The Futures of the City Region

Michael Neuman, Angela Hull

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317986270
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

Does the 'city region' constitute a new departure in urbanisation? If so, what are the key elements of that departure? The realities of the urban in the 21 st century are increasingly complex and polychromatic. The rise of global networks enabled by supranational administrations, both governmental and corporate, strongly influences and structures the management of urban life. How we conceive the city region has intellectual and practical consequences. First, in helping us grasp rapidly changing realities; and second in facilitating the flow of resources, ideas and learning to enhance the quality of life of citizens.

Two themes interweave through this collection, within this broad palette. First are the socio-spatial constructs and their relationship to the empirical evidence of change in the physical and functional aspects of urban form. Second is what they mean for the spatial scales of governance. This latter theme explores territorially based understandings of intervention and the changing set of political concerns in selected case studies. In efforts to address these issues and improve upon knowledge, this collection brings together international scholars building new data-driven, cross-disciplinary theories to create new images of the city region that may prove to supplement if not supplant old ones.

The book illustrates the dialectical interplay of theory and fact, time and space, and spatial and institutional which expands on our intellectual grasp of the theoretical debates on 'city-regions' through 'practical knowing', citing examples from Europe, the United States, Australasia, and beyond.

This book was originally published as a Special Issue of Regional Studies.

The New Metropolis: Rethinking Megalopolis

ROBERT LANG and PAUL K. KNOX

LANG R. and KNOX P. K. The new metropolis: rethinking megalopolis, Regional Studies. The paper explores the relationship between metropolitan form, scale, and connectivity. It revisits the idea first offered by geographers Jean Gottmann, James Vance, and Jerome Pickard that urban expansiveness does not tear regions apart but instead leads to new types of linkages. The paper begins with an historical review of the evolving American metropolis and introduces a new spatial model showing changing metropolitan morphology. Next is an analytic synthesis based on geographic theory and empirical findings of what is labelled here the ‘new metropolis’. A key element of the new metropolis is its vast scale, which facilitates the emergence of an even larger trans-metropolitan urban structure – the ‘megapolitan region’. Megapolitan geography is described and includes a typology to show variation between regions. The paper concludes with the suggestion that the fragmented post-modern metropolis may be giving way to a neo-modern extended region where new forms of networks and spatial connectivity reintegrate urban space.

LANG R. et KNOX P. K. La nouvelle metropolis: repenser la mégapole, Regional Studies. Cet article examine les relations existant entre la forme, l’échelle et la connectivité métropolitaines. Il revisite l’idée, proposée en premier lieu par les géographes Jean Gottmann, James Vance et Jerome Pickard, selon laquelle la capacité d’expansion des villes ne démolit pas les régions, mais conduit plutôt à de nouveaux types de liens. L’article commence par un examen historique de la Metropolis américaine dans son évolution et introduit un nouveau modèle spatial montrant que la morphologie métropolitaine est en train de changer. Vient ensuite une synthèse analytique, fondée sur la théorie géographique et les résultats empiriques, de ce qui est étiqueté ici comme étant la ‘nouvelle Metropolis’. Un élément clé de la nouvelle Metropolis est sa grande échelle, qui facilite l’émergence d’une structure urbaine trans-métropolitaine encore plus vaste – ‘la région mégapolitaine’. La géographie mégapolitaine est décrite et inclut une typologie afin de montrer les variations entre les régions. L’article se termine en suggérant que la Metropolis post-moderne éclatée est peut-être en train de laisser la place à une région étendue néo-moderne dans laquelle les nouvelles formes de réseaux et de connectivité spatiale réintègrent l’espace urbain.

