Urban and Regional Policy and Its Effects, the third in a series, sets out to inform policymakers, practitioners, and scholars about the effectiveness of select policy approaches, reforms, and experiments in addressing key social and economic problems facing cities, suburbs, and metropolitan areas. The chapters analyze responses to five key policy challenges that most metropolitan areas and local communities face: -Creating quality neighborhoods for families -Governing effectively -Building human capital -Growing the middle class -Enlarging a competitive economy through industry-based strategies -Managing the spatial pattern of metropolitan growth and development Each chapter discusses a specific topic under one of these challenges. The authors present the essence of what is known, as well as its likely applications, and identify the knowledge gaps that need to be filled for the successful formulation and implementation of urban and regional policy. Nancy Pindus is a senior fellow in the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center at the Urban Institute. Howard Wial is an economist in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. Harold Wolman is the director of the George Washington Institute of Public Policy, professor of political science and public policy at George Washington University, and a nonresident senior fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings.