them to. In an era of global capital, municipal power is more relevant than ever to citizen well-being. A dynamic vision of city politics for the new urban age, City Power demonstrates that the city should be at the very center of our economic, legal, and political thinking.

Touching on aging central cities, technoburbs, and the ongoing conflict between inner-city poverty and urban boosterism, The Twentieth-Century American City offers a broad, accessible overview of America's persistent struggle for a better city.

On the east side of Midtown Manhattan, next to the United Nations, sits the massive apartment complex Tudor City. An architectural masterpiece created by developer Fred F. French during the Roaring Twenties, Tudor City was the first residential skyscraper complex in the world. It brought middle-class lifestyle to center city. Tudor City has parks, shops and restaurants and even once had a mini-golf course. Developers and preservationists battled over the site in the 1970s and 1980s, with a notable cast of characters including Governor Nelson Rockefeller, Mayor John Lindsay and Representative Ed Koch. The city designated the area a historic district. Author and resident Lawrence R. Samuel charts the ninety-year history of New York's Tudor City.

Capitalist private property in land and buildings – real estate – is the ground of modern cities, materially, politically, and economically. It is foundational to their development and core to much theoretical work on the urban environment. It is also a central, pressing matter of political contestation in contemporary cities. Yet it remains largely without a history. This Element examines the modern city as a propertied space, defining real estate as a technology of (dis)possession and using it to move across scales of analysis, from the local spatiality of particular built spaces to the networks of legal, political, and economic imperatives that constitute property and operate at national and international levels. This combination of territorial embeddedness with more wide-ranging institutional relationships charts a route to an urban history that allows the city to speak as a global agent and artefact without dispensing with the role of states and local circumstance.