The Restless Urban Landscape: Economic and Sociocultural Change and the Transformation of Metropolitan Washington, DC

This study addresses recent changes in the built environment of U.S. metropolitan areas. The confluence of recent economic and sociocultural change has led to the emergence of a number of distinctive new urban settings. This process is interpreted as part of a broader, epochal change in the dynamics of contemporary capitalism. The particular implications of this transformation for the supply and demand of elements of the built environment involve changes in the organization and product mix of developers and construction companies, in the roles and professional orientations of architects and planners, and in commodity aesthetics and patterns of consumption among a "new bourgeoisie." The imprint of these changes on the built environment is illustrated with reference to the example of the Washington metropolitan area. Among the new settings and landscape elements identified here are private master-planned communities, high-tech corridors, mixed-use developments, "festival" settings, gentrified neighborhoods, preserved historic buildings and neighborhoods, and postmodern architecture.