Urban America in Transformation : Perspectives on Urban Policy and Development

The urban landscape in the United States has changed drastically over the past 50 years, and along with massive suburbanization and downtown renewal, there has been a restructuring of economic and political organizations and their interrelations. Benjamin Kleinberg has written this book out of his dissatisfaction with two of the most predominant perspectives on urban policy and development: contemporary ecological and neo-Marxist. He offers an interorganizational//policy perspective not as an alternative theory but as a structural framework for analyzing the shaping and implementing of urban policy.

Urban America in Transformation analyzes the changing federal system of urban policy making as an evolving complex of interorganizational networks and relates it to the restructuring of American urbanism over the past half century. Comparing the major perspectives (ecological and Marxist), the book provides a thorough review of the evolution of the urban policy system in the 20th century, and explores its significance for the postindustrial transition of older big cities. This book is timely and innovative in its approach and suggests a new method of analyzing the federal system of urban-related policy making. Advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and scholars in policy studies, political science, sociology, and urban planning will find this book to be an innovative and valuable contribution to the field.