Patterns of Development

Why are Denver and Houston floundering? Yet down­town Chicago is holding its own and Manhattan is the hottest real estate market in the country? Is frost com­ing to the Sunbelt? Where are the new markets? What does Hi-Tech really mean to development? Is American industry doomed to follow England? The baker's dozen of essays in this new book provides an unparalleled range of insight and hard-nosed answers. They range from housing to the central city; from job prospects to the impact of technology on retailing. The stress is on the big picture of changes in demography, the economy, and government. But it is geared to provide practical answers for the tough questions of where we are going-and how to understand the processes which are shaping the future.

The book starts with Housing: 1. The Housing Locomotive and the Demographic Caboose 2. Structuring the Future: Housing and the Social Compact 3. A Review of Past Policies and Future Directions in Housing 4. Housing the Poor in a Post-Shelter Society 5. HUD—A Study in Power and Piety And then turns to the Central City: 6. The Central City in America 7. The City in a National Economic Context 8. The Uncertain Future of the Central City It pulls both sections together by looking at the new success story— New York City: 9. Housing in New York: Matrix and Microcosm 10. New York and the Post-Industrial Era And, finally, places the New Economic Imperatives of society in perspective: 11. Frost on the Sunbelt: Thaw in the North 12. Information Technology, Demo­graphics and the Retail Response 13. American Industry: The Continuous Revolution

George Sternlieb is the founder and former director of the Center for Urban Policy Research. He is a member of the Census Advisory Committee on Population Statistics, a trustee of the Urban Land Institute, and has served on a number of presidential task forces on urban development.