Review of American Urban Structure in the 1980's and Some Problems of the urban transportation

Abstract

According to some studies about recent American urban structure, many symptoms are found that 1980's is the period when large change occurs in urban structure. To summarize it, the long wave of suburbanization after the second world war comes into the final stage in the 1980's. This final suburbanization is characterized by the office decentralizaion and the emergence of large suburban centers.
The change of urban structure in the 1980's has been discussed mainly in the field of urban transport geography because the change has produced many transport problems. Plane studied and classified the commuting flows in New England finding the growth of reverse and cross type commuting. In Chicago, Sachs also suggested that the increase of reverse commuting causing traffic congestion may be produced as a result of both the decline of inner city employment and the growth of suburban employment centers. These suburban employment centers are classified by Lineberger and Cervero. They concluded that it is important for these centers to raise the level of density and functional mixture in order to resolve urban transport problems.