The Case For Scatteration: Some Reflections on the National Capital RegionPlan for the Year 2000

The gradual filling in of communities—scatteration—provides flexibility in urban development. A quick filling in—compaction, as exemplified in the Year 2000 Plan—loads the community with the fashions of today, the obsolescences of tomorrow. It reduces the amount and interspersal of uncommitted space: vacant or containing removable (relatively old) structures. This chokes off the possibilities for adaptive reconstruction essential in our world of furious but unforeseeable change, and produces long-run inefficiencies, unwarranted blight, and segregation of the poor. A city which incorporates, channels, and increases scatteration encourages efficient adaptation to change. It also offers a supply of housing in which residential mixing of poor and middle class is feasible and large-scale segregation is not feasible.