With many contributors and a significant number of entries, Encyclopedia of Urban America: The Cities and Suburbs details selected major cities, suburbs, people, places, concepts, contemporary issues, history, and development of urban America. Topics range from problems typically associated with urban life such as crime, pollution, and congestion to the arts and humanities, social concerns, religion, infrastructure, key individuals, and economic issues.

This monumental work provides detailed definitions and context for the many terms and names encountered while studying the development and significance of the metropolis, the megalopolis, and, of course, the newly discovered edge city (among other strains of suburb). Includes 547 entries highlighting cultural and social phenomenon; economic and political issues; environmental concerns; transportation and infrastructure; ethnic and racial groups; the role of religion; and key figures in urban politics, literature, art, and music. The editor's introductory essay discusses the definition of urban and the development of urban studies. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

In this second edition, America’s Urban History now includes contemporary analysis of race, immigration, and cities under the Trump administration and has been fully updated with new scholarship on early urbanization, mass incarceration and cities, the Great Society, the diversification of the suburbs, and environmental justice. The United States is one of the most heavily urbanized places in the world, and its urban history is essential to understanding the fundamental narrative of American history. This book is an accessible overview of the history of American cities, including Indigenous settlements, colonial America, the American West, the postwar metropolis, and the present-day landscape of suburban sprawl and an urbanized population. It examines the ways in which urbanization is connected to divisions of society along the lines of race, class, and gender, but it also studies how cities have been sources of opportunity, hope, and success for individuals and the nation. Images, maps, tables, and a guide to further reading provide engaging accompaniment to illustrate key concepts and themes. Spanning centuries of America’s urban past, this book’s depth and insight make it an ideal text for students and scholars in urban studies and American history.

The author maintains that American politics, institutional arrangements, and political culture have prevented the development of a comprehensive, integrated, intermodal transportation policy in the United States. Dilger makes his argument by examining the development of the national governmental authority in both surface and air transportation. Each transportation mode—highways/mass transit, Amtrak, and civilian air transportation—is examined separately, assessing their development over time and focusing on current controversies, including, but not limited to, the highway versus mass transit funding issue; the recent decentralization of decision making authority on surface transportation policy; Amtrak's viability as an alternative to the automobile; and current antiterrorist policies' effect on transportation policy.

The revised and updated third edition of The Making of Urban America includes seven new articles and a richly detailed historiographical essay that discusses the vast urban history literature added to the canon since the publication of the second edition. The authors’ extensively revised introductions and the fifteen reprinted articles trace urban development from the preindustrial city to the twentieth-century city. With emphasis on the social, economic, political, commercial, and cultural aspects of urban history, these essays illustrate the growth and change that created modern-day urban life. Dynamic topics such as technology, immigration and ethnicity, suburbanization, sunbelt cities, urban political history, and planning and housing are examined. The Making of Urban America is the only reader available that covers all of U.S. urban history and that also includes the most recent interpretive scholarship on the subject.