SYLLABUS
Requirements | Grades | Readings | Web Sites | Class Schedule

What This Course is About
This is a seminar/discussion course about America's urban crisis -- and what we can do about it. It is also a course in policy analysis -- evaluating different public policies in terms of their effectiveness. It is also a course in American politics -- examining how political conflicts over ideas and interests influences policy regarding cities.

Following the civil disorder in Los Angeles in 1992, many politicians, candidates, journalists, business leaders, and philanthropists expressed growing concern about the "urban crisis." They held hearings, issued reports, wrote articles, and funded research about what caused it and what to do about it. Are other cities, like Los Angeles, ticking time bombs, waiting to explode? Are the problems facing American cities -- poverty, homelessness, high levels of infant mortality, pollution, etc. -- solvable?

There's been a great deal of research and writing about urban problems in the past few years. Most of the readings for this course draw on up-to-date research and thinking. But many of the urban problems we face today have been around for some time. People have been thinking about urban problems for many years. We can learn a great deal from the urban thinkers of the past as well.

The major questions addressed in this seminar include the following:

1. As the U.S. has changed, so has the shape, function, and number of cities and metropolitan areas. How have these changes come about? How and why did the suburbs grow, especially after World War II? What's the difference between cities and suburbs? Are they growing more alike or more apart? How has the physical shape of metropolitan areas -- its architecture, roads, residential areas, open spaces, factories, stores, offices, neighborhoods, downtowns -- changed? What impact have these changes had on how people live their lives?



2. Are there certain "urban" characteristics -- economic, social, political, psychological -- common to all cities and metropolitan areas? What is meant by the term "urban crisis?" Does it affect all urban areas in the same way? How has the distribution of wealth and power in the larger society influenced the economic, social, and physical conditions of cities and metro areas? What are the causes of urban poverty and racial segregation?



3. Should there be a national urban policy designed to help rebuild cities? Or should there simply be policies to help individuals wherever they happen to live? What approaches have been tried? What works? What has failed? Why? How do we assess proposals to deal with our urban problems? We'll look at such issues as poverty and employment, housing and homelessness, public health, transportation and environment, racial segregation and discrimination, and others. What are the current policy debates regarding these and other issues?



4. What role do cities play in our national political life? (This is often called "the politics of urban policy"). How are cities governed? (This is often called "urban politics"). Who runs our cities? Business? Local politicians? Neighborhood groups? Developers? Unions? No one? What are the different ways that cities and metro areas are governed? What difference does it make?



5. Do cities in other countries have the same problems? Why or why not? Even if we find some common characteristics, we also know that Los Angeles has a quality about it that differs from Boston; that Paris is hardly the same as Nairobi; that Beijing is quite different from Mexico City; that San Diego is very different from San Francisco. How do we account for these differences? What can we learn from these differences to help address the problems facing American cities?

Course Requirements
Your grade will be based on the following:

1. One-third your grade will be based on your class participation. This is a seminar course. Its success depends on class discussions. Students are expected to do the readings on time and participate in class discussions. When doing the reading, think about the issues you want to discuss in class. Most of the readings are short articles from newspapers and magazines with little or no technical jargon. Some readings are more difficult and will take more time to digest. I encourage students to debate and disagree -- but to do so based on information and evidence as well as your own values.



2. One-third of your grade will be based on written assignments. You will be assigned a number of short (3 to 4 page) papers, based primarily on the readings. These include book reviews, policy analyses, newspaper editorials, and others. All papers should be typed, double-spaced. Proofread your papers. Check for correct spelling, punctuation, grammar. Put your names on the first page. Cite your sources in the essay (Author: Page Number) and in the bibliography (Author, Title, Publisher, Date). Examples or statistics should be used to illustrate your major points, not as a substitute for critical analysis. A few assignments will require you to work in groups.



3. One-third of your grade will be based on a policy memo. Each student will pick an issue facing America's cities and write a policy memo to a candidate running for mayor, governor, Congress, or President. The memo should address (a) the key trends and problems, (b) proposed policy solutions, making sure you identify which solutions are appropriate for the city, state, or federal government (depending on who is getting the memo) to address, (c) the political obstacles to getting these policies approved.
   
   The memo should be 10-15 pages long. It should not read like an academic term paper. Each section should have its major items written as short bullet points. Unlike a typical policy memo, however, it should have a bibliography page at the end. We will discuss the logistics of doing this paper in class. Each student should give me a short memo on Thursday, Feb. 7 identifying the issue selected and why. Each student should give me a short memo on Thursday, Feb. 13 identifying the issue selected and why it was selected. Each student should give me an outline of their policy memo, along with an annotated bibliography, on Thursday, March 27. The final paper is due on Thursday, May 1. Each student should use the websites listed below, as well as other sources, in doing the research for this assignment.

Required Readings

Books to Purchase

You should purchase the following paperback books, available at the college bookstore:

o Peter Dreier, John Mollenkopf, and Todd Swanstrom, Place Matters : Metropolitics for the 21st Century (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001)
Review (H-Urban: October, 2001) by Margaret Pugh O'Mara, Dept. of History, University of Pennsylvania

o Pietro S. Nivola, Laws of the Landscape: How Policies Shape Cities in Europe and America (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, c1999)

o Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton, American Apartheid: Segregation & the Making of the Underclass (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993)

o Kenneth Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985)

o Jonathan Kozol, Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools (New York: Crown Pub., 1991)

o Norman Krumholz and Pierre Clavel, Reinventing Cities: Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (Philadelphia: Temple University Pres, 1994)
Review (H-Urban: December, 1994) by Nathan Landau, University of Califronaia at Berkeley.

