Introduction : alternative approaches to regional equity and racial justice -- The integration imperative -- Affirmatively furthering community development -- The "hollow prospect" of integration -- The three stations of fair housing spatial strategy -- New issues, unresolved questions, and the widening debate -- Conclusion : everyone deserves to live in an opportunity neighborhood

Now considered a dysfunctional mess, Chicago’s public housing projects once had long waiting lists of would-be residents hoping to leave the slums behind. So what went wrong? To answer this complicated question, D. Bradford Hunt traces public housing’s history in Chicago from its New Deal roots through current mayor Richard M. Daley’s Plan for Transformation. In the process, he chronicles the Chicago Housing Authority’s own transformation from the city’s most progressive government agency to its largest slumlord. Challenging explanations that attribute the projects’ decline primarily to racial discrimination and real estate interests, Hunt argues that well-intentioned but misguided policy decisions—ranging from design choices to maintenance contracts—also paved the road to failure. Moreover, administrators who fully understood the potential drawbacks did not try to halt such deeply flawed projects as Cabrini-Green and the Robert Taylor Homes. These massive high-rise complexes housed unprecedented numbers of children but relatively few adults, engendering disorder that pushed out the working class and, consequently, the rents needed to maintain the buildings. The resulting combination of fiscal crisis, managerial incompetence, and social unrest plunged the CHA into a quagmire from which it is still struggling to emerge. Blueprint for Disaster, then,is an urgent reminder of the havoc poorly conceived policy can wreak on our most vulnerable citizens.

A compelling insider's account of the fight for educational desegregation, from one of its most dedicated and outspoken heroes. A new afterword explains the author's controversial belief that the moment for litigating educational equality has passed, clear-sightedly critiquing his own courtroom strategies and the courts' responses, before closing with an assessment of the economic and social changes that he feels have already moved us "beyond busing." "An extraordinarily informative and thoughtful book describing the process of bringing Brown [v. Board of Education] North and the impact this process had upon national attitudes toward desegregation." --Drew S. Days III, Yale Law Journal "An original analysis of a tough subject. A must-read for all who care about opportunity for all our children." --Donna E. Shalala, President, University of Miami "Paul Dimond remains a passionate and caring voice for inner-city students, whether in his advocacy of school desegregation, school choice plans, or school finance reform. He illuminates these issues as one who participated in the major education cases and as a perceptive scholar." --Mark Yudof, Chancellor, The University of Texas System "A must-read for anyone who wants to understand America's continued failure to give inner-city children a quality education or to do something about it!" --Sheryll Cashin, Author of The Failures of Integration: How Race and Class Are Undermining the American Dream "Dimond is particularly good at relating his slice of legal history to the broader developments of the 1970s, and his occasional remarks about trial tactics are amusing and instructive. Dimond's honesty about both his successes and failures makes his book required reading for civil rights lawyers." --Lawrence T. Gresser, Michigan Law Review "A fascinating first-hand account of 1970s northern school desegregation decisions." --Neal E. Devins, American Bar Foundation Research Journal "Dimond reminds the liberal reader of the promise that lies in the empowerment of ordinary families to choose their own schools." --John E. Coons, Professor of Law, Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley Paul R. Dimond is counsel to Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone, Michigan's largest law firm; chairman of McKinley, a national commercial real estate investment and management firm; and chairman or member of the board of trustees of numerous education, community, and civic organizations. He spent four years as President Clinton's Special Assistant for Economic Policy.

February issue includes Appendix entitled Directory of United States Government periodicals and subscription publications; September issue includes List of depository libraries; June and December issues include semiannual index