The spark which ignited the public consultation process described in this report was a suggestion by a distinguished advisory committee to the Harvard economic studies at its final meeting on June 30, 1959. The Committee recommended that Regional Plan take all its findings to a broader public than the Association had ever before reached, including use of educational television. This concept was pressed forward by Amory H. Bradford, then…
This video was produced by Nate Dorr and RPA and aired during the RPA Centennial Assembly on May 6, 2022 to commemorate the organization’s 100th anniversary.
The Second Plan in Context
By the early 1960s, the recommendations of RPA’s First Regional Plan were largely implemented, with one glaring exception: the transit connections. The failure of the region to invest in transit, along with an explosive growth in car ownership and Federal policies that supported new construction outside of city centers, led to the unprecedented suburbanization of the New York region after World War II.
- The economic base of the region shifted. In the 1930s, 55 percent of the region’s population growth was in New York City. After World War II, there was a massive move to the suburbs - in just 15 years, the suburban population doubled. The number of jobs in the suburbs also grew, while at the same time, manufacturing jobs rapidly left New York City.
- This migration was enabled a highway network that had tripled in size between 1945 and 1969. As more people purchased cars, ridership on public transportation plummeted.
- Land consumption in the region skyrocketed. The surface area of developed land in the region more than tripled between 1935 and 1965. Residents occupied four times as much land in 1965 than in the three decades prior. Open, undeveloped natural spaces were becoming a finite resource.
Multiple Reports, One Plan
The Second Regional Plan consisted of a series of comprehensive reports on the challenges facing the region in the 1960s. The reports ranged from analytical studies on the economic and demographic features of the region to specific case studies that illustrated novel ideas advanced in the Plan, such as more public participation in planning and the redevelopment of regional city centers.
A Radical Central Tenet
At a time when the general consensus was that the automobile-enabled decentralization of growth was good, the Second Regional Plan called for building the transit network necessary for regional city centers to thrive. The Plan identified and quantified the alarming trends caused by sprawl, including environmental degradation and decline of the region’s older city centers. It proposed a bold program of concentration of employment in cities. RPA called for Manhattan to be the commercial and financial hub of the region, and for regional city centers such as Downtown Brooklyn, Jamaica, Newark, New Brunswick, Paterson, Stamford and others to grow and thrive.
Major Reports of The Second Regional Plan
We interpret the report’s major recommendations in this way: Investment in public services devoted to improving conditions for the poor should be more than doubled in order to break the cycle of poverty which tends to keep the children of the poor as dependent and impoverished as their parents were - an increase nationally in governmental expenditures from $11.5 billion in 1967 to about $26.5 billion (in 1967 dollars). In the New York Region’s…
While this is a preliminary study, focused mainly on developing a procedure for waste management analysis, some tentative conclusions emerge. Even without added population, upward trends in per capita waste generation and increasing public demands for improved environmental quality-particularly the cutting down of air and water pollution will require much greater attention to waste management. However, the potential for improving waste…
This report projects key characteristics of the New York Metropolitan Region to the year 2000: population, jobs, households, and incomes. It also places the growth of the New York Region in the context of urbanization in the world and in the Atlantic Urban Region (the eastern seaboard between Washington and Boston).
This staff report is the first of several dealing with environmental quality. It explores urban design principles through which man-made development and natural beauty can be combined successfully. While the Lower Hudson is a unique area in the Region, the approach to the problems and opportunities there is applicable to other old industrial riverfronts ripe for redevelopment.
