During 1970-1976, urban research coalesced around the political economy of city development, emphasizing how elite settlement patterns, governance structures, and development goals shape city form, land use, and regional linkages. Methodologically, researchers pursued testable growth models, empirical links between urbanization and environmental response, and integration of planning with development objectives, treating urban spaces as sites where economic, political, and environmental forces interact. These trajectories fostered a shift toward linking urban policy with broader development and environmental planning. Historical Significance: The period marks a foundational consolidation of urban political economy with environmental urbanism, introducing explicit links between power relations, land markets, and amenities with spatial outcomes. Breakthroughs include empirical demonstrations of how elites influence land use, the environmental consequences of impervious surfaces in hydrology, the governance lens for city systems, and hedonic-like approaches to housing values that prefigured modern econometrics. Collectively, these works shaped subsequent lines of policy analysis, planning practice, and theoretical development in urban studies for years to come.