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ABSTRACT
The legacy and vision of the RPAA is very familiar to us: a diverse group of talented urban reformers wanted to restructure social and economic systems to create decentralized, interconnected clusters of contained settlements in the form of garden cities protected by open space, with healthy, nearby industry providing ample employment opportunities. Regions would be linked by geography, culture, and climatic unity. The problem of great cities would be approached ‘not from within but from without’. In this paper, I consider three urban issues currently dominating our urban discourse a century after the RPAA was formed – the pandemic and its impact on urban life, gentrification and displacement, and climate change – and conjecture about what the RPAA might have thought or done if confronted with such challenges. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the RPAA, what can we surmise about a likely response from this influential group of urban and regional reformers?
KEYWORDS:
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Bruère, “Giant Power,” 116.
2 Fishman, “Foreword.”
3 Geddes, Cities in Evolution.
4 Thompson, “How the Pandemic Will Change Americans Streets.”
5 Corkery, “Is American Retail at a Historic Tipping Point?”; Peterson, “The Retail Apocalypse Has Officially Descended on America”
6 Mumford, “Regions – To Live In,” 93.
7 Sussman, Planning the Fourth Migration, 64.
8 Alter, “The Coronavirus and the future of Main Street.”
9 Woods, “How Urban Places Can Adapt After The Coronavirus.”
10 Wilson, Shopping Locally.
11 Lubove, Community Planning.
12 Talen and Park, “Understanding Urban Retail Vacancy.”
13 Lydon et al., Tactical Urbanism.
14 Mumford, “Regions – To Live In,” 151.
15 Sussman, Planning the Fourth Migration, 23.
16 Talen, “Beyond the Front Porch.”
17 Sussman, Planning the Fourth Migration, 29.
18 Mumford, The Urban Prospect.
19 Thomas, “Holding the Middle Ground.”
20 MacKaye, The New Exploration.
21 Bettencourt, An Introduction to Urban Science.
22 Chase, “Coals to Newcastle,” 88.
23 Haleqoua, Smart Cities.
24 Barnett and Bouw, Managing the Climate Crisis.
25 Calthorpe and Fulton, The Regional City.
26 Duany and Talen, Landscape Urbanism.
27 MacKaye, The New Exploration.
28 Ellis, “Landscape Urbanism.”
29 Mumford, “The Natural History of Urbanization.”
30 Strauss, The American City.
31 Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity.
32 Guttenberg, “City Encounter and “Desert” Encounter.”
33 Thomas, “Lewis Mumford, Benton MacKaye,” 275.
34 Agyeman et al., Just Sustainabilities.
35 Lees, “Gentrification and Social Mixing.”
36 Freeman, There Goes the “Hood”.
37 Stein, “Dinosaur Cities,” 67.
38 Ibid., 73.
39 Agyeman et al., Just sustainabilities.
40 Hall, Cities of Tomorrow.
41 Jacobs, Death and Life.
42 Curran and Hamilton, “Just Green Enough.”
43 Loh and Kim, “To Recover from COVID-19.”
44 Lapierre et al., “Short-Term Longitudinal Relationships.”
45 Mumford, “Regions – To Live In,” 63.
46 Ibid., 64.
47 Barnett and Bouw, Managing the Climate Crisis.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Emily Talen
Emily Talen is a professor of urbanism at the University of Chicago where she teaches urban design and directs the Urbanism Lab. Her books include Design for Social Diversity and Neighborhood.