Saving America's Cities is a thoroughly researched biography/history of Ed Logue, a prominent leader in urban renewal and redevelopment. Logue began his career in rebuilding cities in New Haven, moving on to head the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) and the New York State Urban Development Corporation (UDC) before ending his career in the South Bronx, He was a domineering personality, but unlike Robert Moses, Logue was focussed on improving the quality of life of the poor and less affluent, including racial minorities.

This book was of particular interest to me as someone who earned a degree in city planning in the Boston area shortly after Logue left for New York. In reading the book, I found names of instructors from whom I'd taken courses or who I otherwise recognized. After graduation I interviewed for a job in New Haven (which I did not get), so Logue's name was one I recognized.

Cohen does a nice job of presenting the high and low points of Logue's career. Her chronological approach makes it easy to follow and her description of particular redevelopment efforts and projects are followed by objective discussion of their merits as seen by "experts," politicians and neighborhood residents. The extensive referencing includes views both favorable and critical of strategies and projects initiated by Logue and his team of young experts and professionals.

This book is a good contrast for those who have read Robert Caro's "The Power Broker," his highly engaging and Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Robert Moses, sometimes called "the master builder" of New York. Moses, like Logue, had a very strong personality. And both were somewhat blind to the adverse effects of their efforts. But Logue was a liberal by his time's standards, and he learned, sometimes after significant stumbles, the importance of listening to those who would be the beneficiaries of his efforts. Because Logue viewed himself as an experimenter, he was more open to criticism of his redevelopment projects.

While Cohen provides a good deal of information about the architecture and the style of urban renewal and redevelopment during Logue's career, she does not go beyond his time to the "New Urbanism" that is the style of development preferred by most of today's urban experts and city residents. She does, however, afford the reader good insight into the failures of early urban renewal, and the shortcomings of the top-down redevelopment efforts and style of Logue and his contemporaries, both of which are a path to understanding the current popularity of the "New Urbanism."

Frankly, today most would characterize many of Logue's early projects as examples of "brutalist" architecture, notwithstanding the top architectural professionals Logue engaged. The architecture profession and Logue were too hung up on exterior appearance and creating monumental architectural statements. For all its benefits, Boston's Government Center is a far cry from the pedestrian friendly, mixed-used type of development favored today by both experts and end-users. Logue learned this lesson and embraced the importance of rehabilitating and preserving usable existing buildings in a more traditional urban fabric. One criticism is that there could have been more time spent discussing the interior design of the various projects Logue undertook. After all, buildings are habitations and their exteriors are simply their public face. Cohen does this in describing Logue's last efforts in the South Bronx, but there is much more that could have been said about some of the other projects that preceded it.

The book also provides a great sense of the importance of politics and policy at the federal, state and local level in influencing urban redevelopment activities. I particularly enjoyed Cohen's descriptions of the relationships Logue had with the various Mayors, Governors and federal officials with whom he worked. His ability to utilize those relationships to generate funding, a continual challenge, is well documented. Perhaps the most fun part of the book for many will be the difficulties Logue and his team faced in working with neighborhood residents. Cohen does an excellent job of explaining the shortcomings of Logue's initial "we are the experts" approach. The challenges to his authority provided by residents of the neighborhoods in which he worked lead him to change his perspective and recognize that planning and redevelopment can be most effective and beneficial when it is most responsive to the desires of area residents and property owners. That Logue learned this lesson is a testament to his professional growth and capability to adapt to achieve his goals of a better life, including better housing, for those with moderate and low incomes regardless of race.

I want to thank NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to receive a pre-publication copy in exchange for this review. I hope the final printed book includes photographs and drawings that clearly illustrate the various plans and projects developed by Logue, his associates and his design and other consultants.