Most Americans today do not live in discrete cities and towns, but rather in an aggregation of cities and suburbs that forms one basic economic, multi-cultural, environmental and civic entity. These “regional cities” have the potential to significantly improve the quality of our lives -- to provide interconnected and diverse economic centers, transportation choices, and a variety of human-scale communities. In The Regional City, two of the most innovative thinkers in the field of land use planning and design offer a detailed look at this new metropolitan form and explain how regional-scale planning and design can help direct growth wisely and reverse current trends in land use. The authors: discuss the nature and underpinnings of this new metropolitan form present their view of the policies and physical design principles required for metropolitan areas to transform themselves into regional cities document the combination of physical design and social and economic policies that are being used across the country consider the main factors that are shaping metropolitan regions today, including the maturation of sprawling suburbs and the renewal of urban neighborhoods .Featuring full-color graphics and in-depth case studies, The Regional City offers a thorough examination of the concept of regional planning along with examples of successful initiatives from around the country. It will be must reading for planners, architects, landscape architects, local officials, real estate developers, community development professionals, and for students in architecture, urban planning, and policy.

Peter Calthorpe (born 1949) is a San Francisco-based architect, urban designer and urban planner. He is a founding member of the Congress for New Urbanism, a Chicago-based advocacy group formed in 1992 that promotes sustainable building practices.

Calthorpe was born in London and raised in Palo Alto. He attended the Yale School of Architecture.

In the 1986 he, along with Sim Van der Ryn, published Sustainable Communities. In the early 1990s he developed the concept of Transit Oriented Development (TOD) highlighted in The Next American Metropolis: Ecology, Community,and the American Dream.

He has taught at U.C. Berkeley, the University of Washington, the University of Oregon, and the University of North Carolina.

In 1989, he proposed the concept of "Pedestrian Pocket" an up to 110 acres (45 ha) pedestrian friendly, transit linked, mixed-use urban area with a park at its centre. The Pedestrian Pocket mixes low-rise high-density housing, commercial and retail uses. The concept had a number of similarities with Ebenezer Howard's Garden City, and aimed to be an alternative to the than usual low-density residential suburban developments.