Jean-Louis Cohen, Architect, doctor in art history, architecture and urban planning historian, New York University
The New York metropolis, or the untraceable region
New York was the first city to be the subject of a regional plan, started in 1923 and completed in 1929, under the leadership of George B. Ford followed by Thomas Adams. Developed at the initiative of banker Charles D. Norton and anchored in very solid economic and social studies, this plan’s fundamental characteristic was the consideration of automobile traffic as a determining factor in the urbanisation of a region comprising 421 municipalities located in 3 different states. Some of its provisions were implemented over the following decades, including the relocation of port activities from Manhattan to Brooklyn and New Jersey.
The second plan, completed in 1968 under the leadership of C. McKim Norton, son of the latter, took note of the deindustrialisation of the region. Abandoning the ambition of mastering all aspects of metropolitan life, it aimed to regulate public space throughout the metropolitan area, to thwart tendencies towards suburban dispersion and, above all, to ensure better articulation of transport and tertiary jobs by creating tertiary centers on the outskirts of New York.
Entitled “A Region at Risk”, the third plan, published in 1996, highlighted the social dangers faced by the metropolis and its periphery, emphasising the link between economy, environment and equity. The proposed measures focused on regenerating shorelines and natural areas as well as regional transit, but also on restructuring part of Manhattan.
The Regional Plan Association has continued its activity since, giving up the idea of devising a unifying document, but exerting a real influence on political and economic decision-makers, in particular with regard to the strengthening of transport infrastructures. However, in the absence of any representative body at the scale of a vigorous growing urban region, its recommendations may remain incantatory.
Regional plan of New York and surrounding area, 1929.