ON ISSUES OF URBAN POLICY

Abstract

The recent strong concern with urban normative issues has been expressed in a considerable number of theoretical studies published within the last five years. Predominant among these are optimum models of cities. Such models are either welfare optima or efficiency opt ima? Whenever issues of distributive justice are taken into account, distributive optima emerge and overlap. Statements of urban policy are scattered throughout this literature. The validity of such statements is usually limited in the following sense: (i) Mathematical analysis of urban policy issues has focused upon conditions necessary for optimality. In consequence, statements of urban policy pertain to ideal, long-run adjustments--as if the policies refer to the creation of an abstract new town. The heuristic flair of day-to-day policy decisions constraining and being constrained by the shifting realities of our life has somehow been lost. Yet this dependence of urban policy upon shortand medium-run considerations is important, since well-defined land holdings cannot stretch or shrink, existing housing stock is reasonably durable, and you can do only so much to alleviate social injustice. (ii) Mathematical analysis of urban policy issues is dominated by equality. ~ Such limited treatment of problems and pitfalls surrounding the realm of distributive justice is by no means exclusive to the field: the neat concept of equality is most attractive. The concept certainly works on specific issues such as the provision of health services or of educational opportunities? At the aggregate level of urban optimality, if the ideal society is homogeneous, the concept seems appropriate. Nevertheless, when the inevitable social differentiation is introduced, key questions as to what is in fact possible can no longer be evaded and pure equality breaks down as a general principle of policy. In response to these limitations, we now suppress optimality in favor of heuristics and try to underline the strong dependence of urban policy upon existing conditions. Our fundamental concern is to capture the intricate pattern of ethical, political, and