Interwoven Destinies: Cities and the Nation

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. (Nov.)