LANG R. und KNOX P. K. Die neue Metropole: ein Überdenken der Megalopole, Regional Studies. In diesem Beitrag wird die Beziehung zwischen der Form, dem Maßstab und der Konnektivität von Metropolen untersucht. Es wird ein frischer Blick auf die erstmals von den Geografen Jean Gottmann, James Vance und Jerome Pickard vorgebrachte Idee geworfen, wonach die urbane Ausdehnung nicht zum Auseinanderreißen von Regionen führt, sondern vielmehr zu neuen Arten von Verknüpfungen. Zu Beginn des Aufsatzes werfen wir einen historischen Rückblick auf die Entstehung der amerikanischen Metropole und fuhren ein neues räumliches Modell ein, in dem die sich wandelnde Morphologie der Metropole verdeutlicht wird. Als Nächstes stellen wir eine analytische Synthese vor, die auf der geografischen Theorie und den empirischen Ergebnissen im Zusammenhang mit dem hier als ‘neue Metropole’ bezeichneten Phänomen beruhen. Ein wesentliches Element der neuen Metropole liegt in ihrer gewaltigen Ausdehnung begründet, welche das Entstehen einer noch größeren transmetropolitanen Stadtstruktur begünstigt – der ‘Megapolitanregion’. Es wird die megapolitane Geografie beschrieben, wozu auch eine Typologie gehort, mit der Abweichungen zwischen den einzelnen Regionen aufgezeigt werden. Wir schließen unseren Beitrag mit der Vermutung, dass die fragmentierte postmoderne Metropole von einer neomodernen erweiterten Region abgelöst werden könnte, in der neue Formen von Netzwerken und räumliche Konnektivität den urbanen Raum neu integrieren.

LANG R. y KNOX P. K. La nueva metrópolis: remodelar la megalópolis, Regional Studies. En este artículo analizamos la relación entre la forma, escala y conectividad metropolitanas. Revisamos la primera idea que aportaron los geógrafos Jean Gottmann, James Vance y Jerome Pickard de que la expansibilidad urbana no separa a las regiones sino que produce nuevos tipos de vínculos. En este ensayo hacemos primero una revisión histórica de los cambios en la metrópolis americana e introducimos un nuevo modelo espacial que muestra los cambios en la morfología metropolitana. A continuación aportamos una síntesis analítica basada en la teoría geográfica y los resultados empíricos de lo que aquí denominamos la ‘nueva metrópolis’. Un elemento clave de la nueva metrópolis es su amplia escala que facilita la aparición de una estructura urbana transmetropolitana au´n más grande: la ‘región megapolitana’. Describimos la geografía megapolitana e incluimos una topología para mostrar las diferentes variaciones entre las regiones. Terminamos sugiriendo que la metrópolis postmoderna y fragmentada podría dar paso a una región neomoderna ampliada donde las nuevas formas de redes y conectividad espacial reintegren el espacio urbano.

INTRODUCTION

The main difference between an urban area at the scale of the Atlantic Urban Region [i.e. megalopolis] and the traditional metropolitan scale is that the emerging larger form has a multitude of major nodes whose areas of influence are likely to be autonomous. Nevertheless, the individual urban centers benefit from mutual proximity, and there is bound to be increased interaction.

(REGIONAL PLAN ASSOCIATION (RPA), 1967, p. 35)

then, sometime in the 1950s a ‘city of realms’ began to be evident, but what were the determinants of its structure? … the process of parturition … changed outlying areas from the suspected functional potential for semi-independent existence – first felt when suburbs began to be large and separate enough so some activities found in the central cities came to be replicated there – to actual semi-independent.

(VANCE, 1977, p. 410)

The evolution of metropolitan space remains fundamental in understanding the spatial organization of advanced economies. The above passages suggest that post-war US development produced a multi-nodal yet integrated urban structure at both the metropolitan and megapolitan scales. VANCE’s (1977) ‘urban realms’ and GOTTMANN’s (1961) ‘megalopolis’ (as interpreted by the RPA) highlight different dimensions of metropolitan scale and form, yet the two ideas are linked. Both offer the counter-intuitive notion that urban expansiveness does not tear regions apart but instead produces new types of connectivity.