Web Readings

Most of the readings for this source will be found on the website for UEP 301. You can get there by clicking on the following: http://www.oxy.edu/departments/library/reserve.html. The course readings to be found on the website are marked with an asterik (*). It is each student's responsibility to get these readings from the website. Please download them so you can mark them up as well as bring them to class. There are many separate articles from magazines, newspapers, journals and other sources, so it may take time to download them each week. Make sure you have sufficient time to do this.

Reports and Journals

I will distribute free copies of several reports that are part of the required reading. These include a report on sprawl in Los Angeles ("Sprawl Hits the Wall"), a report on the income divide in Los Angeles ("A Tale of Two Cities"), and a report on community development corporations ("Corrective Capitalism"), and on the federal Earned Income Tax Credit program ("Rewarding Work"). I will also distribute six issues of the journal, Housing Policy Debate (listed as HPD). We will read selected articles from this journal.

Films

Although I like to show films as part of my courses, we probably won't have time to see more than one film this seminar. I would encourage you, however, to go to the Library and view some or all of the following films that are very relevant to the topics we'll discuss in the course. I am showing some of these films in my Politics 208 course on Monday nights at 7 pm in Johnson 200 on the dates listed below. You are welcome to attend.

"Hull House: The House that Jane Built" (documentary about the first wave of urban social reform at the turn of the 20th century) -- March 10
"The Times of Harvey Milk" (documentary about the rise of gay politics in San Francisco) -- April 22
"Bread and Roses" (feature film about the "justice for janitor" campaign in Los Angeles) - April 28
"The Killing Floor" (feature film about the 1919 Chicago race riots)
"City of Hope" (a feature film, directed by John Sayles, about urban politics)
"Do The Right Thing" (Spike Lee's film about the Brooklyn ghetto)
"Holding Ground" (a documentary about community organizing in Boston)
"Taken for a Ride" (a documentary about America's love affair with the automobile)
"Home Economics: A Documentary of Suburbia" (a documentary about daily life in the Los Angeles suburbs)

Web Sites

I hope that all of you will become familiar with the World Wide Web as a way of connecting to the larger worlds of public policy. There are thousands of web sites that deal with social issues and thousands of advocacy organizations and political networks that have their own web sites. Here are several key sites with which you should be familiar. I encourage you to bookmark them so you can find them easily.

1. Moving Ideas Network (http://www.movingideas.org) -- This site is a link with dozens of organizations and publications that deal with public policy issues. It includes organizations such as the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, Economic Policy Institute, Public/Private Ventures, The American Prospect magazine, Center for Law and Social Policy, and others. It includes links to issues such as economics and politics, welfare and families, education, civic participation, and health policy.



2. Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy (http://www.brook.edu/dybdocroot/es/urban/urban.htm). This is an outstanding research and policy center focusing on urban issues. The website is constantly being updated with new reports on a diversity of issues -- housing, transportation, welfare, banking, segregation, poverty, and other topics.



3. Community Organizing and Development (http://comm-org.utoledo.edu) -- This site is a link with hundreds of groups involved in urban community development. If you want to find out what groups are working on different urban issues, this is the site. It also has many articles and reports on urban community development and community organizing.



4. The Center for Neighborhood Technology (http://www.cnt.org),
   the National Housing Institute (http://www.nhi.org/),
   Planners Network (http://www.plannersnetwork.org),
   Civic Practices Network (http://www.cpn.org/index.html), and
   Citistates (http://www.citistates.com)
   All focus on innovative research and programs that strengthen urban neighborhoods and metropolitan areas. Each site has links to many other resources about particular issues, programs, cities, and metropolitan areas.



5. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has its own web site (http://www.hud.gov) with information about its programs, policies, data bases, and many links. More useful for this course is HUD's Office of Policy Development & Research (http://www.huduser.org), which has its own site with a great deal of information about housing and urban problems, studies and publications, and available data. You reach can the HUD library, with many reports and publications about cities and housing problems, at this site.

Newspapers, Magazines, and Journals

Students are expected to read at least one daily newspaper -- the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, or the Wall Street Journal -- on a regular basis. When an article appears in one of these papers that relates to the topics in the course, bring it up in class.

There are also many magazines -- such as The Neighborhood Works, Governing, and Planning -- targeted to urban practitioners and policymakers. The best sources for following national politics are Washington Post Weekly and National Journal.

You should also become familiar with the major journals that focus on urban problems and policies. In the Library, peruse these publications to see what scholars and practitioners are saying. The major journals include Urban Affairs Quarterly, the Journal of the American Planning Association, and the Journal of Urban Affairs, and National Civic Review. Other relevant journals include Social Work, Social Policy, Challenge, and American Demographics.

(Readings preceded by an *asterisk are available on-line. Books are available in the Bookstore. Reports and journals will be distributed in class).

