Over the years I have conducted numerous neighborhood studies,
alternately focusing on specific geographic areas, public programs, and
types of citizen actions. Because most of these efforts were done on a
project-by-project basiS, it did not readily occur to me that these
separate investigations also represented an aggregate statement about
American neighborhoods: the con- tinuing and complex relationship
between public policy and neighborhood life. A suggestion by Lloyd
Rodwin, the senior editor for this series, prOvided the opportunity to
reexamine the various manuscripts, and to select (and in some cases,
conSiderably edit) those bearing most on this overall theme. Thus each
of the chapters in this book is a commentary on the potential uses of
public policy for preserving the most cherished aspect of contemporary
neigh- borhoods-the social life within them. In some cases the policy
actions may have only an indirect effect on neighborhoods. For instance,
a whole portion of the book is devoted to the role of research in
understanding neighborhood conditions; public policy is relevant because
research, these days, has itself become a public policy enterprise. In
other cases the policy effects are direct and pervasive-the support of
citizen organizations, the delivery of neigh- borhood services, and the
provision of timely and relevant information to residents. I do not know
whether the relationship between public policy and neigh- borhoods is
the same or as intimate outside the United States.