"Metropolis and Region".

This is Volume II of a series of six on Urban and Regional Economics originally published in 1960. This study discusses the future of urban developments in America. Has they already have megapolitan belts, sprawling regions of quasi-urban settlement stretching along coast lines or major transportation routes, current concepts of the community stand to be challenged. What will remain of local government and institutions if locality ceases to have any historically recognizable form? The situations described in this book pertain to the mid-century United States of some 150 million people. What serviceable image of metropolis and region can we fashion for a country of 300 million? The prospect for such a population size by the end of the twentieth century is implicit in current growth rates, as is the channeling of much of the growth into areas now called metropolitan or in process of transfer to that class.

"What kinds of economic activities are performed in and around the large cities of the United States? The authors of this extensive monograph attempt to provide an answer. Working with the elementary notion that a city exists through a series of exchange-or input-output-relations with other cities and non-urban areas, the authors construct a functional classification of large cities. In the process they summarize much of the literature on the subject of location and provide any new analyses of existing bodies of data. This monograph ... represents a major contribution to our knowledge of regional economics. Massive compendia of data are rarely exciting. Yet many of them prove to be extremely valuable, both as reference works and as starting points for further research. This monograph should be no exception." - Theodore R. Anderson, State University of Iowa