The primary theme of this collection of essays is that the cities' basic problems are poverty and racism. Until these concerns are addressed by increasing racial equality, creating jobs, and bringing about other reforms, the generally low quality of urban life will persist. Gans argues that parents must have jobs in order to improve their children's school performance and that a modernised New Deal, a more labour-intensive economy, and a thirty-two hour work week can help achieve full employment. Other controversial ideas presented in this book include Gans's opposition to the idea of an underclass, which he feels is the latest way for the nonpoor to unjustly label the poor as undeserving, and his startling notion that poverty continues because it is often useful to the nonpoor. He is critical of architecture that aims above all to be aesthetic or to make philosophical statements; is doubtful that physical plans can or should try to reform our social or personal lives; and thinks we should concentrate on achieving individual public policies until we learn how properly to plan as a society.