INTERWOVEN DESTINIES: CITIES AND THE NATION.

Essays assess the problems of America's major cities and suggest practical solutions for rebuilding urban infrastructure and redesigning government and judicial systems

The 13 highly accessible essays compiled here set forth specific proposals concerning backlogged courts, health-care delivery, federal funding and training of non-college bound youth. Cisneros, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and formerly the mayor of San Antonio, Tex., calls for a partnership of government, business, labor and community groups to create metropolitan-wide strategies to renew American cities. Arguing that government subsidies have for years favored suburban sprawl, Columbia University urban planning experts Elliott Sclar and Walter Hook propose policies that would create a "level playing field" between central cities and suburbs. In cities like Baltimore and Atlanta, community-based development organizations and public-pivate partnerships have revitalized neighborhoods, a phenomenon reviewed by Paul Brophy of the Enterprise Foundation. The initiatives proposed in this important handbook call for bold measures of reform.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Urban experts survey the crisis in our cities--in 13 essays and a series of recommendations that emphasize the interwoven destinies of city and suburb, city and nation. The text is drawn from a symposium led by Cisneros (former San Antonio mayor and now Clinton's secretary of housing and urban development), who offers an introduction. The contributors generally agree that our cities can't cope alone with the problems that have been concentrated within their borders: poverty, distressed families, unemployment, undereducation, racism, insufficient affordable housing, ghetto health statistics at Third World levels, crime, drugs, an overburdened justice system--and a consequent widespread breakdown of civility and trust. There's general recognition that federal policies since WW II have combined with other forces to drain the cities of revenue and burden them with more than their fair share of expenses--and that some adjustment, such as metropolitan-area- wide tax collection and redistribution, is necessary to redress the imbalance. The point is made repeatedly that the fortunes of metropolitan areas rise and fall with the fortunes of their central cities. Individual essays range from conservative sermonizing and civic cheerleading to a blizzard of census statistics and a community organizer's prescription for creative and realistic neighborhood advocacy as taught by the Industrial Area Foundation (founded 50 years ago by Saul Alinski). Nearly all the essays are thoughtful and authoritative. The recommendations--long on ``should's'' and short on ``how's''--are on the order of region- wide planning and taxing structures, with heavy investment in ``human capital'' (schools and job training), public transportation, and urban development. The value here isn't so much for new ideas and directions or detailed blueprints as for the informed overview and validation of the policy position: that both justice and national survival require a leveling of the playing field between ailing cities and parasitic suburbs. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

This volume was sponsored by the American Assembly of Columbia University to examine the problems of central cities in the United States and to develop recommendations to alleviate those problems. Editor Cisneros is the former mayor of San Antonio, Texas, and current secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Following Cisneros's introduction, various urban experts explore different issues; among them, Eli Ginsburg examines major urban trends, Elliot Sclar and Walter Hook explain the economic role of cities, Kneeland Youngblood discusses urban healthcare issues, Peter Salins points out economic and budgetary problems, Nathan Glazer focuses on the need for human capital investment, and Ernesto Cortes concludes with recommendations for community action and citizen empowerment. The recommendations in the assembly report, reprinted in the book's appendix, as well as the essays themselves are essential readings for officials and residents seeking solutions to growing central city problems and will be useful readings for urban scholars and general readers. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/93.
- William L. Waugh, Georgia State Univ. , Atlanta
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.