Each of Siegel's three urban portraits--New York, Washington, D. C. , and Los Angeles, -- shows the desperate remedies undertaken by cities searching for a lifeline back to the future whose promise they once seemed to embody. In a narrative that acknowledges the large historical forces that have remade the face of America over the last three decades, but insists that social policies are not merely foregone conclusions waiting to happen, Siegel holds up a mirror to our urban naure and tells us much about the way we live now.