The Fall of the Industrial City: The Reagan Legacy for Urban Policy

The Reagan presidency reversed a half-century of federal aid to cities. Poor minority comnnunities were particularly hard-hit, since this was accompanied by a white flight to the suburbs and the replacement of bet-ter paying industrial jobs requiring little education with poorer paying service jobs requiring iore education. Meanwhile wealthy communities prospered. To address urgent social problems, urban politicians are advo-cating strategies such as industrial policy, public entrepreneurship, and guerrilla wlfare. The Reagan presidency oversaw a fundamental change in American urban policy-the demise of the drab, industrial city and the rise of its glittering, postindustrial successor. Reversing a policy stance established during the New Deal, the Reagan administration failed to develop federal legislation to amelio-rate the social and economic dislocation concomitant with the very substantial shifts in capital and population which hav