The research literature on city magazines can be divided into five primary sources: books on magazines, popular magazines/journals and newspapers, business magazines, scholarly journals, and unpublished theses. "The New Yorker," founded in 1925 specifically for a sophisticated, metropolitan audience, is considered a precursor of the current glossy genre, even though it quickly became a national publication. City magazines were also sometimes underwritten by local chambers of commerce or were spinoffs from newspaper Sunday supplements. Scholarly studies have pinpointed the metropolitan magazine's target audience: "upscale, well-educated and well-heeled"--as well as its problem areas: establishing a strong local identity, finding good material, and building circulation. These messages are also echoed in much of the popular literature examined. Other studies have dealt with the relationship of magazines to urban society, and whether city magazines serve as alternatives to newspapers in commenting on public issues or if they are content to provide public services, such as furnishing lists of where to eat, live, and find entertainment. Dissertations on city magazines, although valuable in providing a feel for the diversity of the modern city magazine field reflect the uneven character of the genre. Promising areas for future research include (1) possible competition for city magazines in weekly magazines produced by urban newspapers; (2) the relationship between the editorial, advertising, and circulation departments of city magazines; and (3) implications of the genre's claim to advertising dollars--the upscale white audience, and, as a corollary, whether city magazines make an effort to present the "whole" community. (Extensive references and sources, a list of personal conversations and correspondence sources, and 57 footnotes are appended.) (NKA)