Welcome to Cityscape, a new journal that will be published three times a year by HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R) and will include both HUD-funded and other research. We hope you find it both stimulating and useful.
One of PD&R's missions is to advise the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development on ideas that deserve attention, on policies that show promise, and on programs that work. By extension, PD&R both informs and is informed by national debate and discussion on housing and urban policy issues among scholars in universities, research centers, and think tanks, and in offices of government at all levels.
It is in this context that we believe Cityscape will prove useful in informing the policy-making community. In the journal we intend to ask probing questions, challenge long-held assumptions, critique new initiatives, and encourage innovative thinking, creative policy, and sensible programmatic approaches. Through this publication and other initiatives, PD&R intends to continue to strengthen its position on the national research and policy scene.
We begin publication by addressing some big questions: Why do some cities grow while others languish? How can a community or neighborhood create economic opportunities? How can communities enter partnerships that add to the growth of the entire city and even the region?
Much has been written on these matters, of course, but the best of current thinking is always worth listening to, and that is what happened when I convened the Regional Growth and Community Development Conference in November 1993. The articles in this inaugural issue of Cityscape are edited versions of the papers presented at that conference. Some of the articles offer observations for Federal, State, and local government policymakers to consider in examining land use, infrastructure renewal, economic development, and growth management policies and practices. Others explore ways that nonprofit institutions and community groups can prepare neighborhoods and their residents for new economic opportunities. Still other articles address the importance of metropolitan wide cooperation in designing and implementing economic development plans.
These articles also point to directions for future research by PD&R or others. Economic relationships and interactions occurring within regions, it is clear, have not received sufficient attention. Not enough is known about how a community can stimulate its own growth.
I hope that this and future issues of Cityscape refresh, inform, and challenge your thinking on today's important urban policy issues. We welcome your comments and suggestions, and will publish them from time to time. Please join PD&R in linking the best research we can achieve to policy decisions that will deeply affect the people of our Nation.
Michael A. Stegman
Assistant Secretary for Policy
Development and Research
