Urban Economics and Land Use in America: The Transformation of Cities in the Twentieth Century The Transformation of Cities in the Twentieth Century

This is a book about the reality of place in America, the events and influences that led to the America we recognize today. It is a book about the growth of American cities and their suburbs during the twentieth century, about institutions and metropolitan governance, about real estate development and finance, about housing and the lack of it, about the emergence and perhaps the eventual debilitation of cities and suburbs alike. Incorporating the thinking of visionary city planners and land use economists, the author presents a lucid primer on the economics of land, its development and usage, and on how things actually get done in the real estate industry.

Part I Introduction; Chapter 1 Overview; Chapter 2 How Garden Cities Became the Standard for the Development of American Suburbs; Part II Setting the Scene; Chapter 3 Generations of Babbitts and Ebenezers; Chapter 4 Some Historical Themes and Sensibilities; Chapter 5 Public Lands and the Native Population; Chapter 6 Visions of the Twenty-first Century; Part III Notes on Suburbanization; Chapter 7 The Suburbs According to Richard T. Ely in 1902; Chapter 8 Patterns of Transportation and Metropolitanizatlon, 1900–2000; Part IV The Record: 1900–2000; Chapter 9 Structuring the Political Economy of America, 1900–30; Chapter 10 Restructuring America; Chapter 11 Restructuring Continued; Chapter 12 Destructuring America, 1968–2000; partV Looking Onward; Chapter 13 The Metropolitan System in Gear; Chapter 14 Remaking America in the Twenty-first Century;

Alan Rabinowitz has worked and taught in the intersecting fields of urban land-use analysis, economic development, housing, city and regional planning, real estate investment, state-local finance, and community organizing for many decades. He holds a Ph.D. from MIT and an M.B.A. from Harvard. He has written a number of books and has worked in the United States and abroad for private consulting, financial and investing firms, and for governmental agencies. He currently lives with his wife in Seattle.