Book excerpt: Lecture Notes in Urban Economics and Urban Policy provides a wide-ranging introduction to urban economics and urban policy by Professor John Yinger, one of the world's leading scholars in urban economics. It draws on his extensive teaching and publication record to provide detailed lecture notes for both a PhD level course in urban economics and a master's level course in urban policy. Both the US and the world populations are becoming more and more urbanized, and these notes are designed to help scholars learn and teach about the factors that determine urban residential structure and that lead to urban problems such as inadequate housing, concentrated poverty, an inequitable distribution of local public services, racial and ethnic discrimination in housing, and traffic congestion. Although these notes focus on the US, many of the lessons in the notes apply to other countries as well. They also draw on Professor Yinger's extensive teaching experience and publication record in urban economics and should prove useful to many scholars who want to teach about or study urban areas.