Jonathan Barnett, "Designing the Megaregion: Meeting Urban Challenges at a New Scale" (Island Press, 2020)

Apr 8, 2020

Designing the Megaregion

Meeting Urban Challenges at a New Scale

Jonathan Barnett

Hosted by Tricia Keffer

Summary

The US population is estimated to grow by more than 110 million people by 2050, and much of this growth will take place where cities and their suburbs are expanding to meet the suburbs of neighboring cities, creating continuous urban megaregions. There are now at least a dozen megaregions in the US. If current trends continue unchanged, new construction in these megaregions will put more and more stress on the natural systems that are necessary for our existence, will make highway gridlock and airline delays much worse, and will continue to attract investment away from older areas. However, the megaregion in 2050 is still a prediction. Future economic and population growth could go only to environmentally safe locations. while helping repair landscapes damaged by earlier development. Improved transportation systems could reduce highway and airport congestion. Some new investment could be drawn to by-passed parts of older cities, which are becoming more separate and unequal. In Designing the Megaregion: Meeting Urban Challenges at a New Scale (Island Press, 2020), planning and urban design expert Jonathan Barnett describes how to redesign megaregional growth using mostly private investment, without having to wait for massive government funding or new governmental structures. Barnett explains practical initiatives to make new development fit into its environmental setting, especially important as the climate changes; reorganize transportation systems to pull together all the components of these large urban regions; and redirect the market forces which are making megaregions very unequal places. There is an urgent need to begin designing megaregions, and Barnett shows that the ways to make major improvements are already available. Jonathan Barnett is an Emeritus Professor of Practice in City and Regional Planning, and former Director of the Urban Design Program, at the University of Pennsylvania. He is an architect and planner as an educator.

Your Host

Tricia Keffer

Tricia Keffer has a BA in Psychology and an MLA in Landscape Architecture. The arc of her career path took her from beach portraits in Destin, FL to the parks in Paris, France. Her photography has been published in Delta Sky Magazine, BAE Defense Contractor Calendar, and two ADDY (Advertising) awards for Dale E. Peterson brochures. Her vacation portrait concept was featured on Good Morning America. She is working on her next adventure with her landscape design business Plants People Love Designs in Florida. In her spare time during the pandemic, she picked up an additional degree BA in Art and a certificate from Master Artist David Chang’s Portrait and Figurative Studio at FIU.

View Profile