Throughout the country-- in the Congress, in a number of states and in many large urban regions-- the question of who should decide land use is being debated. Over the past decade, the idea that regional planning should have some impact on land-use and transportation decisions has become generally accepted. Federal laws so state. It is clear that without regional planning, development patterns will not provide for public transportation, energy conservation, opportunities for all, open space preservation, an adequate housing supply, or renewed economic functions for the nation’s old cities-- all goals the nation professes. Yet in few places in the nation has regional planning had much impact.
This project has enabled Regional Plan Association to examine--here in the most complex urban region of all-- that gap between what Americans profess and what they do about regional planning. Regional Plan has tried to describe the gap as it occurs in the New York Urban Region, to identify some of the reasons for the gap, and to suggest some remedies. Metropolitan areas across the country are at various stages of responding to the need for regional planning, and we are aware that in most regions the perfection of the process is years away. This report, then, is not aimed at judging the past but at examining the obstacles to achieving the purposes and promise of regional planning in the Tri-State Region.