URBAN SPRAWL AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENTA COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE LOS ANGELES METROPOLITAN AREA AND THE RHINE-RUHR REGION
Introduction | Objectives | Significance of Study | Questions to be addressed
Introduction
The term urban sprawl is commonly used today to describe the dispersed and shapeless urban pattern that is typical of large urban agglomerations in different parts of the world. Even though they have different history and lineage, with considerable variation in their initial patterns, increasingly they are beginning to look similar, or at least are facing the same forces of globalization that contribute to sprawl-like development. In the face of such inexorable pressures of urban growth and sprawl, a critical understanding of the role of regional land use policy, institutional innovations, and regulatory mechanisms to contain and guide future urban growth in a sustainable manner is essential for successful public policy.
Differences in culture and political economy usually explain the differences in comparative planning systems, and the regulatory mechanisms and authorities that determine the respective urban outcomes. In most cases tight land use control, the traditional way of containing urban sprawl seem to lose out against vested political and economic interests. Increasingly, however, we see efforts by localities across cultures to structure and contain the menace of urban sprawl through innovative ideas of sustainable development. These include higher density mixed-use and in-fill development, adaptive reuse of abandoned or obsolete industrial structures and "brown fields", public-private partnership, alternative modes of transportation, transit oriented spatial development or transit villages, new urbanism, and the like. Los Angeles continues to occupy the center stage of the on-going sprawl debate.
Proponents of the compact city and new urbanism consider Los Angeles an epitome of sprawl, an example of unplanned, unchecked, profligate, and profit-driven urban growth. Defenders of Los Angeles, however, argue that: (a) Los Angeles is not necessarily a case of sprawl, it is neither unplanned, nor low density; and (b) the polycentric and diffused urban form of Los Angeles is an inexorable outcome of market choices, and hence represents individual liberty, freedom, and the preeminence of property rights. The first argument is made by urban historians like Starr (1991) and more recently, Hise (1998), who have argued that Los Angeles is not unplanned, and indeed it never was. Its dispersed and polycentric urban form was a product of an aristocratic dream of transforming a Latino land to an Anglo city, and of oligarchic decision-making involving location of major industries in the first half of the last century.
The second argument is captured in the debate between Ewing (1997) and Richardson and Gordon (1997), which have caught much national media attention, and stands in stark contrast with the views of local critics of the Los Angeles urban form and urbanism, such as Soja and Scott (1992), Davis (1992, 1999) and others. Arguments of Richardson and Gordon (1997) also include a critique of compact city, and its claims. Interestingly, within the defenders of Los Angeles, the libertarian defense of its urban form seem to contradict the argument that Los Angeles is a product of vision and deliberate planning. Top
Objectives
We submit that it would be an important and timely contribution to the current debate to undertake a study of the Los Angeles sprawl in an international comparative perspective, and to explore the transferability of appropriate innovations and "best practices". In this spirit we propose a collaborative study and a faculty colloquium on the theme of urban sprawl and sustainable development. This study will be jointly conducted by the Fakultät Raumplanung (Faculty of Spatial Planning) of the University of Dortmund located in the heart of the Rhine-Ruhr region of Germany, and the School of Policy, Planning, and Development of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. This study will involve a collaborative laboratory-workshop to be offered in the spring of 2001. This joint studio-workshop will involve visit by the USC faculty and graduate students in policy, planning, and development to Germany, and that of Dortmund students and faculty to the U.S.
The faculty members principally responsible for this joint laboratory-workshop are Prof. Klaus R. Kunzmann, the Jean Monnet Professor for European Spatial Planning representing the University of Dortmund, and Prof. Tridib Banerjee, James Irvine Chair of Urban and Regional Planning representing USC. Prof. Klaus Kunzmann will be joined by his colleagues, Prof. Christiane Zeigler-Hennings, Prof. Gerd Hennings and Prof. Graham Cass. Prof. Banerjee will be joined by his colleague, Prof. Niraj Verma. Top
Significance of Study
The two study regions in the US and Germany respectively compare quite well as far as overall urban form is concerned: The urban form of greater Los Angeles region is most commonly associated with automobile, smog, and sprawl, although the roots of its dispersed urban pattern were planted before the era of automobile. Today it is characterized by a polycentric urban form connected by over six hundred miles of extensive freeway network -- an antithesis to the ideals of compact city. The Los Angeles area has been called a "fragmented metropolis," (Fogelson, 1993) because of its highly differentiated political space consigned to five counties, 184 municipalities, and hundreds of special districts and agencies.