One of the main policies emerging from Regional Plan Association’s work toward a Second Regional Plan is the recommendation that activities which draw people from relatively long distances should be grouped close together in a planned relationship to each other and to transportation - a new version of “downtown.” Large centers of office jobs, higher education, major shopping, health services and entertainment will be needed in many parts of the…
The accelerated growth of cities and the constant need for expanded business space have become characteristic of all highly developed economies and will remain a continuing factor in the urban environment everywhere. How to accommodate this growth efficiently, gracefully, and with concern for human values is the challenge which this book seeks to explore. Urban Design Manhattan, prepared by Rai Y. Okamoto and Frank E. Williams, Urban Design…
The Future of the Counties
RPA released a series of place-based supplemental reports for the Second Regional Plan. From 1969 through 1974, RPA released reports on Connecticut counties such as Fairfield; New Jersey Counties such as Bergen, Passaic, Middlesex, and Morris; and New York counties such as Dutchess, Nassau, Orange, Suffolk, and Westchester.
Through meetings, conversations, and workshops involving thousands of volunteers, RPA identified the major concerns that formed the backbone of the Second Regional Plan.
The Second Regional Plan broadened the concept of public participation from simple dissemination of proposals to community engagement and consultation. This new approach consisted of several steps: preparation of basic projections for the region’s future, creation of sketches based on these projections illustrating what the living conditions might be like if present trends and policies continued, and presentation of the sketches to the public in organized meetings and workshops. RPA also coordinated a 125-member Committee, composed of civic, business, educational, labor, professional, and religious leaders, to provide feedback on the Plan.
In 1968, RPA presented the Second Regional Plan as draft for discussion to around 1000 individuals in New York, who then broke out into smaller groups to discuss the issues raised and fill out questionnaires. Concerns raised by residents included: a growing separation of rich and poor, inadequate housing, long commutes, racial segregation, the loss of green space, and a lack of a sense of community.
The public participation approach used by RPA in the Second Regional Plan provided a template for community engagement in urban planning.
To create the Second Regional Plan, RPA used then cutting edge technology – television – to expand the public planning process. Here are frames from two short movies illustrating mobility options.
The Second Regional Plan introduced some key urban planning concepts that are still relevant today:
- “Only public transportation investment can help the motorist out of congestion.” In the Second Regional Plan, RPA clearly articulated that providing additional roadway capacity in a dense region would not improve conditions, as new drivers would quickly fill up any additional space.
- The Plan called for varied housing types and income groups in each community, and for housing to be near employment and retail – what today is called mixed-income, mixed-use neighborhoods.
Major recommendations of the Second Regional Plan that continue to shape the region include:
Federal Support for Urban Mass Transit
The federal Urban Mass Transportation Act adopted RPA’s principle of federal support for capital costs for urban mass transit. By ensuring adequate funding, the region’s transit agencies were able to plan for the long term. RPA supported the formation of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which brought together the subway, bus, commuter rail, and many bridge-and-tunnel toll facilities under one roof.
Traci Lawson
A Renewed Lower Hudson River Area
The Second Regional Plan identified the need to develop better infrastructure, housing, and public parks in the Lower Hudson area. Its vision for Manhattan, Hoboken, and Jersey City has largely become reality, with better transit, an attractive waterfront, and mixed-use development.
A. V. Flores
Regional Centers Revived
The Second Regional Plan highlighted the issues facing regional city centers of rising taxes, disinvestment, and growing segregation. The Plan recommended more investment in public services, such as increased funding for education, and advocated for greater federal share in these investments. It also proposed patterns of urbanization that would focus development in regional city centers that would lead to greater access to jobs and higher education for low-income residents and communities of color. RPA called for the revival of regional centers such as Downtown Brooklyn, Jamaica, Newark, New Brunswick, Paterson, and Stamford.
J. J. Bers
Preserving and Protecting Natural Spaces
RPA called for an aggressive program to acquire, protect, and permanently preserve natural landscapes for future generations. Between 1961 and 1973, local governments in the region acquired 210 square miles of additional parkland, including $2 million in federal funds for acquisitions directly conforming to RPA proposals. Significant acquisitions included the creation of several new national and state parks, including Fire Island National Seashore. RPA led the effort to create Gateway National Recreation Center, which in 1972 became the first major federal recreation area in an urban setting.
National Park Service
Acknowledgements
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Other Reports in this Series
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