Economy

Revisiting the New Urban Crisis

The shift toward a more inclusive urbanism has begun. But it will require time, commitment from city institutions, and political agency at the local level.
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore has helped build housing for lower-income city residents. Anchor institutions like it have played a large role in revitalizing American cities, but too often, the changes they produce only benefit their own affiliates.Carlos Barria/Reuters

Editor’s note: This is an adapted version of the epilogue to the newly released paperback edition of The New Urban Crisis.

A colleague who heard me speak shortly after The New Urban Crisis was published in hardcover approached me at a follow-up event a few months later: “You seem a lot more optimistic than you did the last time I saw you,” he remarked. “What happened?”