ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the internal characteristics of the US metropolis and the role of urban planning. The US metropolis is the most prominent example of urban development unfettered by any deeply rooted pre-industrial urban structure or nineteenth-century industrial urban structure. The salient features of the US metropolis include: an image of physical opulence and wide consumer choice, social inequality and spatial segregation, a high level of mobility based on auto use, poverty and residential displacement in central cities, and the pre-eminence of private space. The US metropolis reflects a regime of urbanization based on a loosely regulated real estate market, the reification of profit, and conspicuous individualized consumption. In appearance, the US metropolis seems to be an open city, a sprawling display of wealth without walls, a place with vast opportunities for residential, employment and transportation mobility not found in other parts of the world.
