ABSTRACT
Contemporary cities, regions, and neighborhoods are landscapes of interwoven histories that both retain the past, and reflect decades or centuries of change. In the US, colonial and early American neighborhoods can be layered with industrial landscapes in the historic cores. Similarly, patterns of early suburban development and the structure of metropolitan areas continue to impact development patterns. Suburban development along with deindustrialization also contributed to the decline in central cities after World War II. While these forces drove people from some cities in the decades following the war, in the 1980s the globalization and restructuring of urban economies brought people back to the urban core, and city centers experienced gentrification. Throughout these times, new forces of change helped to bring important improvements in urban life. In many instances, however, urban growth has resulted in population loss and local disinvestment for some places even as the overall population seems to prosper. Throughout, people have worked to revitalize their communities in the face of uneven development and they too make a mark on the urban landscape.
