Regional reform in historic perspective: Metropolitan planning institutions in Detroit, 1950--1990.

Abstract

This case study examines the development of the institutions of planning and governance in one American metropolitan region in the late 20<super>th </super> century. It finds that metropolitan political actors built over time a system of complementary institutions, each unique in its structure, but each designed around the common goal of facilitating the kind of socio-economically stratified peripheral development known as urban sprawl. The individual histories of metropolitan Detroit's institutional mechanisms for road building, water provision, general local government, and transit service add up to a single narrative that offers new insight into the overall system of planning that guides the region's development to this day. A recurring cast of characters, including the elected leaders of the core city and suburbs, the metropolitan business community, and the state and federal governments, negotiated on a case-by-case basis the best institutional mechanism for executing each metropolitan function. The contemporary system of governing and planning metropolitan Detroit is, based on this history, most accurately viewed as a product of relatively recent policy making, responsive to the political imperatives of the metropolis itself. This case sharply complicates several assumptions that underlie contemporary debates on the possibilities of metropolitan planning to reign in urban sprawl. It finds the common distinction between local and regional power to be historically quite problematic, in that seemingly local institutions are so clearly organized around a regional mandate. It finds that the current institutional landscape for planning is just as much, if not moreso, a <italic>manifestation </italic> of the metropolitan political will as it is an impediment to the expression of that will. It argues, ultimately, that changing the trajectory of sprawling metropolitan development requires much more than tweaking the formal arrangements of governance and planning, but requires a more fundamental change in the underlying set of political preferences.