PROFESSOR MEEHAN’S title promises an examination into the national public-housing program, a shaggy mass of laws, often amended and tinkered with, the purpose of which is to house some of the nation’s poor families at a level of safety and comfort they otherwise probably could not find in American cities. One might want to know from such a book why the nation should house these families, or which of them it chooses to house, and why it builds homes where it does, and how it proposes to manage the juxtaposition of publicly- and privately-owned housing. These might be considered some of the elements of a public housing policy.