Updating Urban Policy
Files
Description
In the 1990s, urban policy is once again at the forefront of antipoverty discussions. Early in the decade, escalating economic and racial polarization in and around America's largest cities facilitated outbursts of violence against and by poor minority groups. During the 1992 presidential campaign, the three major candidates all emphasized the need to develop policy elixirs that might restore a sense of urban health. Other chapters in this volume discuss general antipoverty policies. Given the high concentration of poverty in the cities, those policies are inseparable from any serious discussion of urban policy. Indeed, a strong case can be made that the best urban policy is not limited to cities but is, rather, a “nonurban urban policy”. This chapter's mandate is to consider the most prominent urban policy proposals that are not discussed in other chapters. Two such proposals stand out. “Enterprise zones” are (primarily) an urban urban policy, designed to stimulate economic activity in depressed neighborhoods. “Guaranteed public jobs” are a nonurban urban policy, many of whose beneficiaries would be residents of the country's most depressed cities. How should one evaluate such proposals? One fruitful source of ideas is history: one can review the knowledge gained from our nation's experience with similar programs in the past. A second source is theory: one can attempt to measure such programs according to how well they promote whatever societal aspirations one thinks most relevant. In the domain of urban policy, for example, such aspirations might include the commitment to give each citizen a fair opportunity for geographic and social mobility through employment. This chapter aims to synthesize historical and theoretical arguments, in order to frame an agenda for updating urban policy.
Source Publication
Confronting Poverty: Prescriptions for Change
Source Editors/Authors
Sheldon H. Danziger, Gary D. Sandefur, Daniel H. Weinberg
Publication Date
1994
Recommended Citation
Lehman, Jeffrey S., "Updating Urban Policy" (1994). Faculty Chapters. 1081.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/1081
