The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina laid bare the tragedy of American cities. What the storm revealed about the social conditions in New Orleans shocked many Americans. Even more shocking is how widespread these conditions are throughout much of urban America. Plagued by ineffectual and inegalitarian governance, acute social problems such as extreme poverty, and social and economic injustice, many American cities suffer a fate similar to that of New Orleans before and after the hurricane. Gentrification and corporate redevelopment schemes merely distract from this disturbing reality. Compounding this tragedy is a failure in urban analysis and scholarship. Little has been offered in the way of solving urban America's problems, and much of what has been proposed or practiced remains profoundly misguided, in David Imbroscio's view. In Urban America Reconsidered, he offers a timely response. He urges a reconsideration of the two reigning orthodoxies in urban studies: regime theory, which provides an understanding of governance in cities, and liberal expansionism, which advocates regional policies linking cities to surrounding suburbs. Declaring both approaches to be insufficient—and sometimes harmful—Imbroscio illuminates another path for urban America: remaking city economies via an array of local economic alternative development strategies (or LEADS). Notable LEADS include efforts to build community-based development institutions, worker-owned firms, publicly controlled businesses, and webs of interdependent entrepreneurial enterprises. Equally notable is the innovative use of urban development tools to generate indigenous, stable, and balanced growth in local economies. Urban America Reconsidered makes a strong case for the LEADS approach for constructing progressive urban regimes and addressing America's deepest urban problems.

First Published in 1998. Approximately 75 percent of Americans live in cities and surrounding suburbs, and the characteristics of those cities inescapably affect the quality of their lives. This book examines the extent to which these Americans use the political process to control the characteristics of life in their metropolises. In addition, this second edition revision places great emphasis on the role of political leaders, while recognising the interdependence between those leaders and various interests in the city.

Praised for the clarity of its writing, careful research, and distinctive theme – that urban politics in the United States has evolved as a dynamic interaction between governmental power, private actors, and a politics of identity – City Politics remains a classic study of urban politics. Its enduring appeal lies in its persuasive explanation, careful attention to historical detail, and accessible and elegant way of teaching the complexity and breadth of urban and regional politics which unfold at the intersection of spatial, cultural, economic, and policy dynamics. Now in a thoroughly revised tenth edition, this comprehensive resource for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as well-established researchers in the discipline, retains the effective structure of past editions while offering important updates, including: All-new sections on immigration, the Black Lives Matter Movement, the downtown condo boom, and the impact of the sharing economy on urban neighborhoods (especially the rise of Airbnb). Individual chapters introducing students to pressing urban issues such as gentrification, sustainability, metropolitanization, urban crises, the creative class, shrinking cities, racial politics, and suburbanization. The most recent census data integrated throughout to provide current figures for analysis, discussion, and a more nuanced understanding of current trends. Taught on its own, or supplemented with the optional reader American Urban Politics in a Global Age for more advanced readers, City Politics remains the definitive text on urban politics – and how they have evolved in the US over time – for a new generation of students and researchers.