Does American have a sense of community and a vital civic culture? Are disparate groups capable of uniting as a single people who can call themselves Americans? Do Americans help each other for the common good? Daniel J. Monti, Jr. addresses these questions in this wide-ranging volume spanning three hundred years of American urban life. He reconciles liberal and conservative viewpoints and responds unequivocally, that yes , Americans are indeed a community of believers and that a viable and vital civic culture exists in the United States despite notions of difference and apathy. Civic life in the US has been based on a set of rules predicated on prosperity and order as guiding principles to achieve a balance between private lives and the larger public good. The American City brings this notion forward and sheds a positive light on a world that focuses more often on the problems as opposed to the parts that work.