A major national debate is under way about the effects of the regulation of development and land use patterns on metropolitan economies. Because this is often framed around whether sprawling development patterns are harmful or beneficial to the economy and environment, we are seemingly presented with an either/or choice. This article asserts that the debate misses the reality that metropolitan development occurs as part of a complex system. If we view metropolitan development as a complex system, there is no fundamental conflict between environmental goals and economic development. Examining the case of California, the authors demonstrate how the relationship between these is part of a larger system involving fiscal policy, governance structure, infrastructure policy, and other factors. The authors propose three strategies for improving metropolitan system performance to ensure sustainable metropolitan economies and environments: developing and using indicators for self-organizing urban systems, collaboration and consensus building among metropolitan stakeholders, and metropolitan leadership.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
American Farmland Trust . (1995). Alternatives for future urban growth in California’s Central Valley: The bottom line for agriculture and taxpayers. Washington, DC: Author.
2.
Argyris, C. , & Schön, D. A. (1974). Theory in practice: Increasing professional effectiveness. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
3.
Bank of America . (1995). Beyond sprawl: New patterns of growth to fit the new California. San Francisco, CA: Author.
4.
Bennis, W. (1989). On becoming a leader. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
5.
Blakely, E. , & Snyder, M. G. (1997). Fortress America: The rise of gated communities. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
6.
Booher, D. (1997). Reforming California’s governance for the next millennium. Western City, 73(10), 4-8.
7.
Bryson, J. M. , & Crosby, B. C. (1992). Leadership for the common good: Tackling public problems in a shared power world. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
8.
California Constitution Revision Commission . (1996). Final report and recommendations to the governor and legislature. Sacramento, CA: Author.
9.
California Planning Roundtable . (1997). Restoring the balance: Managing fiscal issues and land use planning decisions in California. San Diego, CA: Author.
10.
Capra, F. (1982). The turning point. New York: Simon & Schuster.
11.
Capra, F. (1996). The web of life: A new scientific understanding of living systems. New York: Anchor.
12.
Castells, M. (1996). The information age: Economy, society and culture. Vol. 1: The rise of the network society. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
13.
Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy . (1997). California economic growth 1997. Palo Alto, CA: Author.
14.
Courtney, H. , Kirkland, J., & Viguerie, P. (1997). Strategy under uncertainty. Harvard Business Review, 75(6), 67-79.
15.
de Neufville, J. I. (1975). Social indicators and public policy: Interactive processes of design and application. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier.
16.
Devaney, R. (1989). An introduction to chaotic dynamical systems. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
17.
Dodge, W. R. (1996). Regional excellence: Governing together to compete globally and flourish locally. Washington, DC: National League of Cities.
18.
Downs, A. (1994). New visions for metropolitan America. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
19.
Dresch, M. , & Sheffrin, S. (1997). Who pays for development fees and exactions?San Francisco: Public Policy Institute of California.
20.
Ewing, R. (1997). Is Los Angeles style sprawl desirable?Journal of the American Planning Association, 63(1), 107-126.
21.
Farson, R. (1996). Management of the absurd: Paradoxes in leadership. New York: Simon & Schuster.
22.
Fisher, R. , & Ury, W. (1981). Getting to yes: Negotiating agreement without giving in. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
23.
Fulton, W. (1997). The reluctant metropolis: The politics of urban growth in Los Angeles. Point Arena, CA: Solano.
24.
Giddens, A. (1994). Beyond left and right: The future of radical politics. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
25.
Godschalk, D. (1992). Negotiating intergovernmental development policy conflicts: Practice based guidelines. Journal of the American Planning Association, 58(3), 368-378.
26.
Gordon, P. , & Richardson, H. (1997). Are compact cities a desirable goal?Journal of the American Planning Association, 63(1), 95-106.
27.
Handy, C. (1990). The age of unreason. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
28.
Handy, C. (1994). The age of paradox. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
29.
Holland, J. (1995). Hidden order: How adaptation builds complexity. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
30.
Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the wild. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
31.
Hwang, S. W. (1996). The implications of the nonlinear paradigm for integrated environmental design and planning. Journal of Planning Literature, 11, 167-180.
32.
Innes, J. E. (1992). Group processes and the social construction of growth management: Florida, Vermont and New Jersey. Journal of the American Planning Association, 58(4), 440-453.
33.
Innes, J. E. (1996, October). Indicators for collective learning: Rethinking planning for complex systems. Paper presented at the 50th anniversary conference, Department of Town and Country Planning, University of Newcastle, UK.
34.
Innes, J. E. , Gruber, J., Neuman, M., & Thompson, R. (1994). Coordinating growth and environmental management through consensus building (CPS report: A Policy Research Program report). Berkeley: University of California, California Policy Seminar.
35.
Kauffman, S. (1995). At home in the universe: The search for the laws of complexity. London: Viking.
36.
Kelly, K. (1994). Out of control: The rise of the neobiological civilization. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
37.
Kiel, D. (1991). Lessons from the nonlinear paradigm: Applications of the theory of dissipative structures in the social sciences. Social Science Quarterly, 72, 431-442.
38.
Kirp, D. L. , Dwyer, J. P., & Rosenthal, L. A. (1995). Our town: Race, housing, and the soul of suburbia. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
39.
Lewin, R. (1992). Complexity: Life at the edge of chaos. New York: Macmillan.
40.
Little Hoover Commission . (1995). Making land use work: Rules to reach our goals. Sacramento, CA: Author.
41.
Mattoon, R. H. (1995). Can alternative forms of governance help metropolitan areas?Economic Perspectives (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago), 19(6), 20-32.
42.
Myers Richter, A. From compliance to competitive advantage: The effect of corporate culture and profitability on environmental performance. Unpublished dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.
43.
New Jersey Office of State Planning . (1992). Impact assessment of New Jersey interim state development and redevelopment plan. Trenton: State of New Jersey.
44.
Nicolis, G. , & Prigogine, I. (1989). Exploring complexity. New York: Freeman.
45.
Osborne, D. , & Gaebler, T. (1992). Reinventing government: How the entrepreneurial spirit is transforming the public sector. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
46.
O’Toole, J. (1995). Leading change: The argument for values based leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
47.
Prigogine, I. , & Stengers, I. (1984). Order out of chaos. New York: Bantam.
48.
Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books.
49.
Schrag, P. (1998). Paradise lost: California’s experience, America’s future. New York: Free Press.
50.
Scott, J. C. (1998). Seeing like a state: How certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
51.
Senge, P. M. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. New York: Doubleday.
52.
Skaburskis, A. (1995). The consequences of taxing land value. Journal of Planning Literature, 10(1), 3-21.
53.
Soros, G. (1997). The capitalist threat. The Atlantic Monthly, 279(2), 45-58.
54.
Teilhard de Chardin, P. (1959). The phenomenon of man. New York: Harper & Row.
55.
Waldrop, M. M. (1992). Complexity: The emerging science at the edge of chaos. New York: Simon & Schuster.
56.
Wheatley, M. (1992). Leadership and the new science. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.
