Though once known as cities with good jobs and places where families can achieve the American Dream, our nation's older smaller cities and the people who live in them are struggling to cope with a changing economy and diminshing resources. We call these communities "forgotten cities" because they have been left behind by the global economy, the media, major foundations, and policy trends. Sometimes they have been marginalized by their surrounding regions - even by the people who once lived there. Prepared by Lorlene Hoyt and Andre Leroux and sponsored by PolicyLink, CHAPA and MIT School of Architecture and Planning, this reports provides a thematic summary of MIT's Forgotten Cities seminars, and a framework and analysis that arose from them. It will take the reader through the arc experienced by forgotten cities as alluded to in its many facets by the seminar participants and in the urban literature.