Vacant and abandoned property is increasingly recognized as a significant barrier to the revitalization of central cities. This study sheds some light on the nature of the property abandonment problem and on current city efforts to address it. It is based upon the findings of a survey of the 200 most populous central cities in the United States, conducted during the summer and fall of 1997, and on follow-up interviews with a portion of the survey population, conducted during the summer of 1998. The findings of the survey and interviews indicate that vacant and abandoned property is perceived as a significant problem by elected and appointed officials in the nation's largest central cities. This type of property affects many aspects of community life, including housing and neighborhood vitality, crime prevention efforts, and commercial district vitality. Single-and multi-family housing, retail properties and vacant land are the most problematic types of vacant and abandoned property for most cities. Cities use a variety of techniques to address this problem, including aggressive code enforcement, tax foreclosure, eminent domain, and cosmetic improvements. One-third of the cities surveyed use a variety of other innovative tools to combat the vacant and abandoned property problem. Nevertheless, current efforts to combat the problem suffer from a number of shortcomings that are described in the article.

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T he past decade has made clear that homelessness is not simply a passing phenomenon requiring heroic volunteer efforts on the part of a few until the temporary crisis passes. Yet that has been the predominant response to the problem. Both politically and programmatically, and both in the individual case and at the social problem level, the tendency has been to view the issue as a temporary phenomenon. The temptation is to think: "If we can just get through...things will get back to normal." Many professionals working with the homelessness problem realize that it is necessary to turn the corner from a temporary, emergency response to a long-range strategy. Both social responsibility and realism require it.This essay is based on interviews and observations in more than twenty cities and localities around the country and on the increasing literature and data about the homeless problem. The approach is a set of three scenarios presented in the present tense even though our time frame is 10 to 20 years hence. The scenarios are not intended to be mutually exclusive; parts of each could occur simultaneously. The scenarios, we think, are both plausible and thought-provoking. Some elements assume no change in public policy; others are built around specific public policy interventions. Following the scenarios we offer some commentary and inferences for public policy.

Abstract. Based on the belief that the major remaining hurdle to integration is economic, the proposition has frequently been advanced that if minority households could afford decent housing outside their current communities, many would move from their ghettoes into society at large. Evidence from two housing allowance demonstration projects and the recently completed Experimental Housing Allowance Program raises doubts as to the validity of this contention. While recipients of housing allowances frequently moved to better neighborhoods, only rarely were they able to break free of traditional settlement patterns. Findings suggest that while it may be necessary to increase the rent paying abilities of low‐income minority households as a precondition of integration, that segregation is not likely to be eliminated until the social, psychological, and remaining legal issues associated with it are addressed as well.