PERSONAL VALUES AND SOCIAL CHOICES
(Jan. 23 and Jan. 28)

Social Choices (Tues., Jan. 28)
Kozol, Savage Inequalities (entire book)

WHAT MAKES CITIES LIVEABLE?
(Jan. 30; Feb. 4, 6 and 11)

Economic Conditions (Thurs., Jan 30)
Downs, "The Challenge of Our Declining Big Cities" (Housing Policy Debate, 8/2, 1997) – skim for the basic points
*Wilson, "When Work Disappears" (New York Times Magazine, August 18, 1996)
*Verhovek, "A Shopping Institution Falls on Lean Times" (Los Angeles Times, Dec. 29, 2003)
*Kilborn, "Another Notch in the Decline of Main Street" (New York Times, November 4, 1993)
*"Toronto and Detroit" (Economist, May 19, 1990)
*Traub, "No-Fun City" (New York Times Magazine, Nov. 4, 2001)
*Walljasper, "Denmark: What Works?" (Nation, January 26, 1998)
*Greenhouse, "Why Paris Works" (New York Times Magazine, July 19, 1992)

Optional:
*Morgenthau and McCormick, "Are Cities Obsolete?" (Newsweek, Sept. 9, 1991)
*Walsh, "Urban Pain, From Sea to Sea" (New York Times, Sept. 30, 2001)
*Sigenbladh, "Stockholm" (Scientific American, September 1965)
*Wolfe, "Canada's Liveable Cities" (Social Policy, Summer 1992)

Social and Community Conditions (Tues., Feb. 4)
*Dogan and Kasarda, "Comparing Giant Cities" from Mattei Dogan and John D. Kasarda, The Metropolis Era: Mega-Cities, vol. 2 (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1988)
*Hall, "How Foreign Cities Cope" (The World & I, June 1991)
*Ibrahim, "To French, Solidarity Outweighs Balanced Budget" (New York Times, Dec. 20, 1995)
*Gecan, "All Real Living is Meeting", from Michael Gecan, Going Public (Boston: Beacon Press, 2002), pp. 19-26
*Pierce, "A Universal Church of Immigrants" (Boston Globe, July 4, 1993)
*Goldman, "A Hidden Advantage for Some Job Seekers" (Los Angeles Times, Nov. 28, 1997
*Belluck, "New Wave of the Homeless Floods Cities' Shelters" (New York Times, Dec. 18, 2001)
*Jordan, "Branching Out: Neighborhood Libraries" (Governing, October 2001)

Optional:
*Tobar, "Housing Laws No Cure for Slums' Ills" (Los Angeles Times, July 20, 1997)
*Sheridan, "Culture Club" (Urban Land, April 2002)
*Shirley, "Ysleta Elementary School" from Dennis Shirley, Community Organizing for Urban School Reform (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997)
*Kretzman, "Building Communities From the Inside Out" (Shelterforce, Sept./Oct. 1995)
*Blankstein and Winton, "13 Die in Four Days of Violence" (Los Angeles Times, Nov. 19, 2002)
*Butterfield, "Study Links Violence Rate to Cohesion of Community" (New York Times, Aug. 17, 1997)
*"Serious Crimes Fall for 8th Consecutive Year" (New York Times, May 8, 2000)
*Butterfield, "Killings Increase in Many Big Cities" (New York Times, Dec 21, 2001)

Environmental Conditions (Thurs., Feb. 6)
*Gowda, "Whose Garden Is It?" (Governing, March 2002)
*Polakovic, "Southland on Course to Reclaim US Smog Title" (Los Angeles Times, Sept. 26, 2001)
*Willon, "As Inland Empire Grows, Freeway Commute Slows" (Los Angeles Times, Oct. 30, 2001)
*Selvin, "The View From the European Bus" (Los Angeles Times, Aug. 15, 1999)
*Simons, "Amsterdam Plans Wide Limit on Cars" (New York Times, Jan. 28, 1993)
*Walters, "Urban Role Model: Christchurch, New Zealand" (Governing, October 2001)
*James, "Eco-cities – the Next Swedish Export" (Planning, May 2002)
*Dillon, "Mexico City Spawns Suburbs, Changing Face of Countryside" (New York Times, Dec. 18, 1999)

Optional:
*Firestone, "Suburban Comforts Thwart Atlanta's Plans to Limit Sprawl" (New York Times, Nov. 21, 1999)
*Templin, "Caution: School Zone is a Bumper-to-Bumper Jam" (Wall Street Journal, Nov. 22, 1999)
*Shogren, "Sprawl Adds to Drought, Study Says" (Los Angeles Times, August 29, 2002)
*Egan, "The Freeway, Its Cost, and 2 Cities' Destinies" (New York Times, July 14, 1999)

Politics, Public Policies and Planning (Tues, Feb. 11)
Nivola, Laws of the Landscape (entire book)

INEQUALITY: WEALTH, POVERTY AND ECONOMIC RESTRUCTURING
(Feb. 13, 18, and 20)

The Spatial Concentration of Wealth and Poverty (Tues., Feb. 18)
Abramson, Tobin, and VanderGoot, "The Changing Geography of Metropolitan Opportunity: The Segregation of the Poor in U.S. Metropolitan Areas, 1970 to 1990," (Housing Policy Debate, 6/1, 1995) -- skim the text, look closely at tables and figure out the basic points
Kasarda, "Inner-City Concentrated Poverty and Neighborhood Distress: 1970-1990" (Housing Policy Debate, 4/3, 1993)
*Roberts, "Gap Between Rich and Poor in New York Grows Wider" (New York Times, Dec. 26, 1994)
*Reich, "Secession of the Successful" (New York Times Magazine, Jan. 20, 1991)
*Traub, "What No School Can Do" (New York Times Magazine, January 17, 2000)

