Comeback Cities: A Blueprint For Urban Neighborhood Revival [Hardcover]

Paul Grogan (Author), Tony Proscio (Author), Paul S. Grogan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 5, 2000

Comeback Cities shows how innovative, pragmatic tactics for ameliorating the nation’s urban ills have produced results beyond anyone’s expectations, reawakening America’s toughest neighborhoods. In the past, big government and business working separately were unable to solve the inner city crisis. Rather, a blend of public-private partnerships, grassroots nonprofit organizations, and a willingness to experiment characterize what is best among the new approaches to urban problem solving. Pragmatism, not dogma, has produced the charter school movement and the police’s new focus on “quality-of-life” issues. The new breed of big city mayors has welcomed business back into the city, stressed performance and results at city agencies, downplayed divisive racial politics, and cracked down on symptoms of social disorder. As a consequence, America’s inner cities are becoming vital communities once again.There is much yet to be done, but Grogan and Proscio base their optimism on a number of trends that could dramatically multiply the impact of the grassroots community development industry. The authors point to unprecedented access to capital and credit, astonishing reductions in violent crime, and substantial overhauls of public housing, welfare, and public schools already underway as harbingers of an inner-city revival. Through a mixture of analysis and storytelling, Grogan and Proscio argue convincingly that the conditions are ripe - the infrastructure is in place - to turn a source of national shame into a source of national pride.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A pair of pictures on the opening pages of Comeback Cities captures this book's themes as well as any words can. The first shows President Jimmy Carter walking silently through the South Bronx: the shadows are long, there's a boarded-up building in the background, and Carter strolls through a littered field with his hands in his pockets, looking like a man who feels powerless. It evokes a sentiment authors Paul Grogan and Tony Proscio say they understand: "At least in our lifetimes, major cities have gone mostly downhill, burdened by industrial obsolescence, physical rot, riots, crime, poverty, and the serial failure of big federal rescue missions." The next picture, however, is a complete reversal. It shows President Bill Clinton visiting the same area 20 years later: there's a well-maintained residential building in the background, and a gesturing Clinton looks to be in the middle of a good conversation. "The American inner city is rebounding--not just here and there, not just cosmetically, but fundamentally," write Grogan and Proscio.

The authors highlight four trends that explain the urban upswing affecting not just the South Bronx, but American cities in general: the growth of neighborhood nonprofit groups; the creation of new markets, including the willingness of retailers to move into old areas; falling crime rates; and "the unshackling of inner-city life from the giant bureaucracies that once dictated everything that happened there--in particular, the welfare system, public housing authorities, and public schools." This is no dewy-eyed account; Grogan and Proscio readily acknowledge statistics that suggest there's not much of a recovery at all, and they're careful to qualify many of their statements. But anybody who has seen New York City circa 1990 versus New York City at the new millennium knows the authors have a point when they write that "something is happening in formerly bleak neighborhoods all over the country, something unforeseen and, at least in recent decades, unprecedented." They've done a good job of explaining what that something is. Before reading Comeback Cities, it's impossible not to hope Grogan and Proscio's optimism is warranted; afterwards, it's possible to believe they're right. --John J. Miller

From Booklist

Despite statistics showing continued distressing trends, Grogan and Proscio note nationwide improvement in inner-city areas because of changes in the politics of poor urban neighborhoods. Statistics, which tend to lag trends, don't show rapid changes that are occurring in cities, aided to some extent by the national economic expansion. The authors cite the convergence of four positive trends: the maturing of grassroots revitalization movements; the rebirth of private markets, other than drug trafficking; the decline in crime rates; and the reform of public schools, public housing, and welfare. They closely examine the decline and slow recovery of the South Bronx, the nation's symbol of urban ills, and discuss progress in other cities, including Chicago, Milwaukee, Boston, and Los Angeles. Although improvement is steady, it is fairly fragile and could be reversed by negligence or wrong-headed policies. The improvement is also unlikely to achieve the much-touted goal of eliminating urban poverty. This is an encouraging book, glorious news for city lovers. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 250 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (September 5, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813368138
• ISBN-13: 978-0813368139
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #739,283 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comeback Cities, November 12, 2000

By 

Alvaro Lima (Boston, Ma USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Comeback Cities: A Blueprint For Urban Neighborhood Revival (Hardcover)

Community development practitioners, grass roots activists, and others who have long worked to revitalize America's inner city neighborhoods know that change is afoot. The transformation is subtle and still uneven but palpable nevertheless. In recent years there have been positive improvements in the day to day lives of inner city residents across America. Here is a book thta tells us why it happens, where, and what we can do to support this trend.

