University of Pennsylvania Museum Publications Governing the Fragmented Metropolis: Planning for Regional Sustainability (The City in the Twenty-First Century)

Today the challenges facing our nation's metropolitan regions are enormous: demographic change, aging infrastructure, climate change mitigation and adaptation, urban sprawl, spatial segregation, gentrification, education, housing affordability, regional equity, and more. Unfortunately, local governments do not have the capacity to respond to the interlocking set of problems facing metropolitan regions, and future challenges such as population growth and climate change will not make it easier. But will we ever have a more effective and sustainable approach to developing the metropolitan region? The answer may depend on our ability to develop a means to govern a metropolitan region that promotes population density, regional public transit systems, and the equitable development of city and suburbs within a system of land use and planning that is by and large a local one. If we want to plan for sustainable regions we need to understand and strengthen existing metropolitan planning arrangements. Christina D. Rosan observes that policy-makers and scholars have long agreed that we need metropolitan governance, but they have debated the best approach. She argues that we need to have a more nuanced understanding of both metropolitan development and local land use planning. She interviews over ninety local and regional policy-makers in Portland, Denver, and Boston, and compares the uses of collaboration and authority in their varying metropolitan planning processes. At one end of the spectrum is Portland's approach, which leverages its authority and mandates local land use; at the other end is Boston's, which offers capacity building and financial incentives in the hopes of garnering voluntary cooperation. Rosan contends that most regions lie somewhere in between and only by understanding our current hybrid system of local land use planning and metropolitan governance will we be able to think critically about what political arrangements and tools are necessary to support the development of environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable metropolitan regions. Review "I know of no other work that systematically examines different approaches to regional, public decision making on land use in the United States. This book is a much needed, path-breaking effort to assess the effectiveness of alternative institutional structures in preventing urban sprawl."—Connie P. Ozawa, Portland State University From the Author Christina D. Rosan teaches geography and urban studies at Temple University. About the Author Christina D. Rosan teaches geography and urban studies at Temple University. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter 1 Planning for a Metropolitan Future There are estimates that the population of the United States could increase to 438 million by 2050. Where will we house these new residents? What kind of metropolitan regions will they live in? Will these regions be sustainable or equitable or even livable? If past sprawling land use patterns are any indication, we should be concerned about protecting our nation's farmland, forests, water resources, and open spaces. With the prospect of climate change, we should be actively rethinking the way we manage our metropolitan areas to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make our cities more resilient. By 2050, will we have a more sustainable metropolitan approach that promotes density, develops regional public transit systems, and equitably redevelops the city and inner-ring suburbs? Or will we continue to sprawl? A lot depends on our ability to develop more effective metropolitan governance that encourages local governments to plan sustainably. While other countries have consolidated power at the metropolitan scale through annexation and the creation of metropolitan government, the United States has a hybrid metropolitan governance approach that is limited by a lack of authority and depends