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· Rejoinder: Select residential areas in cities have

declined because of shifts in demand and population.

Cities as a whole--defined realistically as metropoli-

tan areas rather than those neighborhoods that happen

to fall within historically defined "city limits"--are

healthy.

· HUD Premise: Run-down, lower-income areas of cities

can be "saved" through public investment in housing

construction and renovation, combined with social

service programs.

· Rejoinder: Such efforts, whether known as "model cit-

ies," "community development," or "empowerment zones,"

fight against a powerful tide that has lifted both

whites and blacks into higher-income urban and suburban

neighborhoods.  Government must do what it can to make

all residential neighborhoods safe for residents, but

neighborhoods cannot be propped up by public investment

over the long term.  It is far better to allow local

government to manage their transition, helping to steer

them toward new uses in which the market wants to

invest.

· HUD Premise: Metropolitan government and regional

land-use planning are goals toward which the United

States should strive.

· Rejoinder: Although regional cooperation does occur

in the provision of some services, that ideal has been

effectively rejected by the body politic.  That is

particularly true in the older northeastern and north-

western cities that HUD had a mandate to renew.48  As

Alan Altshuler has pointed out, Americans clearly want

planning to remain a local function.49

· HUD Premise: The agency has a core mission to provide

"affordable housing"--whether in the form of public

housing or rent-subsidized units.

· Rejoinder: Historically, both HUD and its predeces-

sors in the housing reform movement have failed to

understand the important distinction between low-income

housing and low-cost housing.  Low-income or "afford-

able" housing--defined as housing that low-income resi-

dents could not afford absent government construction

or rental subsidies--is difficult to maintain over the