ABSTRACT

"The mobs of great cities," observed Thomas Jefferson, "add just so much to pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body." 1 Many contemporary observers of America's metropolitan areas feel that Jefferson was right. In 1967, Robert Dahl commented on the failure of Americans to come to grips with an urban society.

City building is one of the most obvious incapacities of Americans. We Americans have become an urban people without having developed an urban civilization. Though we live in cities, we do not know how to build cities.... We seem to lack the innate grasp of the essential elements of the good city.... 2