Drawing on evidence from urban neighborhoods in different regions of the country and on their own substantial knowledge of the field, Paul Grogan and Tony Proscio identify key factors that have contributed to these positive changes. Several factors, including the revival of private markets in the inner city, have been identified by other experts in the field. Grogan and Proscio make an especially compelling case, however, that it is the confluence of factors - the right combination of effort and innovation - that makes for "Comeback Cities."

This book is a must-read for community and economic development practitioners, grass roots activists and others in both the public and private sectors who hope to create an urban agenda for the future. For those who are already on the front lines, this is an acknowledgment of hard-won accomplishments and a valuable road map for the future.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On to Something?, July 12, 2001

By 

bob paquin (Acton, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Comeback Cities: A Blueprint For Urban Neighborhood Revival (Hardcover)

Paul Grogan and Tony Proscio may be on to something - a completely new urban dynamic that has quietly evolved over the past 20 years or so - largely unnoticed except for those engaged in it. In a lively and entertaining style, the authors tell a remarkable story of four, sometimes discrete, but often coordinated trends that they say hold the promise of the rebirth of the nation's inner city neighborhoods.

The central thesis of "Comeback Cities" is that if lost inner city neighborhoods are to be reclaimed, the residents of those neighborhoods must do it. Until they themselves take responsibility - mainly through the creation of nonprofit community development corporations (CDCs) - nothing else seems to work. But these "engines of reclamation" are not enough - the authors say they need to be coupled with new policing techniques, deregulation of public systems, (i.e., welfare and public housing reform) and educational reforms to reach a "critical mass" and real improvement. Seems unlikely, - but in city after city, - New York, Boston, Cleveland, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Oakland, Houston, - the authors detail the extraordinary results achieved by the confluence of these four new forces.

The central question of course is whether these trends can gain sufficient traction to become the blueprint for reliable inner city revitalization. Or are they simply anecdotal random events, uniquely tied to local circumstance.

This compelling and insightful book examines these new trends and shows, especially in the synergy of their confluence, that meaningful revitalization is not only possible but also predictable. The evidence, skillfully woven into cogent argument, builds chapter on chapter. Without denying the importance of a booming economy or new energy from immigration, the authors make a credible case that but for these new forces - especially the local nonprofit CDCs - the successes they describe would not have been realized. And while they acknowledge the important role of HUD's Community Development Block Grant and HOME programs, and the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, (which provide the "fuel" for these engines), the authors rightly focus on the local nonprofit machinery as necessary for these programs to work. As a 30-year practitioner at the federal level, I can attest to the wisdom of this focus. The best outcomes seem to occur, as is borne out by the book, when the Federal government uses its leverage, instead of prescriptive programs, (e.g., the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, the CRA, FannyMae directed-mortgage commitments and so fourth), and the local level - using this Federal leverage - is free to design and implement appropriate solutions.

The writing is a pleasure: speaking, for example, of the Federal government's role in establishing the practice of "redlining" [excluding large demographic areas from access to mortgages] and the decades later passage of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) [encouraging banks to lend in such areas], the authors comment:

"Consequently, to view the modern mortgage industry as an immaculate offspring of the unfettered private market - one whose dainty virtue was now threatened by an unprecedented federal groping [the CRA] - was disingenuousness raised to the level of parody. Perfect, in other words, for a congressional debate."

