New York in 25 Years:
GANS, HERBERT J.
New York in 25 Years Metropolis 1985. By Raymond Vernon. Harvard. 252 pp. $5.00. Reviewed by Herbert J. Gans Assistant Professor of City Planning, University of Pennsylvania Metropolis 1985...
...The other approach, less visionary but perhaps more feasible for a region as complex as New York, is problem-oriented...
...Despite its title, the book is largely devoted to a thorough and wellwritten analysis of past and present trends in the New York region's economy...
...Only the last chapter deals specifically with projections for 1985...
...What the New York region needed —and still needs—is a policyoriented analysis...
...In the future, a greater share of its employment will come from the professional, managerial, governmental and other services which it performs for the rest of the country...
...As a result, the study provides no jumping off point for subsequent planning studies...
...But Vernon's approach goes too far in the other direction...
...Studies of the past and present should isolate the economic, demographic and other forces that created the problems...
...There are two possible approaches to such an analysis...
...projections would estimate the magnitude of the problems and the causative forces in the future...
...As a result, New York City's economic and geographic dominance over the 22-county area will be reduced, although in absolute numbers, the city, and Manhattan especially, will continue to be by far the largest employer...
...One can be skeptical about the book's contribution to both aims...
...the same pattern is expected for the increase in population...
...Vernon assumes that the New York region will muddle through in 1985 as in 1960, and although he is probably correct, his approach is not likely to interest the public...
...Once the experts and the public have begun to communicate," Vernon concludes, "the views of both will approach a new common synthesis...
...The study was intended to be a prelude to future planning studies of the region, and to provide the public with information which would allow it to communicate more effectively with the experts...
...It begins by identifying the major problems and determines as well as humanly possible the order of their importance in making the regional environment more tolerable...
...That done, we shall have moved a giant step closer to the objective of a more tolerable metropolitan environment...
...This study, conducted by Harvard's Graduate School of Public Administration for the Regional Plan Association of New York, seeks to "analyze the key economic and demographic features of the region, and to project them to 1965, 1975 and 1985...
...Vernon has little to say about what is intolerable in the present environment or about the characteristics of a more tolerable one...
...The fault lies largely with the study's two guiding assumptions: "that the economic and demographic forces in sight follow their indicated course and that the role of government is largely limited to existing policies...
...Reviewed by Herbert J. Gans Assistant Professor of City Planning, University of Pennsylvania Metropolis 1985 brings together and interprets the principal conclusions of nine preceding books on the 22 counties that make up the New York Metropolitan Region...
...In contrast, the region's share of national employment in manufacturing is expected to decline...
...With the aid of this data, alternative policies to cope with the problems can be formulated, and the benefits and costs of each can be estimated for the region as a whole as well as for different sectors of its economy...
...it offers no clues as to where and how the region can influence the pattern of present trends, and it fails to provide the data necessary for shaping future patterns...
...Vernon suggests that the region's economy will continue to grow, but at a slower rate than that expected for the nation as a whole...
...Employment opportunities will increase most rapidly in the peripheral counties...
...An analysis of the trends and forces that are likely to shape the future is important, especially since these are too often ignored by planners' schemes...
...Since the study is also of relatively little help to the region's planners, I fear that it will soon gather dust on library shelves...
...This type of study is infinitely more difficult than Vernon's, and no region has ever attempted it, even though it is necessary if city planning is to outgrow its present impotence...
...One is the goal-oriented approach, which begins by asking what kind of a region is wanted in the future, develops various alternative solutions, studies the benefits and costs of each and then recommends one or more to the decision-makers and voters...
...Such a study would also motivate—if not actually force—the public to communicate with the experts, and it might even motivate politicians to campaign for election as champions of alternative solutions...
...it tends to treat the future as a closed system...
Vol. 44 • March 1961 • No. 12
