Modern cities embody America's successes and failures--while offering
hope for the future.
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 right--and wrong--with 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
City offers a broad, accessible overview of America's persistent
struggle for a better city.
