This book opens with a review of the past decade, marked as it was by steadily escalating civil disorders despite the unprecedented progressive programs that grew out of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. It traces the rise of black pride and white resistance and clearly delineates the critical and continuing lag in national response to urban needs. This lag, maintains the author, is the result not of a lack of resources, ideas, or information but of will, of national purpose. What is needed is a comprehensive urban policy aimed at creating an open, pluralistic society free of the present constricting barriers based on class and race. Yet, such a policy can succeed only if a real commitment to fundamental changes in national institutions and priorities is made. Lacking such commitment, future programs will meet the same fate as did those of the Great Society--with the added consequence that hopes, once raised, cannot easily be ignored. (CB)