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NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: I am especially interested in including a  
historical section on location theory and agglomeration economies, etc.  
- Larry Moss   
 
Larry Moss 
 
CALL FOR PAPERS 
City and Country : An Interdisciplinary Collection 
American Journal of Economics and Sociology 
 
In  1883, the social reformer Henry George complained that "the cities  
grow, unwholesomely crowding people together till they are packed in  
tiers, family above family, so are they [also] unwholesomely separated  
in the country." Many other social thinkers expressed alarm at the  
manner in which the migrations to the city robbed humans of the  
gratifications that are so necessary to both health and dignity.  Today,  
the problems of suburban sprawl, country greenfields, traffic  
congestion, and ghostly Edge Cities springing up at highway  
intersections seems to have confounded, submerged, and overwhelmed  
George's late nineteenth-century world of stark contrasts and simple  
dichotomies.  The monocentric city model that informed George's  
thoughts also informed Johann von Thuenen's influential model of land  
use. The urban reformers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries -- a  
group that includes Ebenezer Howard and Patrick Geddes of the  
"garden city" movement fame -- carried over the monocentric city  
paradigm and pondered what it implied for reform.  This pattern of  
thinking informed the historical studies about the origins of the city in  
history, especially under the towering influence of  Lewis Mumford.  
Mumford's architectural criticisms and insights about civic space   
influenced the (Chicago) Prairie school of modern architecture  
identified with Frank Lloyd Wright.  In recent years, the monocentric  
model  has given way to the "the polycentric pattern of urban  
development."   
 
Polycentricism now characterizes most of the cities in the world today  
as captured by the sophisticated density functions that Edwin S. Mills  
and others have prepared.  The irregularity of the resulting spatial  
forms, and the politicians' stubborn resistance to value-based taxation  
of  land values have spawned an enormous policy-oriented literature.   
Why cannot financial incentives be used to alter the otherwise natural  
shape and pattern of urban spatial development?  Civil society requires  
and depends on public access to civic spaces.  Platforms of public  
discourse and expression are essential to democratic forms and as  
Peter G. Rowe insists "the most productive opportunities for creating  
public spaces . . . are across the conceptual divide between the state  
and civil society."   These platforms can be found at shopping malls,  
city plazas, and even gambling casino lobbies. Still, as philosopher  
Jurgen Habermas reminds us, these opportunities for meaningful  
communication can be lost when the market system is allowed to  
deform and destroy its precious public spheres.   
 
There are a growing number of economists who have joined with the  
early reformers and urban sociologists to provide new types of analysis  
that stubbornly refuse to ignore or abstract from  location and  
geography.  This includes the new economics of what Brian Arthur and  
Paul Krugman others describe as "increasing returns and path  
dependence." The presence of the agglomeration economies as  
positive feedback expanding the scale of  the economy have changed  
the way we work and live and given new shape to the evolution of the  
city.   
 
The October 2000 issue of The American Journal of Economics and  
Sociology will have a focus on the broad theme of  "City and  
Country." Interdisciplinary studies are cordially welcomed as are  
papers in urban economics and planning. All proposals in the form of  
200-250 word abstracts must be sent to the editor by March 1, 2000,  
with a target date for delivering the final paper on July 15, 2000.  Please  
write to:   
 
Professor Laurence S. Moss, Editor /  The American Journal of  
Economics and Sociology Babson College / Mustard Hall / Babson  
Park, Massachusetts 02457 USA (FAX: 617 728 4947) 
Email: [log in to unmask]   
 
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