What the US Election Means to Its Cities
By TH!NK by IBI
Date
November 18, 2016
A long and divisive election campaign has finally concluded in the United States. Donald Trump will become the next President, but with few concrete policy positions, the impact that his election will have on cities remains less clear. As a proud New Yorker, will his positions reflect the views of the city he calls home? Or recognizing that increased density was strongly correlated to Democrat support, will he and the Republican party seek to diminish the socioeconomic influence of cities? The next steps for city-making fields are uncertain as well. The American Institute of Architects’ tepid call for unity led to a near mutiny. The American Society of Landscape Architects is considering the impact of electing someone who has called climate change a “hoax”, countered by the green ambitions of some highly populous states. Finally, Benjamin Barber, author of If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities, views cities as the antidote to any populist policies, noting that cities are “the one institution today that still works, where government functions, where trust levels are double the levels of other institutions”. In an effort to make sense of how the election will impact cities, Planetizen has made a compendium of the most discussed and relevant articles addressing city-building in the US over the next four to eight years. A great deal remains to be determined, but in any case, urban regions are poised to play a prominent role in the immediate future of the United States of America.
