New Visions for Metropolitan America

Here, Anthony Downs discusses the largely unrecognized symbiosis of central cities and suburbs. As suburbs develop, he argues, their residents come to believe - wrongly - that their welfare no longer depends on the economic and social health of central cities' fiscal and social problems, even though they have helped to create those problems by deliberately excluding most low-income households from their own communities. Such continuation of unlimited sprawl can only further intensify the problems it generates. Downs proposes that Americans consider at least three alternative visions of metropolitan growth that he identifies as Bounded High-Density, Limited-Spread Mixed-Density, and New Communities and Green Belts.