Urban Public Policy
Historical Modes and Methods
216 pages | 6 x 9 | 1993
Cloth edition is not available
ISBN 978-0-271-02608-4 | paper: $24.00 sh
Issues in Policy History 3 Series
The 1992 Los Angeles riots catapulted the problems of the city back onto the policy agenda. The cauldron of social problems of the city, as the riots showed, offers no simple solutions. Indeed, urban policy includes a range of policy issues involving welfare, housing, job training, education, drug control, and the environment. The myriad of local, state, and federal agencies only further complicates formulating and implementing coherent policies for the city.
This volume, while not offering specific proposals to remedy the problems of the city, provides a broad historical context for discussing contemporary urban policy and for arriving at new prescriptions for relieving the ills of the American city. The essays address issues related to public housing, poverty, transportation, and the environment. In doing so, the authors discuss larger themes in urban policy as well as provide case studies of how policies have been implemented over time in specific cities. Of particular interest are two essays that discuss the role of the historian in shaping urban policy and the importance of historical preservation in urban planning.
Martin V. Melosi is Professor of History and Director of the Institute for Public Policy at the University of Houston.
Contents
Introduction Martin
V. Melosi
Five Downtown Strategies: Policy Discourse and Downtown
Planning Since 1945 Carl
Abbott
Housing and American Privatism: The Origins and
Evolution of Subsidized Home-Ownership Policy Paul
George Lewis
Chicago Influences on the War on Poverty Noel
A. Cazenave
The Evolution of Federal Transit Policy Sy
Adler
Down in the Dumps: Is There a Garbage Crisis in
America? Martin
V. Melosi
World War I and the Birth of American Regionalism
Harold L.
Platt
City as Artifact: Heritage Preservation in Comparative
Perspective Alan
Mayne
Reading Old Plans Seymore
J. Mandelbaum
Bibliographical Essay Martin
V. Melosi