The Regional City

Readers interested in environmental issues and urban development should hungrily consume Peter Calthorpe and William Fulton's innovative contribution, The Regional City: Planning for the End of Sprawl. Authors of The Next American Metropolis and The Reluctant Metropolis, respectively, Calthorpe and Fulton argue that the design of our current metropolitan regions--inner cities surrounded by rings of isolated suburbs filled with malls and office parks--has placed our remaining land at considerable risk and exacerbates the divide between the rich and the poor. According to the authors, these ""edge cities"" have sprawled beyond human scale, and they suggest a regional model that they claim will offer a cleaner, more socially equitable U.S. for the 21st century.