Cities Without Suburbs, 2d ed.

• Author: Legg, Sharon S.

Rusk, David

Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. (152 pp)

Reviewed by Sharon S. Legg, finance director, City of Coon Rapids, Minnesota

Editor's note: David Rusk, former mayor of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and urban consultant, is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at GFOA's 1997 annual conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. His speech is titled "Urban Elasticity Is Fiscal Fate."

This book focuses on the theme that in order for cities to remain viable, they need to be elastic or able to expand their boundaries. When I first began reading this book, I thought it seemed impractical for older, developed cities to be able to accomplish what David Rusk was evidencing throughout the book as the benefit of being an elastic city. Upon later consideration, however, the author's proposition is not only possible but good for the suburbs as well as the core cities. This book provides options to allow cities and suburbs to work toward a common end: thriving metropolitan areas.

The author begins by outlining 24 lessons from urban America and providing statistical verification of these lessons by tracking census data for 522 central cities. Some of the more critical lessons cited include those listed below.

* The real city is the total metropolitan area - city and suburb.

* Most of America's Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians live in urban areas.

* Since World War II, all urban growth has been low-density, suburban style.

* For a city's population to grow, the city must be elastic. Rusk defines elastic cities as those with vacant land to develop and the tools to annex new land.

* When a city stops growing, it starts shrinking.

* City-suburb income gaps are a more critical problem than overall income levels in metropolitan areas.

* Fragmented local government fosters segregation, while unified local government promotes integration.

* The smaller the income gap between city and suburb, the greater the economic progress for the whole metropolitan community.

* Rebuilding inner cities from within has not happened.

The second...