U.S. Urban Problems and Policy Responses: Lessons from the Past and Challenges for the Future

This report charts the evolution of American urban policy since the 1960s to help readers understand attempts to make our cities more livable and what these attempts reveal about the policymaking process and policy research and how that research has influenced American urban policy. Nine core topics in the urban social agenda are analyzed. They are economic development, poverty, family support and social welfare, housing, land use and transportation, education, drug abuse, racial discrimination and segregation, and intergovernmental financial arrangements. A chapter describing the evolution of the Urban Institute and a chapter on managing urbanization in the developing world are also included.