Consequences of Inequality and Poverty (Thurs., Feb. 20)
Dreier, Mollenkopf and Swanstrom, Place Matters (Chapter 3)
*Nieves, "In Famously Tolerant City, Impatience with Homeless" (New York Times, Jan. 18, 2002)
*Marquis, "1 in 3 in L.A. Lacks Health Coverage, Study Says" (Los Angeles Times, Dec. 18, 1998)
*Barboza, "Rampant Obesity, a Debilitating Reality for the Urban Poor" (New York Times, Dec. 26, 2000)
*Noble, "Study Shows a Big Asthma Risk for Children in Poor Neighborhoods" (New York Times, July 27, 1999)
*Polakovic, "Latinos, Poor Live Closer to Sources of Air Pollution" (Los Angeles Times, October 18, 2001)
*Hamilton, "325 Dreams Shattered by Plant Closing" (Los Angeles Times, December 19, 1994)
*Weiser, "When the Plant Closes" (Washington Post, January 10, 1994)
*Buntin, "Murder Mystery" (Governing, June 2002)

RACISM AND SEGREGATION
(Feb. 25, 27 and Mar. 4)

The Creation of the Ghetto (Tues., Feb. 25)
Massey and Denton, American Apartheid (entire book)

Racial Prejudice and Institutional Racism (Thurs., Feb. 27)
*Gilens, "Race and Poverty in America: Public Misperceptions and the American News Media" (Public Opinion Quarterly, Winter 1996)
*Shipler, "The White Niggers of Newark" (Harpers, August 1972)
*Brownstein and Simon, "Hospitality Turns into Hostility" (Los Angeles Times, Nov. 14, 1993)
*Jones-Correa, "Immigrants in Cities" & "Immigrants as Minorities" (Governing American Cities, 2001)
*Kelley, "Statistics Lend Support to Claims of Profiling" (Los Angeles Times, Sept. 23, 2001)
*Nazario, "Hunger, High Food Costs Found in Inner-City Area" (Los Angeles Times, June 11, 1993)
*Squires, "The Indelible Color Line" (American Prospect, Jan./Feb. 1999)
*Kilborn, "Bias Worsens for Minorities Buying Homes" (New York Times, Sept. 16, 1999)
*Hudson, "Going for Broke" (Washington Post, Jan. 10, 1993)
*Murray, "Hunting the Predators" (Nation, July 15, 2002)
Turner, "Discrimination in Urban Housing Markets" (Housing Policy Debate, 3/2, 1992)

Optional:
*Waldinger, "From Ellis Island to LAX: Immigrant Prospects in the.City" (International Migration Review, 1996)
*Turque, "Where the Food Isn't" (Newsweek, February 24, 1992)
*Kristoff, "Borrowers Pay Price of Predatory Lending" (Los Angeles Times, Sept. 10, 2001)
*Pan, "Surveys Point to Racial Bias by Landlord" (Los Angeles Times, Aug. 22, 1993)
*Henriques, "New Front Opens in Effort to Fight Race Bias in Loans" (New York Times, Oct. 22, 2000)
Finkel and Kennedy, "Racial/Ethnic Differences in Utilization of Section 8 Existing Rental Vouchers and Certificates" (Housing Policy Debate, 3/2, 1992, pp. 463-467 only)

Is Residential Racial Integration Desirable or Possible? (Tues., Mar. 4)
*Cater, "Not Just Black and White: Oak Park, Ill. Grapples With Questions of Diversity" (In These Times, March 18, 2002)
*Massey and Fischer, "Where We Live, In Black and White" (Nation, Dec. 14, 1998)
*Salant, "Census: Metro Areas More Integrated" (Pasadena Star-News, Nov. 28, 2002)
*Two Tables: Public Opinion of Whites on School and Neighborhood Integration
*Funderburg, "Loving Thy Neighborhood" (Nation, Dec. 14, 1998)
*Wilkerson, "One City's 30-Year Crusade for Integration" (New York Times, Dec. 30, 1991)
*Patterson, "The Paradox of Integration" (New Republic, November 6, 1995)
*Thernstrom and Thernstrom, "We Have Overcome" (New Republic, Oct. 13, 1997)
*Glazer, "A Tale of Two Cities" (New Republic, August 2, 1993)
*Ramos, "Latino Middle Class Growing in Suburbia" (Los Angeles Times, Nov. 30, 1997)
*Scott, "Rethinking Segregation Beyond Black and White" (New York Times, July 29, 2001)
Turner, "Introduction: Achieving a New Urban Diversity (Housing Policy Debate, 8/2, 1997)

Optional:
Nyden, Maly and Lukehart, "The Emergence of Stable Racially and Ethnically Diverse Urban Communities: Case Study of Nine U.S. Cities" (Housing Policy Debate, 8/2, 1997)

SUBURBANIZATION, SPRAWL, AND METROPOLITAN FRAGMENTATION
(Mar. 6, 7 and 11)

