ONE of the most important and elusive stories of modern times is the growth and development--in both positive and negative terms--of great cities. Important, because more and more people live in cities (seven out of every ten in the U.S. do), and most of the advances and retreats of society are made within city limits. Elusive, because the story cannot really be told hour by hour or day by day. Even more than most stories, it demands survey, examination, study, analysis, summing up.

It is a story that TIME covers in detail and in broad gauge week after week, as in "The Bonfire of Discontent" in THE NATION last week. In addition to such continuing treatment of the subject, we have had seven cover stories on America's cities in the last four years. They have dealt with progress as well as problems--for example, Mayor Richard Daley and the development of Chicago (March 15, 1963), City Planner Edmund Bacon and his achievement in Philadelphia (Nov. 6, 1964), and Mayor John Lindsay's approach to the troubles and delights of New York (Nov. 12, 1965).

This week we turn our major attention to Los Angeles and Mayor Sam Yorty. (It is, incidentally, his second appearance on our cover; he and four other mayors were the subjects of a "Cities of the '60s" story on March 23, 1962.) Our story was drawn from the combined talents of staff members in three cities--Bureau Chief Marshall Berges and five of his reporters in Los Angeles, the correspondents who covered the Senate hearings in Washington, and in New York, Senior Editor Edward L. Jamieson and Writer Jerry Kirshenbaum.-

ONE of the continuing aims of our editors is to give TIME readers an interesting variety of style and treatment in the presentation of cover subjects. In the past year we have used the works of twelve different artists on the cover. This week we introduce another: Iowa-born, Connecticut-dwelling Robert Templeton. A painter who is not offended if a viewer remarks that his realism has a pop quality, Templeton divided the picture of Los Angeles into separate images: the freeway ("a poetic thing to see"), crime in the streets (Mrs. Templeton posed for that panel), Watts, the ever-present signs, and the area's cultural emergence as represented by the Los Angeles County Art Museum. It was particularly appealing for Templeton because he especially likes to deal with the theme of contemporary living. "I see this country as so chaotic," he says, "although TIME organizes it once a week."

*Who, we report, to satisfy the curiosity of masthead readers, is no kin to Editorial Researcher Geraldine Kirshenbaum.

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