Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2006
Abstract
“City” and “suburb” as they were known and debated in the twentieth century are no more. Increasingly, the key urban unit in metropolitan America is the region. Robert Bruegmann’s Sprawl: A Compact History, a chronicle of the melding of city and suburban land use patterns, illustrates this development. Joel Kotkin’s The City: A Global History, which expresses concern about the loss of traditional urban distinctiveness, also reflects this. In her review of both books, Nicole Stelle Garnett appropriately raises issues of interlocal competition and equity, and the quality of urban life in metropolitan America, but she errs in framing them in terms of the fading differences between city and suburb. With the ongoing regionalization of urban life, we need regional strategies to check the fierce interlocal struggles for tax base; to provide for more equitable financing of local services; and to promote the intraregional cooperation necessary for regional growth.
Disciplines
Law | State and Local Government Law | Urban Studies and Planning
Recommended Citation
Richard Briffault,
Beyond City and Suburb: Thinking Regionally,
116
Yale L. J. F.
44
(2006).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/4471