Urban-region planning 45of relatively slow population growth, today’s Canberra region remains relatively
viable. In contrast, Brasilia rapidly outgrew the planner’s vision, an ironic mea-
sure of success. Today Brasilia’s much larger urban region displays rather few
marks of effective overall planning.
Urban-region planning
Regional planning, such as a regional rail-transportation system or the
TVAdam system (Tennessee, USA), was introduced in Chapter1.Here planning of
urban regions lies center stage (Geddes 1915, MacKaye 1940, Barker and Sutcliffe
1993,Steiner 1994, Simmonds and Hack2000,Ravetz2000,Hall2002). Issues
addressed, such as water supply, wastes, and commuter routes to recreation
areas, are no longer solvable by cities or even metropolitan areas (Rowe 1991,
Simmonds and Hack2000,Tresset al.2004, Ozawa2004,Berger2006). Even
where the planning imprint is strong, much of a region’s form has resulted
from uneven finer-scale plans, and particularly from little-planned or unplanned
forces. Consider briefly some urban region examples, from Beijing to Boston.
Examples and approaches
Beijing is unusual because essentially one strong central government
controls and plans the entire urban region outward to about 100 km (65 mi) from
the center city(Sit1995,GuandKesteloot1998,Chenet al.2004,Yang2004). A
prominent concentric ring-road form, like progressively larger hula hoops, pro-
vides both major benefits and problems. Parts of the seventh ring road are under
construction and attempts to stitch in greenways are underway. A huge increase
in vehicles and traffic, tree planting, removal of old buildings, soft-coal burn-
ing for power, air pollution, and greenhouse gas production characterizes this
centrally planned urban region. Brisbane (Australia) also has a single centralized
government for its region (Troy1996).
Such strongcentralized planning,which avoids the multiple-stakeholder process
and proverbial least-common-denominator committee-report plan, is faster and
better able to produce big change. Yet without checks-and-balances, the result
may be good or bad, often depending on the degree of subsequent acceptance
by the public.
Moscow, Berlin, and Bucharest illustrate a quite-different conspicuous pat-
tern,whereby essentially only large agricultural fields and large wooded areas
cover the urban-region ring, a product of a long strong Soviet-dominated plan-
ning process. London’s greenbelt and Portland’s (USA) urban growth boundary
are both products of government policy and planning (Munton1983,Hall2002,
Avin andBayer2003,Ozawa2004). Stockholm, Copenhagen, Melbourne, and
perhaps in the future Nanjing City (China) are notable for prominent greenspace