New Regionalism

Post-World War II a new form of regional planning developed in response to the continuous expansion of major cities. It is called ‘New Regionalism’ and essentially concerns planning on a large geographic scale that includes multiple metropolitan centres. This weeks chapter Planning Metropolitan Regions by Gary Hack discusses a number of points related to New Regionalism. These include:

•  Problems resulting from expanding cities, for example, resource waste through the creation of new infrastructure causing old infrastructure to be underutilized;
• The underlying structure of suburban sprawl including “clusters” of employment, retail, and higher density residential;
•  Development opportunities created by these new urban centres;
• Future change of traditional downtowns to specialized sub-centres;
• Increasing diversity in suburban neighborhoods
• Occurrences of specialized districts in the outer parts of metropolitan regions;
• Life-style, manufacturing, and education and research-based concentrations in metropolitan areas;
• The trend of low density housing construction outside city centres;
• The need for regional planning strategies, permanent means of promoting that strategy, and the devolution of power and responsibility to local municipalities.

One of the most interesting points I found in this chapter was about the “clusters” forming in suburbs. By clusters, Hack was referring to concentrations of employment and shopping in suburban areas, including offices, retail outlets, hotels and entertainment areas. Usually developing in close proximity to highways, these areas essentially provide all the functions of traditional downtowns. Hack expressed the opinion that these areas provide an opportunity to create new urban centres. The major challenge being to increase their walkablility and to transform car parks into more attractive and useful spaces. For this to be viable, there would need to be residential densification around and improved public transportation to these clusters. Hack also mentions how new economic clusters where not forming as they did historically i.e. not in urban centres. He described that in many cities, they are predominantly occurring on the fringes of metropolitan areas.