Myron Orfield is Executive Director of the Metropolitan Area Research Corporation, a Minnesota State Senator,
and an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota Law School.
Summary
In 1998, Myron Orfield introduced a revolutionary program for combating the seemingly inevitable decline of
America's metropolitan communities. Through a combination of demographic research, state-of-the-art mapping, and
resourceful, pragmatic politics, his groundbreaking book, Metropolitics, revealed how the different regions of
St. Paul and Minneapolis pulled together to create a regional government powerful enough to tackle the community's
problems of sprawl and urban decay.
Orfield's new work, American Metropolitics, applies the next generation of cutting-edge research on a much broader
scale. The book provides an eye-opening analysis of the economic, racial, environmental, and political trends of
the 25 largest metropolitan regions in the United States--which contain more than 45 percent of the U.S. population.
Using detailed maps and case studies, Orfield demonstrates that growing social separation and wasteful sprawling
development patterns are harming regional citizens wherever they live.
The first section of the book, "Metropatterns," illustrates a common pattern of growing social separation
and wasteful sprawling development throughout the country--a condition that limits opportunity for the poor (particularly
people of color), diminishes the quality of life for most Americans, and threatens our fragile environment. It
also shows how these patterns reveal the existence of three types of suburban communities--those at risk of social
and economic decline, those struggling to pay for rapid growth, and a very small number of places that enjoy the
benefits of economic growth with few social costs. Ironically, this last group is often the center of the movement
against sprawl. "Metropolicy," the second section, analyzes past policies and programs that have attempted--and
failed--to address the challenges of concentrated poverty, sprawl, and inequitable distribution of resources. Orfield
lays out a comprehensive regional agenda to address these problems, with solutions for land use planning from a
regional perspective, greater fiscal equity among local governments (with an emphasis on reinvestment in the central
cities and older suburbs), and improved governance at the regional level that will help facilitate the development
of policies to benefit all types of metropolitan communities. The third section, "Metropolitics," discusses
examples of political strategies that have led to successful programs on land use planning, tax equity, and regional
governance. Using detailed analysis of 1990's election data it identifies and maps the nation's swing political
jurisdictions which are overwhelmingly in at-risk and growth-stressed suburbs. Finally, the book draws a new and
incisive picture of the political structure of U.S. metropolitan regions, and lays out a series of strategies for
moving regional reform efforts forward.
With detailed maps of conditions in each metropolitan region, comprehensive data on existing conditions and voter
attitudes, and bold, innovative strategies for change, American Metropolitics is an important book for anyone concerned
with the future of our cities and suburbs.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part 1: Metropatterns
Chapter 1: Schools and Tax Wealth: Leading Indicators of Community Health
Chapter 2: The New Suburban Typology
Chapter 3: A Comparative Analysis of Segregation, Fiscal Inequality, and Sprawl
Part 2: Metropolicy
Chapter 4: Federal Urban Policy
Chapter 5: Fiscal Equity
Chapter 6: Land-Use Reform
Chapter 7: Metropolitan Governance Reform
Part 3: Metropolitics
Chapter 8: Metropolitics and the Case for Regionalism
Chapter 9: An Agenda for Regionalism
Appendixes
References
Index
Figure
Tables
Box
Maps
