We are at an interesting juncture in U.S. metropolitan development. As metropolitan areas grow and become decentralized, severe metropolitan problems seem to thwart both national and local attempts at solution.
National solutions are often too generic and ill-fitting to be effective.
Local solutions are often too narrow, not taking into account cross jurisdictional impacts, or too reactive, rather than prospective. The decentralization of our metropolitan areas has been one of the dominant social trends of the past half century. During the last 20 years alone, the total population of the large cities in the 39 largest metropolitan areas has increased by only about 1 million people, while the total suburban population in these same areas has increased by more than 30 million people. The United States is becoming a metropolitan nation where a majority of the population lives and works in large urbanized areas that include both historic central cities and inner and outer rings of suburban development. With this suburbanization has come a decentralization of the economic base.