New Book Compares Urban Development and Policies in the United States and Western Europe

WASHINGTON, D.C., (September 1, 1999)—Cities in the United States developed in response to profoundly different cultural, economic, and political factors than cities in Western Europe. Consequently, they occupy a different place in their country’s national life. Yet cities have undoubtedly been affected by the changes sweeping both continents in the past 50 years. In Urban Change in the United States and Western Europe: Comparative Analysis and Policy, Second Edition, a new book from the Urban Institute Press, leading researchers analyze urban patterns and problems on both sides of the Atlantic, with a focus on how cities have changed and how public policy can affect change.

After analyzing an enormous range of factors affecting where people live and work, the authors conclude that contemporary urban areas in the United States and Western Europe have similar patterns of growth and face similar problems. Most urban areas have experienced a population shift from the central city to suburban regions. In the United States, this decentralization has resulted in large proportions of poor residents living in the inner cities. A new chapter addresses policy strategies for alleviating this situation and suggests that improving transportation offers an effective way of improving inner-city residents’ access to the new jobs available in the suburbs.

In Europe, notes another contributor, the formation of the European Union and the increase in service sector jobs in many central cities appears to be exerting a beneficial effect on decentralization. The prospects of many U.S. metropolitan areas are brightening because of very low unemployment rates, but the United States, unlike Western European countries, has historically had weak, if any, national priorities regarding its cities or urban regions.

Analysts are beginning to see recentralization in some urban areas—that is, the movement of people and jobs into the central city. London is an example. Americans should not be too quick to rejoice at this glimmer of inner-city revitalization, however. Our cities have a far higher concentration of poor residents than European cities do, and this demographic fact of life presents a major impediment to recentralization. Consider that large U.S. cities spend a walloping 30 percent of their revenues on public welfare, health, and hospitals. Consider also that public policy in the United States has tended to promote decentralization, both directly and indirectly.

What policy has done, or failed to do, policy may also be able to remedy. The United States and Western European countries are facing the challenges of an increasingly global, high-technology economy. As they do so, they can learn from each other’s experiences. The contributors to Urban Change identify numerous areas—such as transportation, land use and zoning, business development, housing, and cultural and recreational amenities—in which national policy might fruitfully be brought to bear on urban problems.

Anita A. Summers is professor emerita of public policy and management and codirector of the Wharton Urban Decentralization Project in the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and has appointments in the real estate department and the graduate school of education. Paul C. Cheshire has been professor of economic geography at the London School of Economics since 1995, having previously been professor of urban and regional economics at the University of Reading. Lanfranco Senn is professor of regional and urban economics at Bocconi University of Milan, where he is also director of the Research Center in Regional Economics, Transport, and Tourism (CERTET). He is president of the Scientific Committee of Gruppo CLAS, a major consulting firm in Italy, and is currently counselor to the Minister of Public Works and of Transport of the Italian government.

Contributors to Urban Change in the United States and Western Europe include Leo van den Berg, Anthony Downs, Gianluigi Gorla, Joseph Gyourko, Peter Hall, Mark Alan Hughes, Helen F. Ladd, Charles L. Leven, Peter D. Linnemann, Anaïs Loizollon, Michael I. Luger, Rainer Mackensen, Duncan Maclennan, Edwin S. Mills, Dick Netzer, John B. Parr, John M. Quigley, and Joseph Tracy.

The Urban Institute is a nonprofit policy research and educational organization established in Washington, DC in 1968. Its staff investigates the social and economic problems confronting the nation and public and private means to alleviate them. The Urban Institute Press publishes books by Institute researchers and outside authors that sharpen thinking about societal problems and efforts to solve them.

Urban Change in the United States and Western Europe: Comparative Analysis and Policy, Second Edition is available now through the Urban Institute's Web site, www.urban.org, or by calling toll free 1-877-UIPRESS. This 6" x 9", 240-page paperback book features essays by leading experts in urban affairs and regional science: ISBN 0-87766-683-0, $39.50.

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