very rare and much sought after. While the appearance of this work
may in some respects seem premature, it is offered in the belief that
an introductory work in urban economics, however tentative, will
encourage faculties to offer courses in the subject sooner and more
often than they otherwise would have done.

The book is a substantial revision of a preliminary multilith version
that was used experimentally in about twenty classrooms across the
country in the fall of 1963. The reader is presumed to have completed
a one-year "principles" course in economics (or be willing to remedy
such deficiency by reading the national income and price theory parts
of any standard text) and to have attained the general level of in-
tellectual maturity ordinarily associated with senior undergraduate
standing. Thus the book can also be used as collateral reading in
upper-division or graduate school courses in business administration,
political science, sociology, urban planning, or urban-regional geog-
raphy.

A second objective is to share these early thoughts with fellow stu-
dents of the city, especially those with whom the author is un-
acquainted. The market in ideas is quite as imperfect as most of the
others with which economists must deal. These two objectives are,
moreover, interrelated because most of the new urban economists will
have to come from the uncommitted generation of economists-to-be
now in classrooms. The surest, if not the shortest, road to good research
is roundabout through the classroom.

The history of economic thought teaches us that the pace of intellec-
tual development is slow; a gestation period of a generation for a new
field is not unusual. The generation that lights the torches is not
likely to balance the scales.

This book is, therefore, directed to the student who is willing to
trade the neat catechism of the textbook in a mature field for the
mildly chaotic excitement of the tract in a new one.

The author is greatly indebted to the Committee on Urban Eco-
nomics of Resources for the Future, Inc., for the financial support
which made possible the year of uninterrupted thought and writing
which culminated in the first draft of this work. CUE also financed
a limited distribution of multilith copies of the second draft for
experimental use in classrooms in the fall of 1963. The author thanks
those who participated in the classroom experiment for their comments
and suggestions.

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