This study reviews a range of social problems evident in the modern city, emphasizing British changes during the 1980s and the policy initiatives of the Thatcher government. This second edition has been enlarged to include a set of 20 studies which are broader in scope than the originals. There are four background chapters, followed by reviews of environmental problems, resources and finance, health care, educational change, housing, welfare services, problems of the elderly, women's inequality, unemployment, crime, riots, heroin use and alcoholism. The collection is rounded off by two chapters on the policy response.