Lewis Mumford and the Ecological Region: The Politics of Planning

by Mark Luccarelli

Well known for his column in The New Yorker , Lewis Mumford is widely regarded as the foremost urban critic of this century. Through historical and theoretical perspectives, author Mark Luccarelli traces the development of Mumford's thought on regional planning focusing on his pioneering concept of an ecologically-based region and shows how he attempted to turn his ideas into reality through the Regional Planning Association of America (RPAA). This informative book also demonstrates how Mumford's ideas remain extraordinarily relevant and valuable to today's urban problems.

230 pages, Paperback

First published November 17, 1995

Reviews

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really incisive book about Mumford's legacy - part intellectual biography, part historical reflection on the role of Regionalism - particularly the RPA (Regional Planning Association of America). Positions Mumford's ideas both in terms of historical traditions like Emerson, Thoreau, and his contemporaries in the Garden Cities and Neighbourhood planning (eg Clarence Stein) movements. It's certainly not uncritical, and traces the shortfalls in Mumford's ideas, and development/complexification of them as he interacted with the ideas of Jane Jacobs etc later in life.

Luccarelli also draws relevance of Mumford's ideas for today, linking them to modern streams of planning thought such as Calthorpe's Transit Oriented Development (Re-regionalisation of our existing metropolises).