Back in 1 948, when Jack Kent opened the door at DCRP, its context and mission were pretty clear. World War II was over. Infrastructure backlogs were huge, following nearly twenty depression-and-war years of deferred construction. Cities everywhere were attempting to replan and rebuild, creating new fervor for city planning. With the hard years behind and bright horizons ahead, the new department was being organized to lead the way by bringing planning to California's cities. At about the same time David Riesman was reminding his readers·that city planning was the last stronghold of utopianism. The optimistic new Berkeley department set out to prove it.

Increasing ease of interaction and transaction across geographic space is reducing the constraints of distance and fostering social and economic integration across wider territories - globally and locally. Metropolitan areas are dispersing into their surrounding territories, creating the characteristic spread-city pattern. The worldwide incidence of ‘urban sprawl’ suggests that powerful forces are moulding it and that some highly valued outcomes are being generated as well. So long as groups and places are accessible to each other, and so long as metropolitan settlements satisfy valued operating criteria, the shape of a metropolitan settlement is of minor importance. Spread-cities are proving to be highly successful, and they seem to be the form of the future metropolis everywhere.

All over the world, public officials and informed publics are alarmed about the growing numbers of automobiles. Some see the situation as akin to a conflagration that's out of control, made all the more menacing because automobiles are proving to be such powerful agents of change. To be sure, there is less anxiety in the United States than elsewhere, and less still in the western United States, because the major cities there grew up in the automobile era and have street systems that are much better suited for automobile use.