Mark B. Lapping

Small town triage: a rural settlement policy for the American Midwest

Abstract The American Midwest of the 1980s has suffered from a depressed farm economy which has led to rural depopulation. Small towns of fewer than 2500 people have been especially hard hit, and state and federal government spending cuts will tend to accelerate the decline of these towns. The State of Iowa has a multitude of small towns struggling for survival. Iowa faces the choice of spreading public resources among many towns or concentrating those resources on a relative few. In fact, a key settlement policy may be emerging as a means to create growth centers in rural areas and thus limit depopulation and promote economic diversification. Potential growth centers and investment strategies need to be further identified so that state economic development funds can be targeted spent in the most cost-effective manner. This will require considerable regional and state planning and coordination in implementation.

Has Vermont's Land Use Control Program Failed? Evaluating Act 250

Abstract Vermonts land use control program, commonly known as Act 250, apparently is having difficulty in achieving its main goal: mitigating the negative environmental effects of development. This article contends that because the law was aimed at large-scale development, it has allowed environmentally damaging small-scale subdivisions to escape review. The law also has fostered large-lot subdivisions, which are detrimental to the future of farm and forestry operations. With respect to other goals of the law, it has not stemmed building activity in general or deterred land sales or purchases by out-of-state residents. In the long run, Vermont must regulate both large- and small-scale development to achieve its environmental and community protection goals.

The Status of Teaching on Voluntary Methods of Land Use Control in Planning Curricula

Given the pace of land conservation in North America, the increasing complexity of land protection transactions, the charged social and political scenarios that often attend restriction of development rights, and the impacts of land conservation on local taxation, it is clear that municipal planners should be conversant about methods for and implications of voluntary land conservation planning and practice. To evaluate the nature of teaching on these issues, we conducted a survey of accredited planning degree programs. Results suggest that among accredited planning education degree programs, there is significant room for improvement in quality and quantity of teaching about voluntary land conservation. Recommendations include making some currently elective courses required and introducing more varied and participatory teaching methods in current and new courses that cover these topic areas.

Planning for Sustainability: Creating Livable, Equitable, and Ecological Communities, The Sustainable Urban Development Reader, Drafting a Conservation Blueprint: A Practitioner’s Guide to Planning for Biodiversity

China. Although as the author notes there is a unified governance structure in the Shanghai megaurban region (p. 162), many reports reveal that competition rather than cooperation often dominated relations between Shanghai and its neighboring cities, especially in the globalization era in which competing for FDI is a popular development strategy of China’s local governments (The Yangtze River Delta Report Committee 2004). One obstacle to establishing a regional unified governance structure lies in “the governance structure” itself as conveyed in the Regime Theory. In governing a city, a local government has to build a coalition with the marketplace to manage limited resources. Both partners in the coalition have local interests—government representing local voters and the marketplace representing local businesses. In order to build a regional unified governance structure, however, various degrees of compromise by local member cities are required— which might be very difficult if not impossible to achieve. Based on precedents of established unified governance in Asian regions, Laquian suggests that first, efforts are needed to make member cities “appreciate the need for areawide coordinated action” (p. 412). Second, some kinds of interventions of higher levels of government (central or provincial/state) are needed to bring about coordinated action among local units. He further suggests that the establishment of unified regional governance might proceed in four stages, starting from a comprehensive regional planning process to an overarching metropolitan or regional organization in charge of coordination. Although the book has the subtitle of “the planning and governance of Asia’s mega-urban regions,” and several Asian’s megaurban regions have been examined, the author’s work seems like a normative model for planning and governance recommended to all regions and cities. His prescription for problems facing rapidly urbanizing Asian countries is a combination of solutions from both “urban planning” and “urban study” approaches: comprehensive and strategic planning to cover the whole region (rather than plans limited within fragmentations by political and administrative territories), and a holistic policy package taking all economic, social, political, administrative, and environmental factors into consideration (rather than separate individual policies). Another critical action is the establishment of a united governance structure with authority and power over local government units within the jurisdiction to promote cooperative efforts initiated by citizens in a participatory way. These recommendations are valuable and provide a potentially fruitful direction for planners as well as decision makers although there are likely to be obstacles to smooth implementation. In addition to the problem with governance structure, what makes a “universal governance model” complicated is the cultural backgrounds of various megaregions, as the author mentioned in the book. Cultural tradition defines underlying forces contributing to the regional governance structure. In the megaurban regions analyzed in the book, there are four distinct groups: the more developed East Asian countries (Japan and Korea); the centrally planned system (China and Vietnam); Southeast Asia (Indonesia and the Philippines); and, South Asia (India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan). Each megaregion has different religion as well as diverse cultural and political traditions so that no single governance structure could be introduced. A “best governance structure” that would be applicable to Asia and other parts of the world is even less feasible. For example, intervention by higher levels of government to “push” regional coordination practiced in some Asian regions has little political feasibility in countries like the United States. Based on the author’s rich knowledge and experience in Asian cities, the book is an important literature and ideal textbook to students in planning as well as in international studies.

Review: Remaking the North American Food System: Strategies for Sustainability, edited by C. Clare Hinrichs and Thomas A. Lyson. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2008. 384 pages.

City of Brotherly Love, let them eat cheesesteak.) In the end, one wonders if Currid’s emphasis on defending New York’s singular dominance in the global cultural economy precludes her from illustrating more general theories of how culture works in the urban milieu. The book itself provides something of a great place theory of history (as if New York needed a reminder of its urban preeminence and cultural power) without engaging in the kinds of comparative research seemingly necessary to verify its grandiose claims of New York’s incontestable superiority, no matter how intuitive such assertions may seem. Currid’s salute to New York reveals little about whether the kinds of urban forces discussed in The Warhol Economy operate in smaller cities with vibrant if quieter artistic and cultural reputations, including not only Philadelphia but Portland, Baltimore, Rochester, and of course (lest we forget), Warhol’s own hometown of Pittsburgh. These second-tier cities may not be the epicenters of cool, but like SoHo in the 1970s, they are inexpensive options for the art school hipster crowd, the punk rock drummer, and the designer with a dream. Just as New York represents the art capital of the second half of the twentieth century, they are the future birthplaces of buzz, and scholars of urban culture ignore them at their own peril.