Nation's Metropolis: Book Talk and Discussion

On February 28, 2023, the Penn Institute for Urban Research hosted a book talk and discussion on Nation's Metropolis: The Economy, Politics, and Development of the Washington Region, by Royce Hanson and Harold Wolman. The book was recently published in collaboration with PennPress as part of Penn IUR’s ongoing series The City in the Twenty-First Century.

Nation’s Metropolis describes how the national capital region functions as a metropolitan political economy. In the book, the authors distinguish aspects of the Washington region that reflect its characteristics as a national capital from those common to most other metropolitan regions and to other capitals. To do so, they employ an interdisciplinary approach that draws from economics, political science, sociology, geography, and history.

Royce Hanson and Harold Wolman discussed the four major themes of their book: the federal government as the region’s basic industry and its role in economic, physical, and political development; race as a core force in the development of the metropolis; the mismatch of the governance and economy of the national capital region; and the conundrum of achieving fully democratic governance for Washington, DC. The talk was followed with a moderated Q&A with Eugenie Birch, Co-Director of the Penn Institute for Urban Research.