The Rhine Ruhr region is a polycentric urban agglomeration of about the same size as greater Los Angeles (60 miles by 60 miles) and a population of about 12 million in the state of Northrhine Westphalia. It comprises thriving cities as Bonn, Colgne, Düsseldorf along the Rhine River, and Duisberg, Essen, Bochum, and Dortmund in the Ruhr, cities which are undergoing considerable structural change. The region is politically fragmented, and like in the Los Angeles area, has no joint planning and development authority.
Despite superficial similarities between the two sprawl systems, there are significant differences in their urban patterns. If the appropriate metaphor to describe Los Angeles sprawl is an "urban mosaic", the metaphor for the Rhine-Ruhr sprawl is an "urban galaxy" (cf. Lynch, 1954). The former refers to a system of autonomous and adjacent political spaces connected by a network of freeways and arterial streets, while the latter describes a system of contiguous townships interconnected by a highly efficient network of inter-city heavy rail, and intra-city light rail network. Regional planning and sustainable urban development supported by effective public transport policies have very much contained urban development within city boundaries. A considerable stock of brown fields is available for the city development across the region.
The aim of this study is to compare and contrast the Los Angeles sprawl and its causes and consequences with that of the Rhine-Ruhr sprawl as a preliminary exploration, with the understanding that it may help define the scope of more detailed studies later on. We also propose to explore the transferability of the Rhine-Ruhr examples of "best practices" of sustainable development in managing future growth and promoting in-fill development of the Los Angeles region. This is to be achieved in two ways. The first task is to document the urban form characteristics of the study regions: their growth pattern, density gradients, land use distribution by localities, circulation systems, configurations of political spaces, and the like. The second task will comprise documenting appropriate case studies of brown field reuse, transit oriented urban form and urbanism, and larger public policies containing sprawl. These examples will be presented and discussed in a public faculty colloquium. Top
Questions to be addressed
The proposed study is expected to embellish, if not enlighten, the on-going discourse on Los Angeles and sprawl, which is often quite polarized, and certainly far from being conclusive or exhaustive. In fact the on-going debate can certainly use more objective analysis of the nature of sprawl, its definition, measures, and structural characteristics. More significantly, the discourse needs to focus on the political economy of the Los Angeles urban form, in particular its Tieboutian world of public choice (see for example, Ostrom, Tiebout, and Warren, 1961). This study expects to present an analysis of the land use characteristics of the 88 cities of the Los Angeles County, and discuss the land use profiles of groupings of cities obtained through a cluster analysis. Such analysis may demonstrate that the urban form of sprawl as epitomized by Los Angeles is more an outcome of public choice and public policy, rather than pure market processes as some protagonists claim. The study may further argue that the outcome of sprawl might not be Pareto optimal, thus raising the specter of metropolitan governance in the face of sprawl. This dimension of metropolitan management seems to have eluded the advocates of compact cities and new urbanism.
The actual scope of the study, while grounded in the larger common interests in sprawl and sustainable development may be somewhat different for the Dortmund and USC faculty and students. In fact, the activities during the reciprocal visits will reflect some of these differences. For example, during their Germany visit the USC students will expect to learn the following: measures of local growth control; adaptive reuse of obsolete industrial sites and brown fields; effective uses of public transportation and higher density developments; transportation-land use linkages; the hierarchy of cities; and the like. The Dortmund students are more likely to learn the following from their Los Angeles visit: the role of developers in urban development; autonomy in local governance; the growing partnerships between the public, private, and non-profit sectors in solving urban problems; neighborhood empowerment movements; recent examples of new urbanist developments; local efforts at sustainable development; privately developed planned communities like Irvine or Valencia; and so on. Top