‘Place Matters: Metropolitics for the Twenty-First Century is a piece of writing by Peter Drier, John Mollenkopf and Todd Swanstrom. It is a deep and comprehensive summary of a regionalist perspective regarding the issue of urban governance.
The authors of the book dwell upon the urban problem of the United States of America in detail. However, it is not merely about transportation and overpopulation. The book also touches upon such issues as unemployment, poverty, toxic pollution, education, housing, crime and energy consumption. In such a way, major trends that shape suburbs and cities throughout the United States of America are presented in the book. What is more, the authors also highlight a number of policy solutions so that to address these issues and find a way to fix them.
As highlighted in the piece of writing, one of the most significant problems for the United States of America is the rising inequality. The class of super rich people has increased. The middle class has stagnated while the number of people who are poor has reached kits highest peak. Therefore, the so-called economic segregation has been created which, in its turn, hugely impacts the way people exist in a society, mainly the parts of the country where they choose to live, means of transportation they use and the way in which they spend their free time.
Taking everything into consideration, ‘Place Matters: Metropolitics for the Twenty-First Century’ is an essential piece of writing that will be useful to anyone who is interested in the urban studies. The book examines major problems which cities in the United States of America are facing nowadays but the conclusions made in it can be applied to a vast majority of cities all over the world.