Two New Books Take On Suburban Realities

The American Prospect offers a dual review of "American Metropolitics: The New Suburban Reality" by Myron Orfield and "Place Matters: Metropolitics for the Twenty-first Century" by Peter Dreier, John Mollenkopf, and Todd Swanstrom in its September 9 issue. Reviewer Michael Tomasky finds: "Both books follow the same basic tripartite formula. The opening chapters are devoted to a discussion of what we might call the new suburban reality and its attendant challenges. A second section discusses policies that could address these problems. The concluding chapters of both books, with different degrees of credibility, take up the question of just how such policies might be pursued in the political realm." His conclusion: "Place Matters and American Metropolitics succeed nicely in laying the academic groundwork for that moment, and they will take their place, along with Orfield's first book (called just Metropolitics), as useful bricks in the wall of reform. As exhortations to a plan for action, however, they are of far less use."