The Push for Suburbanization (Thurs., Mar. 6)
Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier (Intro, Chapters 2, 6-11)
Michael Dear, Heidi Sommer, et. al., Sprawl Hits the Wall: Confronting the Realities of Metropolitan Los Angeles, vol. 4 of Atlas of Southern California (Los Angeles, Calif : Southern California Studies Center, University of Southern California, 1996) [report – skim]
*"Flee the City" (Cartoon)
*Easterbrook, "The Suburban Myth: The Case for Sprawl" (New Republic, March 15, 1999)
*Kelley, "As Suburbs Change, They Still Satisfy" (Los Angeles Times, Oct. 19, 1999)
*Conte, "Sudden City" (Governing, Nov. 2001)
*Wilson, "Developers Are Putting Southland’s Last Dairy Farmers Out to Pasture" (Los Angeles Times, May 27, 2002)
*Gold, "Inland Empire Pays Price for Housing Crisis" (Los Angeles Times, May 20, 2002)
*Hirsch, "Ahmanson Ranch Protestors Turn Up the Heat on Sizzler Chairman" (Los Angeles Times, Jan. 1, 2003)

Optional:
*Halper, "CDC Study on Suburban Life Hits a Nerve" (Los Angeles Times, Jan. 7, 2002)
*Sanchez, "LA County's Growth Spurt Pushes North" (Los Angeles Times, Nov. 23, 1999)
*Fulton and Shifley, "Operation Desert Sprawl" (Governing, August 1999)

Who Pays for Sprawl and Fragmentation? (Thurs., Mar. 11)
*Minerbrook, "Why a City Alone Cannot Save Itself" (U.S. News & World Report, Nov. 9, 1992)
*Glionna, "Oakland’s In-Your-Face Ads Invade San Francisco" (Los Angeles Times, July 9, 2001)
*Fulton, "Welcome to Sales Tax Canyon" from William Fulton, The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles (Point Arena, CA: Solano press Books, 1997) Review
(H-Urban: January, 1998) by Don Parson, Independent Scholar
*Curtiss and Watson, "Desperate Cities Court Developers" (Los Angeles Times, Jan. 16, 1993)
*"San Marino: The Affluent Grapple with Low-Income Housing" (Los Angeles Times, June 14, 1993)
*Tempest, "In Marin County Plenty, a Poverty of Service Workers" (Los Angeles Times, Oct. 25, 1999)
*DeWitt, "Older Suburbs Struggle..." (New York Times, Feb. 26, 1995)
*Gross, "Getting There the Hard Way, Every Day" (Los Angeles Times, July 16, 1995)
*"Let Them Drive Cars" (New Republic, March 20, 2000)
*Mason, "The Buses Don't Stop Here Anymore" (American Prospect, March/April 1998)

Optional:
*Stewart, "Burbank May Woo Company with $250,000 Incentive" (Los Angeles Times, Dec. 9, 1993)
*Glastris, "A Tale of Two Suburbias" (U.S. News & World Report, Nov. 9, 1992)

Regionalism and "Smart Growth" (Thurs., Mar. 13)
Dreier, Mollenkopf, and Swanstrom, Place Matters (Chapter 6)
*Downs, "What Does `Smart Growth’ Really Mean?" (Planning, April 2001)
*Sheehan, "What Will It Take to Halt Sprawl?" (WorldWatch, Jan/Feb 2002)
*Smothers, "City [Memphis] Seeks to Grow By Disappearing" (New York Times, Oct. 18, 1993)
*Greenblatt, "Anatomy of a Merger" (Governing, December 2002)
*Swope, "After the Mall" (Governing, October 2002)
*Barnett, "Turning Edge Cities into Real Cities" (Planning, November 2002)
*Fulton and Shigley, "The Inland Empire Strikes Back" (Planning, February 2002)
*Halper, "Starting to Think Outside the Big Box" (Los Angeles Times, April 29, 2002)
*Ehrenhalt, "The Great Wall of Portland" (Governing, May 1997)
*Staley, "The Crusade Against Sprawl will Drive Up the Cost of Housing" and Wilkie, "Limiting Sprawl Will Make Towns and Cities More Livable" (Commonwealth, Summer 1999)

Optional:
*Halper, "State Plans Offensive in Sprawl War" (Los Angeles Times, May 12, 2002)
*Gurwitt, "The State vs. Sprawl" (Governing, January 1999)
*Ehrenhalt, "The Czar of Gridlock" (Governing, May 1999)
*Rabinovitz, "Hard-Line Approach or Means for Survival?" (New York Times, March 25, 1996)
*"Two Views of the Commuter's Curse: Pataki (`Isn't It Obvious') and Fuchs (`The City Already Pays More than Its Fair Share')" (New York Times, May 22, 1998)
*"Handling Growth as a Region" (Los Angeles Times, March 19, 1998)
*Cone, "Southland Smog Levels Are Lowest in 4 Decades" (Los Angeles Times, October 21, 1995)
Abbott, "The Portland Region" and comments by Richmond and Fischel (Housing Policy Debate, 8/1, 1997)

