Towns and cities are in constant flux. In this book the changes in the nature and outcomes of urbanization processes as well as the development of new ways of thinking about urban geography are captured. Urbanization: economic change, demographic change, political change, cultural change, technological and social change. The foundations of the American urban system. Frontier urbanization. The Mercantile epoch. Expansion and realignment. The organization of industry. The automobile era and the great depression. Spatial decentralization and metropolitan consolidation. Economic crisis and urban restructuring. The foundations of urban form and land use. The commercial city (before 1840). The transitional city (1840-1875). The industrial city (1875-1920). Urban structure: the CBD, sectors and zones. Changing metropolitan form. Suburban infill (1920-1945). Freeways and metropolitan sprawl (1945-1972). Postsuburban development (1973-present). The city as text: architecture and urban design. The style of production. Arcadian classicism. Beaux Arts and the city beautiful. Skyscrapers. Postmodernism. Historic preservation. Design for Dystopia. The urban development process. Property, location, rent and investment. Building provision. The residential kaleidoscope. Social interaction and residential segregation. Interpretations of residential ecology. Lifestyle communities. How neighborhoods change. Housing markets. Residential mobility. Housing market gatekeepers, bias and discrimination. Urban life and urban spaces. Social life in cities. Gendered spaces: women, home and community. Problems of urbanization. From haunts of vice to teenage wastelands. Slums, ghettos and poverty areas. Criminal violence. Homelessness. Infrastructure and environmental problems (water supply, air pollution). The foundations of urban governance and politics. Laissez-faire : government and politics in the commercial city (Independence to 1840). Municipal socialism and the rise of machine politics (1840-1875). Boosterism and the politics of reform (1875-1920). Metropolitan fragmentation and the formation of progrowth coalitions (1920-1945). Metropolitan restructuring and the politics of change. Cities as growth machines and service providers (1945-1973). Fiscal crisis and entrepreneurial politics (1973-present). Urban policy and planning. Philanthropy and reform. The city practical and the new deal. The imprint of postwar policy and planning. Future change. Cities and global economic swings. The seeds of socioeconomic change. 2020 visions.