The New Urban America, Abbott has combined history and policy analysis to analyze the development of Sunbelt urbanization during the past four decades.Abbott draws on census data, planning documents, and oral history interviews to show how rapid population and economic growth overtook the Sunbelt after World War II and how urban planners and decision makers, in their eagerness to keep growth going, failed to manage either city growth or suburbanization. Their failure bore a marked resemblance to the earlier failures of northeastern and midwestern decision makers who did not manage urban growth either. And, as in the earlier story, even while growth was occurring, problems appeared. Race prejudice reared its ugly head, and disputes broke out among local leaders over the pace of growth and who would benefit from it. As problems increased, suburban towns retreated within their defensive boundaries rather than evolving what Abbott prescribes as a solution: the development of "integrated institutions that recognize the distinctiveness of the separate communities within a metropolitan framework."Stressing the comparability of more than forty cities in over a dozen states, Abbott has had to leave out much of the local flavor in the way Denver or Portland dealt with rapid growth. But Abbott's social science perspective accounts for only part of this absence. The other reason is that much of post-World War II urban history, whether for the Sunbelt, Frostbelt, or the "Sludgebelt" in between, has been shaped by federal highway, defense, and urban renewal policies. All American cities, wherever they are located, have danced to the federal tune over the last forty years, making much of recent urban history more national than local in character. This is an important book, deserving the attention of urban and public historians, along with social scientists and planners. It is marred only by overly simplistic maps, without adequate legends and place markings, a weakness made more apparent by Abbott's clear-headed prose explanation of the trends they purport to illustrate.

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