After long decades of despair and neglect, many cities are again becoming magnets for the creative (and increasingly well-educated) young people who are, as statistics have shown, the bellwethers of urban vitality and, not coincidentally, economic success. Across the nation, urban downtowns are growing at a far faster rate than surrounding suburban communities, reversing a demographic trend that has governed national life since the postwar period. Many observers believe that the country is on the verge of what City Observatory, a new, Knight Foundation–financed think tank, calls a “city renaissance.” Many factors seem to be at work, and the choices made by a city’s politicians, community leaders, and planners are crucial to that city’s success. How has Pittsburgh, the ultimate steel city, managed to defy the blight affecting other “rust belt” cities? Can struggling Detroit emerge from years of mismanagement, inequity, and racial animosity to stage a comeback? Conversely, how can thriving cities, many of them in the South and West, grow responsibly and avoid the pitfalls that in the past have led to economic implosion, alienation, and social blight? A new chapter in American urban history is being written, and Transformation of American Cities explores critical problems and bold new solutions at what appears to be a rare moment of opportunity for the nation’s cities.

Topics include:

1. Magnets for Youth
2. Trend Reversal
3. Avoiding Pitfalls
4. Emerging from Social Blight