Boundaries between areas of thought are never neat, and this is
especially true in the no-man's land between the young and still
amorphous field of urban economics and the much older but still
haphazard conglomerate loosely referred to as local public finance.
Neither of the two fields has claimed the attention of more than a
handful of outstanding economists--and seldom the undivided atten-
tion of these few. Witness the fact that no comprehensive textbook has
yet been published in either field. Since neither urban economics nor
local public finance has established its character so clearly that their
interrelationships can be cleanly defined, the lines of mutuality and
complementarity suggested below are obviously very tentative.

A first approximation of the potential contribution of the urban
economist to an understanding of the urban public economy can be
gained from reviewing the local public finance literature--the ap-
propriate chapter or two in any introductory public finance textbook
or the more detailed state-and-local tax study report. ¹ A careful reading
of this scattered literature will acquaint the urban economist with
what is known and suggest what still needs to be known. For maximum

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