In a book much concerned with cores and peripheries, one central development is the catalyst for Alan Ehrenhalt's wide-ranging discussion of contemporary American urbanism: “The late twentieth century was the age of poor inner cities and wealthy suburbs; the twenty-first century is emerging as an age of affluent inner neighborhoods and immigrants settling on the outside” (38). The demographic inversion that Ehrenhalt emphasizes, supported by some telling statistical data, counters many assumptions of American urban and suburban development. It is also intimately linked with questions of race, class, energy, transport, education and crime.

Ehrenhalt is right that perceptions of America's cities and suburbs need updating. His methodology, involving detailed descriptions of individual neighbourhoods accompanied by maps and photographs, also allows for nuanced insights and a broad geographical framework. Too often, urban theorists claim that the changes they have witnessed within a single city (frequently New York or Los Angeles) exemplify developments occurring across the United States and beyond. It is refreshing, then, to have cities as diverse as Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Denver and Charlotte all discussed in depth here, with acknowledgement of their different historical developments and the distinct problems they currently face. Indeed, the sociological observations that emerge from this approach are the book's most valuable feature. For example, Ehrenhalt illustrates changing patterns of immigration in Georgia by noting a Baptist Church in Gwinnett County that lists Sunday services for Chinese, Hispanic, Korean, Vietnamese, Arab and Indian communities.

Ehrenhalt's cautious tone, which includes constant qualifications, a refusal to exaggerate trends and a willingness to point out contradictions, also marks out this book from more polemical urban studies. Yet, in a sense, the book is too well mannered. Ehrenhalt writes with a light, journalistic style aimed at a general readership. His own thoughts are mostly embellished by think tank reports and quotations from local officials rather than by any serious engagement with urban theory. While Jane Jacobs remains a ubiquitous presence throughout, it would have been more interesting to see Ehrenhalt extend the discussion to include recent assessments of American urbanism by writers such as Mike Davis, David Harvey, Richard Sennett and Sharon Zukin. By promoting an apparently neutral stance on city life, Ehrenhalt has a frustrating tendency to avoid sustained confrontation with the very economic and political conflicts that produce urban change.

At the same time, this sheen of objectivity also conceals the author's own ideological assumptions. For instance, while Ehrenhalt is keen to avoid the term “gentrification,” mindful of the intense debates it provokes, he is content to repeat the language associated with it: to describe middle-class residents moving into a working-class area as “pioneers” (77), to talk of “the discovery of Tribeca” in the 1980s (65), and to reduce the displacement caused by market forces to merely “a rearrangement of population” (233) are to reinforce the logic of property speculation. Similarly, despite noting that the growing number of people living (and not just working) in New York's Financial District constitute a wealthy elite, his conclusion that this area, where the median income is $256,000 a year and independent stores have dwindled, now represents “a significant triumph of modern urbanism” (75) is questionable, to say the least.

What is at stake here is the very notion of urban life. For Ehrenhalt, the crucial factor driving middle-class people towards downtown districts and away from suburbia is “the desire for an atmosphere of urbanism” (19). This is a revealing phrase: much of what constitutes urban redevelopment in the United States – factories and warehouses converted into exclusive condominiums, themed quarters, the replacement of public space with private complexes overseen by security companies, the triumph of chain stores over independent retailers, the continued supremacy of the car – is predicated upon an idea of the city as a homogeneous, corporate, highly controlled environment perfumed with the “atmosphere” of urban life. The idea of a city maintaining mixed communities, affordable housing and a public realm accessible to all does not appear here. Save for a rather patronizing portrait of a Texas state representative actively resisting gentrification in Houston, there is little sense that market forces can be challenged or inequalities reduced. Social – and spatial – justice as a potentially constitutive element of contemporary urbanism is absent from Ehrenhalt's analysis. Instead, he deflects the debate, claiming that where people live, or can afford to live, is “an economic and planning question, sometimes an aesthetic question, but, in my opinion, not a moral one” (16). Thus, while his book identifies and illustrates some fascinating demographic shifts in America's cities, it falls decidedly short when evaluating their most troubling implications.