So fluid is the writing that one is barely aware of all the information actually coming off the page. Surprising nuggets, simple but powerful, are so easily told their significance might not be immediately appreciated. Just two of many examples: that poverty needn't be inexorably associated with disorder and slum conditions, - as demonstrated by the South Bronx story - deserves serious reflection. As does the lesson of how taking care of little things - like people jumping the fare stiles in the NY subway system - can pay major dividends:

"Collaring 'petty' offenders suddenly led to a harvest of arrests of serious criminals. One out of ten fare beaters turned out to be wanted on a felony warrant, and many others were carrying illegal firearms. In one stroke, Bratton had not only eliminated an appalling spectacle that was frightening the public and costing the transit system tens of millions in lost revenues annually, he was bagging large numbers of wanted felons in the bargain. As a billiard player would say, a three cushion shot. Crime in the subways fell off a cliff. Between 1990 and 1994 felonies dropped 75%, robberies by 64 percent."

But cities are complex entities, even "organic," and if there is any criticism, it may be that the writing is so clear and easy that some may think it belies an extraordinary energy required of these local citizens and officials to achieve these hard won victories. This would be a mistake. Certainly, effort and energy are required, but perhaps one of the lessons of this book, to put it simply, is that things go much easier with the right approach. In fact, no matter the energy expended, they might not "go" at all without it. This book is about the right approach.

Comeback Cities is superbly crafted. And, while optimistic, it is by no means a Pollyannaish book about the elimination of poverty, injustice, and how we can all get along. Speaking from "hands-on" experience the authors describe what they see, and take care not to overstate the case. This is an honest, balanced book that provides a sound basis for hope, with realistic recommendations to multiply the rebirth they document.

"The political challenge for cities and their supporters -and specifically for the next president and Congress-is to draw the national imagination towards the astonishing accomplishments already underway, the pace of those accomplishments, the intelligence that has led them, and the mounting opportunity they will create as they continue to pile up.".

Comeback Cities will fire this imagination. It is well worth the time of anyone interested - even if only remotely- in urban America. It avoids the normally dense "policy wonk stuff" and makes complex issues transparently accessible. It is must reading for academics, policymakers, and the general public.

Paul Grogan and Tony Proscio are definitely on to something.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an altogether remarkable book--highly recommended, July 10, 2001

By 

Louis A. Mandarini (Miami, FL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Comeback Cities: A Blueprint For Urban Neighborhood Revival (Hardcover)

Though it leaves the reader acutely aware of the problems still facing America's core urban areas, "Comeback Cities" nonetheless instills a wave of optimism in the reader about the revivifying effects that grassroots community development organizations, new techniques of community policing, and deregulation in welfare, public housing and public schools have had in some of the nation's formerly moribund cities.

Grogan and Proscio take an anecdotal approach to their argument, which serves the book well. Where such an approach can sometimes mask a paucity of evidence, these authors have no such problem. Grogan and Proscio show that the phenomena they're discussing are just as visible in Cleveland and Boston as they are in San Francisco and Chicago. And each actual case they cite bolsters the book's argument: that bold, new approaches to age-old urban problems have recusitated patients that most prognosticators long ago said were dead on the operating table. Whether one considers HUD's mid-1990s recasting of the role and form of public housing in Chicago's Cabrini Green, William Bratton's widespread application of the "broken windows" method of community policing in Boston and New York City, or Cleveland Mayor Michael White's and Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist's audacious efforts to make public schooling in their respective cities more accountable, Grogan and Proscio clearly illustrate the key changes that are uplifting cities.

Another fantastic aspect of "Comeback Cities" is the multi-layered, nuanced approach the authors employ. Proscio and Grogan understand, and they make the reader understand, that community policing, community development corporations, economic deregulation, and public school accountability are all interrelated solutions to urban problems. Far too often, politicians and public policy commentators argue that such problems are individual and should be combatted individually and apart from the larger picture. Smartly, these authors show that such an approach is not only no longer possible, but that it may just have contributed to the deep-seated problems affecting cities in the first place.

Finally, the prose of "Comeback Cities" deserves an effusive salute. Where many planning books can be arrid and full of jargon, these authors are careful to boil down their arguments to their essential terms, while providing the appropriate and necessary background. "Comeback Cities" reads like the best journalism, and I must recommend it as one of the finest books I've read in months.