336 Big pictures
pattern as a generally more promising and lasting approach. If a particular
land use or mosaic of land uses makes good sense and is understood by the
public, that pattern is unlikely to be changed overnight. It has staying power
likely to be sustained. Of course if the land use does not make good sense or
is not known by many people, it is in jeopardy and in some cases should be
changed.
Land-use planning and regulatory approaches depend primarily on govern-
ment, and history has provided a complex array ofgovernmental arrangements
in urban regions. One might recognize a typical case of a region with a
central large city, other municipalities in the metropolitan area, a number
of satellite cities, numerous towns and villages, and some overlapping polit-
ical/administrative units, such as counties at intermediate spatial scales. Yet,
San Diego/Tijuana and Strasbourg (France) have urban regions that straddle
two nations, so regional policies must evolve through two governmental sys-
tems and cultures. Ottawa’s region straddles two provinces and Kansas City
(USA) two states, so differing province/state governments and allegiances are
involved in developing policy. The Cincinnati Region (USA) includes parts of
three states. In contrast, Beijing and Brisbane (Australia) each essentially have
asingle municipal government that controls the entire urban region. Regional
urban planning should be fairly easy for these cities. However, the overnight-
change issue exists and, with few checks-and-balances, a plan may be good
or bad. The Mexico City, Canberra, and Washington regions, in contrast, are
each within a separate federal district (outside of adjoining states/provinces)
so, in theory, they control their regions. But in practice, as national cap-
itals, their national governments have much say in planning or regional
thinking. As an interesting model, Hannover (Germany) governs its whole region,
with local governments for sub-areas.
London is an instructive case, because plans have been repeatedly drawn up
for thecity, and over time the area included has progressively grown. Today’s
London plans seem to be approaching, and in some cases exceeding, the urban
region of Color Figure 21. Today’s broad vision partially reflects population
growth,but more important and salutary is that it increasingly embraces natural
systems, their uses, and the threats to them. Drainage basins for water supply, a
passenger rail network beyond the city, more passenger airports, regional recre-
ational opportunities, and so forth are in the current plans. So, in comparing
theseveral preceding cities, the spatial arrangement of political/administrative
units and land uses emerges as a key determinant for policy and governance.
Adifferent approach, wherenational policytended tocreate the same pat-
ternaround many cities, is informative. In the twentieth century during the
Soviet era, the land around, for example, Bucharest, Berlin (Nelson2006), and
Moscow, was molded by strong central policy. Isolated buildings and clusters of