From the RPAA to the RDCA – communitarian regionalism as a consistent theme

ABSTRACT The Regional Planning Association of America (RPAA) comprised a core group of experts on urbanism, design, economics, housing, and planning throughout its ten years of advocacy and implementation from 1923 to 1933. A lesser-known subsequent organization, the Regional Development Council of America (RDCA), was founded twenty-five years later in 1948 in recognition of the 50th anniversary of Howard’s To-morrow. Primed for a postwar development surge, the RDCA’s ambitious agenda ranged from federal planning to urban renewal to community building for ‘productive defense’. This study applies a comparative analysis of archival materials, including review of efforts to sustain the RPAA mission during the bridging period when neither organization was active. While the RDCA only functioned for four years, the core membership consistently advocated for the regional city as the solution to a wide range of postwar challenges at the federal, state, and local levels. In doing so, their strategies addressed the increased professionalization and institutionalization of planning. At the same time, their sustained focus on communitarian regionalism diverged from the growing emphasis on economic development through expansionism that came to dominate the field.