This law school casebook focuses on the advantages and difficulties involved in decentralizing power to cities (the city-state and city-federal relationships), the city-suburb divide (including the topics of sprawl and regionalism), and the structure of city government itself (issues like taxation, service delivery, and voting). The casebook combines case law with extensive excerpts from the urban studies literature, including history, political science, sociology, and planning. The new edition will update existing topics and will add material on important new issues, most notably immigration. It will also include, for the first time, readings on comparative and international local government law.