Planning for the Fourth Migration

I took issue with more than a few assertions made by Carl Sussman in Planning the Fourth Migration. Sussman's uncritical excitement for the RPAA's ideal of a planned regionalization of decentralized urban culture facilitated and implemented by a centralized and socialized Federal government strikes me as sad commentary on the depth of theory about regionalism in the United States. While the RPAA's quaint ideals of the planned socialist city may seem high-minded they completely ignore the complex nature of the economies of cities. I think the regional vision of the city-region put forth by Jane Jacobs in Cities and the Wealth of Nations is more pragmatic and reasonable regarding how cities actually function than anything the RPAA ever produced. Like the RPAA Jacobs asserts that central cities and the regions that surround them are intimately bound together. Where Jacobs departs from the RPAA is the nature of this relationship. Jacobs spends most of the book describing how, more often than not, cities negatively impact the social and economic fabric of the surrounding area within a region. In Jacobs' opinion it is much has to go right for a city to succesfully integrate the areas in a city-region into a comprehensive whole without negatively impacting the non-central areas. The RPAA's lack of understanding that the push and pull of this change is the mark of a vibrant economy, and thus a vibrant city, leaves their vision devoid of many scraps of theory or idealism to which we can hold.

Jacobs' does not address the ideal political structure that balances the push and pull between cities and city-regions. And while I believe her theory of city-regions is more germane than that put forth by the RPAA, I'm not sure that it is viable in a globalized age where so many of our resources, people, and capital come from tens of thousands of miles away.

The article I was most intrigued by was the Savitch and Vogels chapter. Existing regional structures, their strengths and weaknesses, and their successes and failures are the best place to begin a real exploration of whether regional governance is worth pursuing. If the European Union can get 27 populaces to sign up for cooperation and revenue sharing then it cannot be impossible to get five or ten cities and counties to create a functioning regional structure that benefits us all.

On another note, I also take issue with Sussman's assertion that metropolitanism has an homogenizing effect on culture. I would argue that, in fact, the only cultural differences that will survive the end of the 21st Century will be those born out of vibrant city-regions around the world. The regional cultural variation that the RPAA glorified when 'folk dancing' during their weekend jaunts are more cultural histories than lived culture. Furthermore, the syncretism of the dynamic city-region gives rise to living culture of the present while, in my opinion, the homogenization of the society occurs more often in the decentralized urban areas (suburbs) than in the city itself.