This historical publication was produced by PD&R for the Interagency Task Force on Urban Data and claims to be the most comprehensive compendium of current data on large metropolitan areas available. The paper considers large metro areas from three dimensions: characteristics in a historical perspective, differences between cities in the same year, and comparisons of suburbs. The report is meant to provide context for interpreting the social, economic, and fiscal trends amongst U.S. metropolitan areas.

This report is part of the collection of scanned historical documents available to the public.