SPRING BREAK – MONDAY, MARCH 17 TO FRIDAY, MARCH 21

Who Runs Cities? Urban Power Structures and the Dilemma of Capital Mobility (Thurs., Mar. 27)
Dreier, Mollenkopf and Swanstrom, Place Matters (Chapter 5)
*Domhoff, "The Corporate Community and Growth Coalitions" from G. William Domhoff, Who Rules America?: Power and Politics in the Year 2000, 3rd edition (Mountain View, Calif.: Mayfield Pub. Co., 1998)
*Reich, "The Bridgestone Tire Controversy" from Robert B. Reich, Locked in the Cabinet (New York: Knopf, 1997)
*Bluestone and Harrison, "Boomtown and Bust-town" from Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison, The Deindustrialization of America: plant closings, community abandonment, and the dismantling of basic industry (New York: Basic Books, 1982)
*Zaretsky, "Should Cities Pay for Sports Facilities?" (The Regional Economist [published by Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis], April 2001)
*Swanstrom, "The Politics of Default" from Todd Swanstrom, The Crisis of Growth Politics (Philadelphia: Temple Unversity Press, 1985)
*Peterson, "Introduction" from George E. Peterson, ed., Big City Politics, Governance, and Fiscal Constraints (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute Press, 1994)

Optional:
*Rosentraub, "Testimony before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on the Stadium Financing and Franchise Relocation Act of 1999," June 15, 1999
*Dreier, "The Vault Comes Out of the Shadows" (Boston Business Journal, Oct. 10, 1983)
*Dreier, "Rent-a-Politician Exposed" (Shelterforce, 1981)

Can Cities Be Progressive? – Limits and Potential of Urban Government (Tues., Apr. 1)
Krumholz and Clavel, Reinventing Cities: Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (select and read four chapters)
*Clairborne, "From Champion to Chief Critic of the Homeless" (Washington Post, Dec. 9, 1997)
*Kolbert, "Six Million Short: How Will the Mayor Make Ends Meet?" (New Yorker, Jan. 13, 2003)
*Mitchell, "Giuliani Administration Seeking Sharper Cuts in Health and Welfare Programs for the Poor" (New York Times, Dec. 16, 1994)
*Grunwald, "The Myth of the Supermayor" (American Prospect, Sept/Oct. 1998)
*Dreier, "Urban Politics and Progressive Housing Policy: Ray Flynn and Boston's Neighborhood Agenda" from W. Dennis Keating, Norman Krumholz, and Philip Star, eds., Revitalizing Urban Neighborhoods (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1996)
*Mier and Moe, "Decentralized Development: From Theory to Practice" from Pierre Clavel and Wim Wiewel, eds., Harold Washington and the Neighborhoods: progressive city government in Chicago, 1983-1987 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1991)
*Rath, "Grassroots: The Next Generation: BUILD and the Groups It's Inspired Remake Baltimore Politics from the Ground Up" (City Paper, June 15, 1999)
*Dreier and Pitcoff, "I'm a Tenant and I Vote: New Yorkers Find Victory in Rent Struggle" (Shelterforce, July/August 1997)
*Uchitelle, "Minimum Wages: City by City" (New York Times, Nov. 19, 1999)
*Callahan, "Ballot Blocks: What Gets the Poor to the Polls? (American Prospect, July/August 1998)

Optional:
*Wimpey, "The Housing Agenda that Led to Victory" (Shelterforce, March/April 1992)
*Nichols, "From Muckraker to Mayor" (The Nation on-line, Feb. 18, 2002)
*Nichols, "Success in Santa Fe" (Shelterforce, March/April 1996)
*Fine, "Building Community Unions" (Nation, January 1, 2001)
*Kolker, "Dallas Mayor Gets Credit for Dispersing City's Cloud of Hate" (Los Angeles Times, April 13, 1999)
*"Atlanta's Mayor Defies Threat to End Affirmative Action" (New York Times, July 16, 1999)
*Munoz, "Mexican Americans and the Promise of Democracy: San Antonio Mayoral Elections" from George E. Peterson, ed., Big City Politics, Governance, and Fiscal Constraints (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute Press, 1994)
*LaGanga, "Oakland Mayor...Jerry Brown" (Los Angeles Times Magazine, Nov. 4, 2001)
*Gurwitt, "Black, White and Blurred" (Governing, Sept. 2001)
*Brownstein, "Latinos Stir Tension in New Brand of Urban Politics" (Los Angeles Times, Nov. 26, 2001)
*Goldsmith, "Competing for Better Government" (New York Times, Dec. 7, 2001)

Los Angeles: Conservative, Liberal, or Progressive? (Thurs., Apr. 3)
*Johnson, Jones, Farrell, and Oliver, "The Los Angeles Rebellion: A Retrospective View" (Economic Development Quarterly, November 1992)
*Smith, "The Best Intentions: Why Rebuild LA Didn't" (LA Weekly, April 27, 1997)
*Newton, "LA's Inner Circle is Mostly Rich, Enormously Powerful" (Los Angeles Times, Nov. 28, 1999)
*Newton, "Recovery Does Little to Help L.A. Homeless" (Los Angeles Times, May 19, 1997)
*Cleeland, "Lives Get a Little Better on a Living Wage" (Los Angeles Times, Feb. 7, 1999)
*Friedman and Meyerson, "What’s Riordan Done for LA: Plenty or Precious Little?" (Los Angeles Times, July 1, 2001)
*Newton, "Would-Be LA Mayors Do the Math for 2001" (Los Angeles Times, Aug. 23, 1999)
*Candaele and Dreier, "LA's Progressive Mosaic" (Nation, August 21/28, 2000)
*Breidenbach, "LA Story" (Shelterforce, March/April 2002)
*Meyerson, "A City Hesitates at Political Change" (New York Times, June 8, 2001)
*Gold, "Hahn Hopes Tax Break Will Bring Small Business to LA" (Los Angeles Times, August 1, 2000)
*Stewart, "Homeless May Be Sleepless if Law Passes" (Los Angeles Times, Dec. 26, 2002)

