Managing Urban America guides students through the challenges, politics, and practice of urban management—including managing conflict through politics, adapting to demographic and social changes, balancing budgets, and delivering a myriad of goods and services to citizens in an efficient, equitable, and responsive manner. The Eighth Edition has been thoroughly updated to include a discussion of the difficulties cities confront as they deal with the lingering economic challenges of the 2008 recession, the concept of e-government and how it affects the theory and practice of management, and the implications of environmental issues for urban government management.

In a final chapter, Hudnut offers a summary of the lessons he learned about the role of a mayor and the problems of urban governments.