The Economics of Sustainable Development, edited by Sisay Asefa

to confront the problems associated with economic deindustrialization and the need for an effective economic revitalization strategy. However, the authors see improved growth management and regional planning as a way to make the area more competitive economically as well as to help limit sprawl. Sunbelt/Frostbelt provides a very good description of the urban sprawl experiences in a diverse set of metropolitan case studies. Pack’s introductory synthesis organizes the book by identifying common problems and solutions. Public policy is a big part of the urban sprawl problem and reforms must take into account the distorting effects of existing policies as well as introduce new approaches. These reforms include a “reconsideration of current housing tax policy” (Gyourko and Summers, p. 137), changes in state and federal aid distributions, poverty policies for low/moderate income people, and growth management policies that discourage development of existing greenfields. Still, there are areas where the authors never or barely tread. First, one never really gains a good sense of national historical suburban growth trends from the book. Suburban growth slowed during the 1990s and urban density has generally increased as inner suburbs have filled in. Is it possible that market forces will help slow the suburbanization process that it helped to create? Second, a variety of other explanatory variables such as changing demographics (age, ethnicity, immigration), economics (growth of the information economy, energy costs), and consumer tastes may be making urban living a more attractive prospect, but the authors never really address them. Third, the case studies do not include among them some remarkable metropolitan areas such as New York where gentrification appears to be progressing rapidly, or Pacific Northwest cities such as Seattle and Portland where more aggressive policies serve as appropriate laboratories for evaluating the feasibility of some of the policy alternatives advocated by the authors. Finally, some of the existing policies targeted for overhauling have been such enduring features of the U.S. economy that it would be hard to recognize the country without them. The interstate highway system has served as a key interregional transportation network that has facilitated regional specialization, sparked agglomeration economies, and improved technology diffusion, as well as facilitated urban sprawl. The home ownership tax policy has stimulated higher homeownership rates and household wealth and is associated with more stable property values and lower crime rates. The effects of these policies are so profound and systemic that a more comprehensive interregional modeling and social cost-benefit framework is needed to evaluate them properly. Simply put, sprawl is not all. Terance J. Rephann Allegany College of Maryland