Optional:
*Byran O. Jackson and Michael B. Preston, "Race and Ethnicity in Los Angeles Politics," from George E. Peterson, ed., Big City Politics, Governance, and Fiscal Constraints (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute Press, 1994)
*Rainey and Lacey, "Riordan's Budget Spares only LAPD" (Los Angeles Times, Sept. 16, 1993)
*Baker, "How Many Will Die in County Cutbacks?" (Los Angeles Times, July 16, 1993)
*Rohrlich, "Union's Fight with Hotel Reverberates Across LA" (Los Angeles Times, Dec. 5, 1997)
*Meyerson, "Why Liberalism Fled the City...And How It Might Come Back" (American Prospect, March/April 1998)
*Goodno, "A New LA" (Urban Ecology, Autumn 2001)
*Holland, "A Municipal Perfect Storm: Secession" (Los Angeles Times, May 19, 2002)

Urban Renewal: Rebuilding Downtowns (Thurs., April 10)
Teaford, "Urban Renewal and Its Aftermath" (Housing Policy Debate 11/2, 2000)
*Hines, "Housing, Baseball, and Creeping Socialism: The Battle of Chavez Ravine, Los Angeles" (Journal of Urban History, February 1982)
*Davis, "Fortress LA" (from City of Quartz)
*Tabak, "Wild About Convention Centers" (Atlantic Monthly, April 1994)
*Applebome, "An Olympic Renewal? Atlanta's Big Question" (New York Times, October 9, 1994)
*Hayden, "A New Spin: 'Rebuild LA' From the Top" (Los Angeles Times, Jan. 5, 1999)
*Rivera, "Staples Center's Displaced Have New Homes and New Worries" (Los Angeles Times, Oct. 9, 1999)

Optional:
*Clines, "In Pittsburgh, a Redevelopment Too Far?" (New York Times, May 2, 2000)
*Newton and Simers, "NFL Talks at Impasse Over Use of Public Funds" (Los Angeles Times, Aug. 3, 1999)
*Schwartz and Barrett, "Can You Top This?" (Newsweek, Feb. 17, 1992)
*Schoenberger "Bringing the Life Back to City's Heart" (Los Angeles Times, Dec. 14, 1993)
*Lueck, "Giuliani Plans Inducements to Help Lower Manhattan" (New York Times, Dec. 16, 1994)

Community Development: Bringing Private Investment and Jobs to the Ghetto (Tues., April 15)
Peirce and Steinbach, Corrective Capitalism: The Rise of America's Community Development Corporations (Ford Foundation report, 1987)
*Halpern, "Introduction" (pp. 1-18) and "Community Economic Development," (pp. 127-148)  from Robert Halpern, Rebuilding the Inner City: A History of Neighborhood Initiatives to Address Poverty in the United States (New York: Columbia Unviersity Press, 1995)
*Goozner, "The Porter Prescription" (American Prospect, May/June 1998)
*Gurwitt, "Betting on the Bulldozer" (Governing, July 2002)
*Howard, "Big Retailers Bet Big on the Inner City" (Los Angeles Times, April 25, 2000)
*Fulton and Newman, "The Strange Career of Enterprise Zones" (Governing, March 1994)
*Wayne, "New Hope in Inner Cities: Banks Offering Mortgages" (New York Times, March 14, 1992)
*Martin, "A Haven for Vendors" (Los Angeles Times, Nov. 22, 1999)
*Cnaan, "Our Hidden Safety Net: Social and Community Work by Urban American Religious Congregations" (Brookings Review, Spring 1999)
*Walljasper, "When Activists Win: The Renaissance of Dudley Street" (The Nation, March 3, 1997)
*Belluck, "Blighted Areas Are Revived as Crime Rate Falls in Cities" (New York Times, May 29, 2000)
*Stanfield, "City Slickers" (National Journal, July 19, 1997)

Optional:
*Oppel, "Many Banks Making Money on Lending in Poor Areas" (New York Times, Oct. 22, 1999)
*Pasternack, "Chicago's Shorebank Earns Interest as Model for Rebirth" (Los Angeles Times, Feb 22, 1993)

