This book was first published in 1977. Urban economics is a relatively young field of economics; hardly existing except perhaps in real estate and land economics curricula-before the 1960s. Within the last few years, especially after 1 971, there has been a growth of interest in urban economic theory, strong enough even to attract the attention of general economic theorists. These new theoretical writings have been named the ''New Urban Economics''-NUE for short. The aim of this monograph is to survey and assess NUE, to evaluate its contribution to urban economics, to offer a few extensions and to say something about the future direction of the subfield.