Throughout the twentieth century, the city was deemed a problematic space, one that Americans urgently needed to improve. Although cities from New York to Los Angeles served as grand monuments to wealth and enterprise, they also reflected the social and economic fragmentation of the nation. Race, ethnicity, and class splintered the metropolis both literally and figuratively, thwarting efforts to create a harmonious whole. The urban landscape revealed what was rightand wrongwith both the country and its citizens' way of life.
In this thoroughly revised edition of his highly acclaimed book, Jon C. Teaford updates the story of urban America by expanding his discussion to cover the end of the twentieth century and the first years of the next millennium. A new chapter on urban revival initiatives at the close of the century focuses on the fight over suburban sprawl as well as the mixed success of reimagining historic urban cores as hip new residential and cultural hubs. The book also explores the effects of the late-century immigration boom from Latin America and Asia, which has complicated the metropolitan ethnic portrait.
Drawing on wide-ranging primary and secondary sources, Teaford describes the complex social, political, economic, and physical development of US urban areas over the course of the long twentieth century. Touching on aging central cities, technoburbs, and the ongoing conflict between inner-city poverty and urban boosterism, The Twentieth-Century American Cityoffers a broad, accessible overview of America's persistent struggle for a better city.
Preface 1. Problem, Promise, and Reality 2. The Century Begins, 19001919 The Downtown The Neighborhoods Righting the Urban Wrongs 3. Promises Thwarted The Failure of Moral Reform The Failure of Political Reform The Imperfect Mosaic Automobiles and the Promise of Suburbia 4. An Interlude in Urban Development, 19301945 The Depression The Federal Response The Wartime City 5. Suburbia Triumphant, 19451964 Suburban Boom Central-City Bust Reviving the Central City 6. An Age of ""Urban Crisis,"" 19641979 Rebellion and Crime Washington's Response to Urban Crisis The Fiscal Crisis The New Ethnic Politics 7. Toward a New Metropolis, 1980 and Beyond Renaissance or Bust The New Ethnic Mosaic The Post-suburban Metropolis 8. The Turn-of-the-Century City Revival amid the Ruins Stopping Sprawl Bibliographical Essay Index