This paper revisits these ideas, recasting Vance’s concept of urban realms in the context of the extended contemporary scale of metropolitan regions. There have been significant changes in real estate investment in the USA in the past quarter century, in tandem with equally significant changes in the structure and functional organization of metropolitan regions. Traditional patterns of urbanization have been repealed as new rounds of economic restructuring, digital telecommunications technologies, demographic shifts, and neoliberal policies have given rise to new urban, suburban, and exurban landscapes. Urban regions have been stretched and reshaped to accommodate increasingly complex and extensive patterns of interdependency, while the political economy of metropolitan America has been reshaped in response to socio-economic realignments and cultural shifts. If the industrial metropolis was the crucible and principal spatial manifestation of what Ulrich Beck has dubbed the ‘first modernity’, contemporary metropolitan America may be viewed as an emergent spatial manifestation of a ‘second modernity’, in which the structures and institutions of 19th-century modernization are both deconstructed and reconstructed (BECK et al., 2003). Viewed in this way, traditional models of metropolitan structure and traditional concepts and labels – ‘city’, ‘suburb’, metropolises – are ‘zombie categories’. According to BECK and WILLMS (2003):

zombie categories embody nineteenth-century horizons of experience, horizons of the first modernity. And because these inappropriate horizons, distilled into a priori and analytic categories, still mould our perceptions, they are blinding us to the real experience and ambiguities of the second modernity.

(p. 19)

Contemporary metropolitan America is characterized by a ‘splintering urbanism’ (GRAHAM and MARVIN, 2001) that severely challenges the nomothetic models of urban form and structure that for so long have been the staples of urban geography. As in the ‘Mega-City Regions’ of Europe (HALL and PAIN, 2006) and the USA (CARBONELL and YARO, 2005), the consequence is a dominant new form of urbanization: polycentric networks of up to 50 cities and towns, physically separate but functionally networked, clustered around one or more larger central cities, and drawing enormous economic strength from a new functional division of labour. This paper recasts the discussion of urban form and structure in the USA in terms of the ‘New Metropolis’ that is part of a network of ‘Megapolitan Areas’.

Data used in this paper are derived from a larger research project at Virginia Tech on ‘megapolitan’ geography. The megapolitan concept has been developed in part to depict geographically where the next 100 million Americans will live (LANG and NELSON, 2007b). This analysis identified 20 emerging megapolitan areas that are based on the US Census Bureau’s definition of a ‘combined statistical area’ (CSA). These megapolitan areas extend the census’s current method several decades forward. The main criterion for a census-defined CSA is economic interdependence, as evidenced by overlapping commuting patterns. The same holds true for megapolitans. Based on projections of commuting, by 2010 the census will likely show that Phoenix–Tucson in Arizona and Washington–Baltimore–Richmond (i.e. Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia) have become CSAs. In 2020, several more metropolitan areas will pass this threshold, and at mid-century all 20 megapolitan areas should officially be CSAs.

EVOLVING METROPOLITAN FORM

Until the mid-20th century, urban and metropolitan form could safely be conceptualized in terms of the outcomes of processes of competition for land and ecological processes of congregation and segregation, all pivoting tightly around a dominant central business district and transportation hub (Fig. 1a). During the middle decades of the 20th century, however, American metropolises were unbound by the combination of increased automobility, and the blossoming of egalitarian liberalism in the form of massive federal outlays on highway construction and mortgage insurance that underwrote the ‘spatial fix’ to the over accumulation crisis of the 1930s (CHECKOWAY, 1980; HARVEY, 1985; LAKE, 1995). The result was a massive spurt of city building and the evolution of dispersed, polycentric spatial structure, and the emergence of urban realms (Fig. 1b).

Urban realms

Initially, the shift to an expanded polycentric metropolis was most pronounced in the north-eastern USA, and Gottmann captured the moment with his conceptualization of ‘megalopolis’. It was not long, however, before observers noted the change elsewhere. MULLER (1976) was among the first to note the emergence of a new ‘outer city’. VANCE (1977) argued that major metropolitan areas in the USA, such as Los Angeles in California, New York in New York State, and San Francisco, also in California, had grown so decentrali...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction: The Futures of the City Region
• 1. The New Metropolis: Rethinking Megalopolis
• 2. Looking Backward, Looking Forward: The City Region of the Mid-21st Century
• 3. The 21st-Century Metropolis: New Geographies of Theory
• 4. City Regions and Place Development
• 5. City-Regions: New Geographies of Uneven Development and Inequality
• 6. Limits to the Mega-City Region: Conflicting Local and Regional Needs
• 7. Regions, Megaregions, and Sustainability
• Index