GREAT CITIES ALLIANCE
Mission Statement
Great Cities Alliance is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation.
The mission of this organization is to promote recentralization as a strategy to accommodate metropolitan growth in a way that minimizes adverse social and environmental impacts.
This organization's strategy of metropolitan recentralization consists of the
following three components:
- Recentralization of Population:
Metropolitan population growth should be redirected inward in order to restore
to cities the density and critical mass of residents necessary to revive neighborhood
commerce and to restore transit service to its 1950s level of frequency. The
traditional metropolitan density gradient--high densities at the core, and
diminishing densities at increasing distances from the core--should be restored
by means of central-city density enhancement. Central-city land should be
rezoned as necessary to restore the traditional density gradient.*
- Recentralization of Commerce:
Metropolitan jobs growth should be redirected toward the center of the metropolis
in order to minimize automobile commuting. Transit commuting is maximized where
the metropolitan workforce commutes to a common destination.
- Recentralization of Transportation Infrastructure:
Transportation infrastructure investment should be redirected toward the center
of the metropolis as a means to motivate households and businesses to recentralize
rather than further decentralize. Rail transit should be regarded as a force
for the recentralization of households and jobs.
This mission is important to the social and environmental health of the metropolis
because a successful recentralization strategy will:
- Maximize the number of commercial, cultural, and recreational destinations
accessible to those who cannot drive a personal vehicle
- Minimize metropolitan land consumption
- Mitigate the numerous adverse environmental impacts associated with automobile
dependence
- Suppress America's dependence on foreign sources of petroleum
- Revitalize distressed neighborhoods, not only physically but also socially
and economically.
* San Francisco's year-2000 housing density of 7,420 units per square mile sustains a highly evolved multi-modal transit system and it sustains robust neighborhood commercial streets in many neighborhoods. This is a density that is attainable to most American cities over a 50-year period. San Francisco's housing den-sity and mix should be emulated by cities of lower density.