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451 Annals Am. Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci. vii (1980)

handle is hein.cow/anamacp0451 and id is 1 raw text is: PREFACE Contributions to this issue of THE ANNALS concentrate on the changes in the city systems of the United States and of Europe and the challenges these changes present to planning on both continents. Some case examples indi- cate possible solutions. CHANGING CITIES The first set of contributions (by de Sola Pool, Berry, Rabin, Frieden, Hall, and Drewett) describes and analyses the changes taking place in urban systems. In some contributions this analysis is spatial or functional. In others, it is centered on social and political factors and could be considered structural. The opening contribution by I. de Sola Pool looks at the impact of new technologies in telecommunications on the city system. It shows that when both transport and telecommunications were cheap, the effect was cen- trifugal, which means that people and jobs moved away from cities to periph- eral areas where land was cheaper and space more plentiful. However, when energy becomes scarce and transportation more ex- pensive, the effect tends to be centripetal, which means that people tend to live closer to their jobs and that activities tend to cluster in urban centers. The advent of cheaper telecommunications will act as a brake on these centripetal forces. In any event, it seems clear that telecommunications technology will have a tremendous effect on urban systems by increasing the flow of information among people-what Max Webber called proximity without propinquity. This should increase the movement of people within the urban system, both in America and Europe. Brian J. L. Berry describes the forces at work in the United States that are causing an increasing number of people to move from the cities to non- metropolitan areas and from the northern states toward the sunbelt. His contribution describes the latest position in studies on the urbanization and disurbanization process in the United States. Yale Rabin concentrates on the decision-making structure which has en- couraged the outflow from the cities described by Berry and the overwhelm- ing influence of the Highway Development Acts as well as the programs which were a direct result of these acts. These limited-purpose highway programs have been sustained by massive federal funding and democrati- cally-embedded and technologically-intimidating planning methodol- ogies that left no room for alternatives to urban sprawl. Bernard Frieden illustrates how the forces favorable to urban sprawl in the United States have been indirectly enhanced the the environmental movement itself. This movement has been supported strongly by com- munities trying to avoid overcrowding due to newcomers and has led to a reduction in density and to an increase in sprawl. Peter Hall shows from the results of his study just published under the title Growth Centres in the European Urban System that the European reality is remarkably different from the American one. Eighty-five percent of Europeans live and 98 percent work in metropolitan areas. His definition of these areas is admittedly more inclusive than Berry's. Moreover, the diversity of urban situations to be found in Europe is shaped by its long history, and there is great heterogeneity among European countries in state vii

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