The author of this report believes that the subject of urban school desegregation costs presents rich opportunities for research, which has great practical and theoretical interest. This collection of case studies of five urban areas undergoing court-ordered desegregation of schools is intended as a preliminary to more extensive study of the financial problems that school districts encounter in estimating and paying for the cost of school desegregation. The five cities examined are Buffalo, New York, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Cleveland, Columbus, and Dayton, Ohio. In all five cities, the courts have held that the schools have violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution. The case reports summarize the history of desegregation litigation and the efforts by plaintiffs and defendants (city and state) to comply with court orders. The author discovered that in all five cities, cost of desegregation became a political issue and that accurate estimate methods were lacking. (Author/DS)