New Lincoln Institute Book - Regional Planning in America: Practice and Prospect (Land Lines Article)

Editor(s): Seltzer, Ethan and Armando Carbonell
Publication Date: April 2011

1 pages; Inventory ID LLA110406; English

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Article

New Lincoln Institute Book
Regional Planning in America: Practice and Prospect

We live in regions—territories defined primarily by function and only rarely by jurisdiction. The places where we work, live, shop, recreate, and socialize constitute a territory that seldom corresponds to a single town or city. Regional planning is concerned less with the exercise of jurisdiction and more with the search for new forms of habitation based on a clear commitment to advancing sustainability. Editors Ethan Seltzer and Armando Carbonell invited the other chapter contributors to assist a new generation of planning practitioners in understanding the roots and applications of regional planning in America today, and the prospects for its practice in the future.

Three central themes can be distilled from the work presented in Regional Planning in America. First is the critical task of defining the region—the initial necessity for all regional planning practice to establish an often complex set of overlapping attributes and concerns. Next comes organizing the region, because regional planners must go beyond being generalists with a specialty and become more like community organizers with a specialty. The third theme, sustaining the region, is accomplished by responding directly to the institutional challenges of sponsoring and acting on regional plans at multiple levels of government and through effective governance.

Regional planning, seen as both art and science, is probably best viewed as craft that is honed and understood through practice and reflection. The chapters suggest that future generations of regional planners will need to be able to understand local issues in a regional and global context; adept at defining planning regions based on functional planning problems; capable of reaching across boundaries to assess, identify, and act on common cause; and able to navigate the currents of power and create the lasting relationships and institutions that are needed to perform and implement plans.

The editors call for a “region ethic” that will advance the sustainability of the regions on which our existence will depend. As with Aldo Leopold’s land ethic, the region ethic is a call to recognize the central interdependencies that make our inhabitation of cities and landscapes possible. We are optimistic about the future role for regional planning in the United States and expect to see more, not less, regional activity in the coming decades. Helping U.S. regional planning to evolve will reward the best efforts of planning practitioners, educators, and researchers. Making the region ethic a tool for practice is, perhaps, the first step.

The state of our world and the realities of contemporary daily life make the case for robust regional planning. With regional planning practice in the United States settling into a new century, and the challenges that face communities and institutions requiring boundary-crossing collaboration like never before, it is time to assess what we know about regional planning practice in anticipation of an approaching new era of conscious regionalism. This book will be of value to planners, decision makers, and citizens confronting the need to plan regionally, but looking for guidance and inspiration for making that happen.

Contents

1. Planning Regions, Ethan Seltzer and Armando Carbonell

2. Plan with Nature: The Legacy of Ian McHarg, Frederick Steiner

3. A Region of One’s Own, Kathryn A. Foster

4. Planning for Equity, Fighting for Justice: Planners, Organizers, and the Struggle for Metropolitan Inclusion, Manuel Pastor and Chris Benner

5. Regional Planning on the Frontier, Deborah E. Popper and Frank J. Popper

6. Green Regions, Green Regionalism, Timothy Beatley

7. Regional Planning for Sustainability and Hegemony of Metropolitan Regionalism, Gerrit-Jan Knaap and Rebecca Lewis

8. Engaging the Public and Communicating Successfully in Regional Planning, John Fregonese and C. J. Gabbe

9. Moving Forward: The Promise of Megaregions and High-Speed Rail, Robert D. Yaro

10. Regional Practice, Regional Prospect, Ethan Seltzer and Armando Carbonell

About the Editors

Ethan Seltzer is professor in the Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning, College of Urban and Public Affairs, at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. Contact: seltzere@pdx.edu

Armando Carbonell is senior fellow and chair of the Department of Planning and Urban Form at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Contact: acarbonell@lincolninst.edu

Regional Planning in America: Practice and Prospect
Edited by Ethan Seltzer and Armando Carbonell
2011 / 296 pages / Paper / $35.00
ISBN: 978-1-55844-215-3

Ordering Information
Contact Lincoln Institute at www.lincolninst.edu