City Life-Cycles and American Urban Policy is an interdisciplinary study of differential urban development in the United States since 1945 that aims to place urban policy choices in historical perspective. The book discusses the issues and establishes a framework within which relevant quantitative measurements can be interpreted. The text also describes systematic empirical tests, which typically take the form of regression equations, and traces city population changes into two proximate causes: annexation and urban growth. The reasons for annexation contrasts among the nation’s largest cities; the second-city growth determinant; and the institutional explanation for fiscal differential among large cities are also considered. The book further tackles the issue of federal fiscal assistance to declining cities. Economists will find the book invaluable.