ABSTRACT
The spatial patterns of american urban settlements are going to be considerably more dispersed, varied, and space-consuming than they ever were in the past—whatever metropolitan planners or anyone else may try to do about it. It is quite likely that most of the professional commentators will look upon this development with considerable disfavor, since these patterns will differ so markedly from our ideological precepts. But disparate spatial dispersion seems to be a built-in feature of the future—the complement of the increasing diversity that is coming to mark the processes of the nation's economy, its politics, and its social life. In addition, it seems to be the counterpart of a chain of technological developments that permit spatial separation of closely related people.
