Explorations into Urban Structure

Book excerpt: The remarkable expansion in metropolitan growth rates has been nearly matched by the phenomenal expansion in the literature commenting upon it. Social scientists of every discipline and politicians of every persuasion have been straining to understand the changing urban scene and searching for effective ways of planning for change. However, these efforts have been typically handicapped by simplistic and unitary conceptions of the metropolis. Most of the commentaries have conceived the metropolis as mappable and discrete settlement, and metropolitan planning has been conceived as willful redesigning of spatial forms. In this volume, six students of metropolitan development present a challenging reappraisal and fresh conceptual approaches to the analysis of urban systems. Drawing upon the accumulating theory in economics, sociology, political science, geography, and city planning, they reconceptualize urban structure and function, refocusing attention from the forms of population density to the processes of human interaction. They see the urban system as a complex network of functional interdependencies that are reflected in the intricate processes of communication, intergovernmental competition, and market decision. The authors are concerned primarily with increasing the effectiveness of public policy in this field. The conceptual clarity they bring to that task leads them to approach metropolitan planning with a new respect for the pluralism and diversity that are the distinguishing marks of complex urban processes. It is only through the recognition of these processes that we can hope to overcome the seemingly insurmountable problems of urban planning and renewal. In an increasingly urban society these problems take on pressing urgency. Explorations into Urban Structure is a timely, thought-provoking, and direction­-setting book about some of the key conceptual and policy issues of our time. Contributors to this landmark volume include John W. Dyckman, Donald L. Foley, Albert Z. Guttenberg, William L. C. Wheaton, and Catherine Bauer Wurster.