Normal wear and tear from moderate use. May not include supplements.

An Economic Theory of Democracy

Politics & Social Sciences

Downs, Anthony

Politics & Government

Harper and Row

In this fast-paced, fact-filled short book, Anthony Downs takes a close look at a national problem of increasing importance—opening up the suburbs to the poor.  After marshalling the arguments in favor of introducing low and moderate income housing in suburban areas where it is not now possible, he presents the suburbanites’ case against change. He finds legitimate claims and fears on both sides. Mr. Downs believes it is possible, however, to devise public policies that will reconcile the objectives and legitimate desires of both poorer Americans desiring to upgrade themselves by entering the suburbs and wealthier Americans desiring to protect the quality of their hard-won suburban life.  He proposes the concept of balanced communities as well as other public policies to effect this reconciliation.  As the nation moves into the decade of the seventies, the pressures of expanding population on the suburbs are bound to increase. Anthony Downs provides here a thoughtful analysis of the problems that are coming and practical proposals for dealing with them, which will interest the professional planner and the involved citizen alike.

Opening up the Suburbs: An Urban Strategy for America

Sociology

Yale University Press

Urban studies, economics, sociology, and political science perspectives on the exclusion from the suburbs of poor and minority populations. Provides a rationale and detailed program to address housing and urban problems.

Opening up the suburbs;: An urban strategy for America

History

World

PaperbackPublisher: Scott Foresman &amp; Co; 12th Paperback Edition edition (June 1967)ISBN-10: 0316191930ISBN-13: 978-0316191937Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.7 inchesShipping Weight: 13.6 ounces

Inside Bureaucracy

Little,Brown

Urban problems and prospects

Rand-McNally

Bureaus are among the most important institutions in every part of the world. Not only do they provide employment for a very significant fraction of the world's population, but they also make critical decisions that shape the economic, educational, political, social, moral, and even religious lives of nearly everyone on earth. This book develops a useful theory of bureaucratic decision making. The theory will enable analysts to predict at least some aspects of bureau behavior accurately, and to incorporate bureaus into a more generalized theory of social decision making--particularly one relevant to democracies. It would be impossible to solve all the problems involved in this immense and complex field; however, this book will solve many, and create a framework upon which solutions to still more may be built by other theorists.

Downs

Social Sciences

Scott, Foresman Co.

During the past two decades, most large American cities have lost population, yet some have continued to grow. Does this trend foreshadow the death” of our largest cities? Or is urban decline a temporary phenomenon likely to be reversed by high energy costs? This ambitious book tackles these questions by analyzing the nature and extent of urban decline and growth of large U.S. cities. It includes and integrates five substudies. The first examines urban decline and some of its long-run causes, and whether cities that are losing population are performing their economic and social functions less effectively. The second substudy is a multivariate analysis of factors associated with the growth and decline of 121 large U.S. cities and their metropolitan areas. Although its causes vary, urban decline appears closely related to processes that have both upgraded individual households and generated serious problems for city governments and poor neighborhoods. A third substudy shows that neighborhood decline is part of a systematic process related to the influx of poor households into metropolitan areas. Another substudy simulates five antidecline strategies in a single metropolitan area, that of Cleveland, Ohio, and finds that severe decline (occurring in about one-fourth of large U.S. cities) could be slowed, though not stopped by vigorous policies. From the last substudy it emerges that, even if gasoline prices rose to over $2 a gallon, resulting adjustments by commuters and firms would produce little net centralization of future urban developmentthough many older neighborhoods would probably be rehabilitated. The book concludes that further losses of population and jobs in most severely declining cities are unavoidable in the near future. Even Southern and Western cities, now growing fast, will find their rate of growth slowing as further annexation of surrounding territory is limited. The book ends with two chapters discussing policies designed both to help declining population and job losses and to minimize such loses in other cities.

Urban Decline and the Future of American Cities

Business & Money

Small, Kenneth A.

Bradbury, Katharine L.

Economics

Brookings Institution Press

The Revolution in Real Estate Finance

Brookings Inst Pr

American cities are shifting collections of individual neghborhoods. Thousands of residents move every year within and among neighborhoods; their flows across a city can radically and quickly alter the character of its neighborhoods. What is behind all this ferment—the decline of one area, the revitalization of another? Can the process be made more rational? Can city neighborhoods be stabilized--and older cities thus preserved?
 This book argues that such flows of residents are not random. Rather, they are closely linked to overall migration into or out of each metropolitan area and to the way U.S. cities develop. Downs contends that both urban development and the social problems it spawns are built upon social arrangements designed to benefit the middle-class majority. Racial segregation divides housing in each metropolitan area into two or more markets. Socioeconomic segregation subdivides neighborhoods within each market into a class hierarchy. The poor live mainly in the oldest neighborhoods, close to the urban center. The affluent live in the newest neighborhoods, mostly at the urban periphery. This separation stems not from pure market forces but from exclusionary laws that make the construction of low-cost housing illegal in most neighborhoods. The resulting pattern determines where housing is built and what housing is left to decay.
 Downs uses data from U.S. cities to illustrate neighborhood change and to reach conclusions about ways to cope with it. he explores the causes and nature of racial segregation and integration, and he evaluates neighborhood revitalization programs, which in reviving part of a city often displace many poor residents. He presents a timely analysis of the effect of higher energy costs upon urban sprawl, argues the wisdom of reviving older cities rather than helping their residents move elsewhere, and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of public and private policies at the federal, state, metropolitan-area, city, and neighborhood levels.

Neighborhoods and Urban Development

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Downs, Anthony. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Downs, Anthony