The End of American Urban Policy—Or a Beginning

This evaluation of American urban policy considers future directions during the twenty-first century. It concludes that it is no longer fruitful to treat cities and other urban places as special interests with special problems to successfully address urban inequalities. The most critical forces now shaping urban America overwhelmingly are found beyond it. Future policies should concentrate on making the whole intergovernmental environment more just with the national government at the center of dual strategies. One promotes universalistic and individualistic social programs. The other alters the nation’s excessively decentralized intergovernmental system to limit self-defeating games of local governmental economic warfare.