SICK CITIES

Although it's a bagatelle compared to Mumford or Jane Jacobs, nevertheless Wall Street Journal reporter Mitchell Gordon takes us on a sharp, snappy, sophisticated tour of the modern metropolis and its ills, one that's informative, useful and unsettling. He out-lines the problems and suggests controls, detailing the form and function of civic clean-ups and the needs of communities at large. Just about every aspect is covered, from smog, and lung cancer (""just relax and keep breathing"") to traffic snarls, urban sprawls, flop-house schoolrooms, racial stress, polluted water, the camping-cramp, human overflow, the police-fireman problem, hoods and hot rods, the new ""slurb"" (neither suburb nor city), mugging and the burgeoning battle of state or federal aid. A good guide to an increasingly gruesome subject.