Regional Plan Association
| Regional Plan Association | |
|---|---|
 | |
 31-county area[1] | |
| Abbreviation | RPA |
| Formation | 1922 |
| Type | Non-Profit |
| Purpose/focus | Regional planning |
| Headquarters | New York, New York |
| Region served | Greater New York City metropolitan area, USA |
| President | Robert Yaro |
| Website | Regional Plan Association |
The Regional Plan Association (RPA) is an independent, not-for-profit regional planning organization, founded in 1922, that focuses on recommendations to improve the quality of life and economic competitiveness of a 31-county New York-New Jersey-Connecticut region.[1] Its main office is in New York City, and it has separate Connecticut, Long Island, and New Jersey offices.
First plan
RPA's First Plan in 1929, developed under the leadership of Thomas Adams, provided a guide for the area's road and transportation network.[2]
Second plan
The Second Plan, completed in 1968, aimed at restructuring mass transit and reinvigorating deteriorating urban centers.
Third plan
The RPA's Third Regional Plan, issued in 1996, "A Region at Risk," recommended improving regional mass transit, increasing protection of open space and maintaining employment in traditional urban centers.
Philosophy
The RPA program represents a philosophy of planning described by historian Robert Fishman as "metropolitanism," associated with the Chicago School of Sociology. It promotes large scale, industrial centers and the concentration of population rather than decentralized development. Its critics point out that this results in windfall real estate profits for downtown interests. Whether this approach to regional planning is efficient, particularly because of the infrastructure and energy required to sustain such concentration, has been questioned by scholars including James Howard Kunstler.[2]
See also
Footnotes
References
- Danielson, Michael N.; Doig, Jameson W. (1982). New York The Politics of Urban Regional Development. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. pp. 1–352. ISBN 0-520-04371-5. OCLC 300399555.
- Fishman, Robert (2000). "Chapter 3: The Metropolitan Tradition in American Planning". In Fishman, Robert. The American Planning Tradition: Culture and Policy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 65–88. ISBN 0-943875-95-1. OCLC 606524089.
Further reading
- Hiss, Tony; Yaro, Robert (1996). A region at risk: the third regional plan for the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut metropolitan area. Washington, D.C.: Island Press. p. 281. ISBN 1-55963-492-8. OCLC 474182259.
- Johnson, David A. (1995). Planning the Great Metropolis: The 1929 regional plan of New York and its environs. London: Routledge. p. 299. ISBN 0-419-19010-4. OCLC 473189260.