America's cities: celebrated by poets, courted by politicians, castigated by social reformers. In their numbers and complexity they challenge comprehension. Why is urban America the way it is? Eric Monkkonen offers a fresh approach to the myths and the history of US urban development, giving us an unexpected and welcome sense of our urban origins. His historically anchored vision of our cities places topics of finance, housing, social mobility, transportation, crime, planning, and growth into a perspective which explains the present in terms of the past and ofers a point from which to plan for the future. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1988 with a paperback in 1990.

Suburban Sprawl combines historical, political, economic, geographic, and urban planning analysis to provide the most comprehensive overview of why and how urban sprawl occurs. It shows that all previous attempts to pin the blame on one or two causes - "highway building" or "consumer preferences" - totally miss the complex and interwoven character of public policy and private interests in creating today's urban form. The authors have included the detailed analyses of expenditures which show that federal housing subsidies have contributed significantly to sprawl in the post-war period, as well as a comprehensive overview of policies that can be used to reduce sprawl or reduce its negative consequences. This book will inform the growing policy community involved in regionalism and the general urban policy community. It can also be assigned in undergraduate and graduate level classes in urban sociology, geography, urban politics, and urban planning.