The Future Metropolis Author:Lloyd Rodwin (Editor) In their opening remarks on A World of Cities, Kevin Lynch and Lloyd Rodwin of the Joint Center for Urban Studies of the Massachussetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, state: "Although the city itself is five thousand years old, the metropolis is a new phenomenon, dating from a mere hundred years ago. Its scale alone differentia... more »tes it from any older type of urban settlement. Even ancient Rome, with its million inhabitants, was in visible relation to its surrounding countryside. One could easily walk from one district to another or from the dentral to the rural areas. In the metropolisthis is hardly possible: even in a car it may take hours to move from the center to the periphery. Thus the city has swollen to a vast organism whose scale far transcends individual control...« less