Mobility: Escaping Inner City Neighborhoods (Thurs., April 17)
Hughes, "A Mobility Strategy for Improving Opportunity" (Housing Policy Debate, 6, 1, 1995)
Turner, "Moving Out of Poverty" (Housing Policy Debate, 9/2, 1998)
Briggs, "Brown Kids in White Suburbs" (Housing Policy Debate, 9/1, 2000)
Rosenbaum, "Changing the Geography of Opportunity By Expanding Residential Choice" (Housing Policy Debate, 6/1, 1995)
*Stanfield, "The Reverse Commute" (National Journal, Nov. 23, 1996)
*"Who Rides the Bus?" (Los Angeles Times, October 1994)
*Dreier and Moberg, "Moving From the 'Hood: The Mixed Success of Integrating Suburbia" (The American Prospect, Winter 1996)
*Rockwell, "The Ghost of Gautreaux" (National Review, March 7, 1994)
*Waldrom, "Parading Politicians Hear Critics of Housing Program" (Baltimore Sun, September 12, 1994)
*Walljasper, "A Fair Share in Suburbia" (The Nation, Jan. 25, 1999)

Welfare and Job Training (Tues., April 22)
*Krauthammer, "Pull the Plug on Welfare to Solve Poverty" (Los Angeles Times, Nov. 21, 1993)
*Katz and Allen, "Cities Matter" (Brookings Review, Summer 2001)
*Edelman, "The True Purpose of Welfare Reform" (New York Times, May 29, 2002)
*Weil, "Ten Things Everyone Should Know about Welfare Reform" (Urban Institute, May 2002)
*"5 Years After Welfare Reform, Success Stuns Even Critics" (USA Today editorial,
August 20, 2001
*Rodgers, "Target Poverty, Not Welfare" (USA Today, August 20, 2001)
*Walters, "The Flip Side of Welfare Reform" (Governing, March 2002)
*Rivera, "Too Few Jobs May Imperil Welfare Reform Plan" (Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1998)
*"More People on Welfare After Years of Decline" (New York Times, Dec. 31, 2002)
*Swarns, "Mothers Poised for Workfare Face Acute Lack of Day Care" (New York Times, April 14, 1998)
*"Historical Trends in AFDC Enrollments and Average Payments, 1970-1996" (table)
*"Maximum AFDC/TANF Benefits by Family Size, Januarh 1997" (table)
*"Need Standard and Maximum AFDC/TANF and Food Stamp Benefits, One-Parent Family
of Three Persons, January 1997" (table)
*Nazario, "USDA Tries to Serve Up Food Stamps to the Hungry" (Los Angeles Times, Nov. 22, 1994)
*DeParle, "A Mass of Newly Laid-Off Workers Will Put Social Safety Net to the Test" (New York Times, Oct. 8, 2001)
*Feldman, "Ready, Willing, Unable" (Los Angeles Times, November 2, 1993)
*Stanfield, "Just Connect" (National Journal, May 31, 1997)
*Walljasper, "A Quest for Jobs in San Antonio" (Nation, July 21, 1997)
*Romney, "Jobs Program a Model of Success" (Los Angeles Times, Dec. 12, 2001)

When Work Reappears: Job Creation and Labor Market Strategies (Thurs., April 24)
*Taub, "What If Anyone Had a Job?" (Shelterforce, Sept./Oct. 1996)
*Bennet, "Mere Hint of Jobs Draws Crowd in Detroit" (New York Times, Nov. 12, 1993)
*Uchitelle, "Jobless Rate Drops to 4.1% as Wages Rise by 1c an Hour" (New York Times, Nov. 6, 1999)
*Dreier and Rothstein, "Seismic Stimulus: The California Quake's Creative Destruction" (American Prospect, Summer 1994)
*Anderson & Dreier, "How the Pentagon Redlines America's Cities" (Planners Network, May 25, 1993)
*Moberg, "Conversion Inexperience" (In These Times, December 26, 1994)
*Miller, "The American Infrastructure" (Industry Week, May 21, 1990)
*Murray, "New Deal's WPA and CCC Enjoy Renewed Vogue" (Wall Street Journal, June 1, 1992)
*Wildavsky, "Pigging Out" (National Journal, April 19, 1997)
*"Real Value of the Minimum Wage, 1960-1997" (chart and table)
*Boxer, "Increase the National Minimum Wage..." (Los Angeles Times, Sept. 16, 1999)
*Thompson, "...But One Size Doesn't Fit All Workers" (Los Angeles Times, Sept. 16, 1999)
*Dreier, "LA Workers Miss a Tax Break" (Los Angeles Times, Jan. 34, 1999)
Berube and Forman, Rewarding Work: The Impact of the Earned Income Tax Credit in Greater LA (Brookings Institution report, June 2001)

Can Cities Get Back on the Nation’s Agenda? (Tues., April 29 and Thurs., May 1)
Dreier, Mollenkopf, and Swanstrom, Place Matters (Chapters 7 and 8)
*Weir, "In the Shadows: Central Cities' Loss of Power in State Politics" (Brookings Review, Spring 1995)
*Brownstein, "Assault on Clinton's Urban Agenda..." (Los Angeles Times, July 31, 1995)
*Germond and Witcover, "Mayors Find Their Clout Has Shrunk" (National Journal, June 26, 1993)
*Stanfield, "Splitsville" (National Journal, May 3, 1997)
*Kriz, "The Politics of Sprawl" (National Journal, Feb. 6, 1999)
*DeParle and Holmes, "A War on Poverty Subtly Linked to Race" (New York Times, Dec. 26, 2000)
*Stout, "Republicans Remain Hostile to Proposal for Census Sampling" (New York Times, May 12, 1997)
*Brownstein, "Tax Cuts Clouds Bush’s Urban Agenda" (Los Angeles Times, April 29, 2002)